How To Increase LMS User Engagement

LMS User Engagement: Encourage Use With A Learning Culture And Take The Time To Look Back And Evaluate

Increasing LMS user engagement means making your new eLearning system a reliable, familiar, well-used tool in your organization. Fostering a workplace culture that encourages learner engagement will put value on and into your Learning Management System.

The success of the LMS is going to rely heavily on how well the system is accepted by the learners. Therefore, effective communication, before, during, and after the implementation process can foster increased LMS acceptance and use. The implementation team must create effective communication with the target audience (those you want to be utilizing the LMS). Whether the LMS is for your employees, off-site workers, outsourced teams, or your customers, there will need to be an open communication network.

Communicating Information About The Learning Management System Implementation

Some great channels to start with include:

• Social platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.
• Your own website – this could be through a blog or other website copy, and the creation of an eLearning page on your site.
• Email is a great, cheap way to send out announcements to your audience to get them excited about what is to come.
• Physical media, such as posters around the office, or information cards on lunchroom tables.
• Meetings – depending on the target audience, it might make sense to have a few in-person meetings throughout the process.

Now that you know some avenues through which to communicate, what should you say?

• Announce that you are looking for an LMS, why you are doing it, and what it will help accomplish.
• Let your audience know that an LMS provider has been chosen and you are excited about it. You can also mention the timeline you are looking at for launch and who it will involve.
• You should have some great goals laid out. Communicate them!
• What kind of learning are you planning on offering?
• Make a point to communicate the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Why should they be excited, how will it help them?
• Let them know what to expect.

Make sure to think about communicating not only with the potential learners, but also with your trainers and content creators. Give them as much time as possible to plan out their learning modules and to create their content. This ties into creating a learning culture in your organization, which we will discuss later in the article.

Increased LMS User Engagement By Creating Meaningful Content

All of the communication in the world won’t make people excited about consuming boring content. Find ways to encourage content producers to be as creative as possible while creating their courses. Add high-quality images and quizzes, cut content into short modules which can be broken up, and feel free to implement some humor where appropriate. Also, ask for and listen to learner feedback to improve course engagement.

Creating An Energized Learning Culture People Want To Be A Part Of

The organizations that find the most success with their LMS have made learning a valued part of their organization by creating a workplace culture of learning.

If you want to see the full benefits of an LMS, don’t simply implement your LMS and ask people to go learn, you will need to create a culture around it which encourages its use.

What is a learning culture? I4cp and ATD (the Association of Talent Development) conducted a study of more than 830 learning leaders. They define a learning culture as the following:

A culture of learning, or learning culture, is one in which employees continuously seek, share, and apply new knowledge and skills to improve individual and organizational performance. The importance of the pursuit and application of learning is expressed in organizational values and permeates all aspects of organizational life. (i4cp, 2016)

Here are 5 signs listed by i4cp study which indicate your organization has a healthy learning culture:

1. Your organizational values reference the importance of learning and development.
2. Your company provides every employee with a safe haven for open communication.
3. Your organization’s learning leaders participate in strategic planning to ensure business goals include consideration of the training and skills your workforce will need to achieve those objectives.
4. Your employees look for opportunities to share knowledge with their colleagues.
5. Your employees become learning junkies who seek out new knowledge and find ways to apply it to improve your organization’s performance.

How Can Your Organization Create This Healthy Learning Culture?

• The culture needs to be encouraged and embodied from the top down. Leaders should make a concerted effort to show they support the training and development and create space for it.
• Give content creators time to make thoughtful, valuable content, and give learners the time to learn! Don’t make learning and development an afterthought, put value on this part of their job.
• Encourage learners with peer and manager recognition.
• Increase employee engagement by creating custom learning paths, requesting feedback, allowing comments, and awarding progress badges.
• Give learners the opportunity to learn things that aren’t necessarily in their job scope. We have seen remarkable examples of employees taking classes for fun. Make room for this development and foster their passion for learning.

This learning culture will not only help by mobilizing your current workforce, but also has the wonderful side effect of attracting new, motivated talent to your team.

The workforce is changing, with Millennials surpassing GenXers as the largest generation (35%) in the U.S. labor force (Pew Research Center, 2017). Millennials want to be engaged and challenged in the workplace. They want to effect change and feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves. The advantages don’t stop at Millennials, though.

All across your organization, a culture of learning will promote increased employee engagement, improve employee retention, allow the organization to find more leadership from within, as well as encourage innovation.

Final Word: Getting The Most Out Of Your LMS

To ensure your company is getting the most ROI, you need to evaluate and improve your processes. It is 100% worth it to pull the numbers so you can look back at your goals and communicate what you have accomplished and what you want to continue to improve on.

This is where KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) come into play. Some popular KPIs when implementing an LMS are:

• The number of courses that have been completed
• The number of learners that have participated
• Course ratings and learner feedback
• Increase in knowledge and skills
• Total cost of implementation

It may also be helpful to read up on The Kirkpatrick Model of training evaluation, which includes measuring Reaction, Learning, Behavior, and Results.

If you want to learn more about implementing your new Learning and Development program as smoothly and effectively as possible, download the eBook How To Implement An Engaging LMS | Plan For LMS Success.