According to a study published by HR consultancy firm Aon Hewitt, they found that training and development are two key factors that motivated Millennials today — an area in which employers tend to overlook and instead, focus more on what employees have to offer.
However, learning and development within an organisation is a two-way process. While learning and development programmes come under HR’s purview, it is also up to employees to take the first step in signing themselves up for these training courses.
Nonetheless, employers can take a page out of these unconventional learning and development ideas to encourage employees to take their professional development into their own hands.
Gamification
Online courses and seminars can be time-consuming and boring. However, one of the “Big 4” accounting firms, Deloitte, has restructured its learning and development programmes into a “game”. Instead of merely providing a list of courses for employees to take, it weaved game mechanics such as missions, badges and leaderboards into its learning and development programmes. According to Deloitte, this resulted in a 50 per cent increase in course-completion rate and more than a quarter increased in weekly retention rate. Introducing a friendly competition can help to create a fun and engaging learning and development programme for employees.
Short Five-Minute Learning Videos
Instead of making employees sit through long seminars where they tend to doze off after the lunch break, short learning videos might create a more impact on employees instead. And that is exactly what financial institution, Inspirus did. Employees certainly do not always have the time and patience to sit through an entire day of seminar and workshops. Why not keep it fun and engaging by incorporating learning into short five-minute videos that is easily accessible via employees’ mobile devices or tablets. That way, learning can also be done on the go as well.
Get out of the office
Why confine learning to within the four office walls? Similar to how students go on excursions to learn beyond what is taught in classrooms, the same concept can be applied to the workplace as well. Team bonding activities can teach employees how to work together; site visits allow employees to see firsthand how their work may impact others.
There are plenty of learning and development programmes that organisations can adopt. However, the key is to understand what appeals to your employees. Instead of focusing on traditional learning and development programmes such as workshops and seminars, why not consider these ideas to make learning and development fun and engaging in your organisation?
