Transfer of learning refers to the “ability of a trainee to apply the behavior, knowledge, and skills acquired in one learning situation to another.”1  It’s what makes a job easier and faster as a learner becomes more skilled because they can apply what they already know.

Trainers and managers have known for decades that employees who are motivated to learn will more effectively consume training materials and perform better at their jobs.  But what exactly motivates employees today? And what are the best ways that eLearning courses can impact and motivate modern learners, including millennials — a group that will make up more than half of the workforce by 2020? The truth is that people are motivated in different ways. It’s very tough to find a “one-size fits all” training solution that will meet the needs of your employees’ various personalities and personal drivers. However, eLearning and training professionals can consider these common sources of motivation to design engaging online learning experiences that keep students wanting to learn more:

Training is an essential part of any company’s success in the 21st century. That’s a fact. But instead of simply settling by training your employees and hoping for the best, you should aim higher. A well-planned training program will lead to higher retention rates among employees and faster results for your company.  But what makes a successful training program in 2022 and beyond? Some companies are still a decade in past — relying only on long eLearning courses or even worse, depending on instructor-led courses to bring their employees up to speed. This is an ineffective, and time-consuming way to train your workforce.

Learning something once is enough of a challenge—so how are your employees doing when it comes to retaining that information in the long term? Training leaders have a simple goal: teach workers to do their job more effectively. They try to give them the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their day-to-day activities, but more often than not, it’s this translation from theory to practice that trips people up. Companies expect employees to get back to work after training and figure out for themselves how to incorporate their learning into their work. No matter how great your eLearning course is—no matter how engaging the content—participants in your course might leave the program feeling, or being, unprepared to actually apply what you have taught them. That application is called “learning transfer,” and when it’s lacking, the company has effectively wasted its time and money training its employees. Without some sort of strategy for reinforcing skills after the end of the training, 90% of the course’s content could fall right out of the learners’ ears. Read more about how to tackle this “challenge of training transfer” here.  Luckily,  training leaders can make the content of their eLearning courses really stick if they follow some simple tricks. Here are some ideas to help your employees apply what they’ve learned:

Let’s be honest: your employees use smartphones and tablets every day, everywhere — including in your workplace.

As the workplace moves faster,  Learning & Development leaders must keep up to ensure employees can adapt. High-impact learning is the answer to this. It is not only fast-paced, but it also involves strategies to increase retention rates, so your students aren’t just learning quickly, they’re able to retain and apply that knowledge. A large part of a high-impact eLearning program’s success is that it involves people in leadership and management positions which help encourage and enforce learning. Results can be recorded and continual, leading to real changes in job performance.

Micro Learning is a hot trend in eLearning design. We all know this. To get up to speed on the theory behind microlearning check out the resources at the end of the blog post. In the rest of this post, we are focusing specifically on calls to action. That is, how do you actually apply the principles of Micro-Learning to your eLearning design? Our hope is that by the end of this post you will be prepared to start thinking micro and create effective learning experiences. 

They often forget dates and end up missing social engagements or the kid’s soccer matches. The smartphone rings and they lose the thread of their thoughts. An email notification pops up, and they stop typing a report to send to their boss. This is your average employee (and probably you feel identified too). This is how people work—answering phones in between drafting reports, updating Facebook statuses while writing codes, and attending sundry meetings in between their daily tasks. Now would you be surprised if you knew that people usually forget 90 percent of what they learn within one week after the training event? (More stats here.)