Self-directed learning (SDL) is on the minds of many L&D professionals right now. Training managers, HR professionals, and instructional designers want to promote this strategy at the workplace because it facilitates the creation of a robust and sustainable learning culture in the organization. In this post, learn about the features and benefits of SDL and how you can implement this learning model at the workplace to turn reluctant and dispassionate learners into dedicated and inspired ones.

When was the last time you took a long hard look at your company’s training strategy? If employees forget things you taught them back in onboarding or, worse yet, they’re leaving in droves to seek other opportunities — chances are your outdated training program needs to change, and fast. So, how does your training strategy stack up? Is it stuck in time? Or are you keeping up with the ever-changing needs of today’s modern employees? Let’s find out.

Embracing and adapting to a changing landscape is not easy unless you know the rules to play by. Times-they-are-a-changing. As it is with everything else in life, change is imminent also in the field of corporate learning. The modern L&D scenario is vastly different from what it was just a decade ago. In this rapidly-changing landscape, the old order has given way to the new, and only the agilest and adaptable can survive and thrive.

As learning leaders, if we want to improve engagement, create impactful learning experiences, and improve ROI from our training initiatives, we need to get even more creative in capturing our audience’s attention and keeping them coming back for more. Instead of simply coming up with a course and telling people to take it, we serve ourselves and our audience better by finding ways to inject a learning spirit into the company.

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: