eLearning Motivation Ideas

Ever struggle with keeping trainees interested in learning? Well, we’ve put together a list of the top eLearning motivation ideas to assist you!

There are different theories on exactly what motivates people to do anything, and while we don’t have the golden answer, there are tips and tricks that you can use to boost motivation. After reading this article, go out and try some! We’ll start with some of the easier to implement and move on to the really tough tips.

Provide a Syllabus

Let your trainees know what they are going to be doing. This step is so easy, yet often overlooked. Knowing what they are going to be learning and explaining the value of the course creates excitement.

Here’s an example I created for this post:

eLearning Motivation Ideas

In this article you will learn how to apply motivation techniques to ensure employees are more motivated to take you training.

Tips that will be covered:

1. Providing a Syllabus
2. Rewards and Take Aways
3. Include Humor
4. Pick the Right Topic
5. Add Social Aspects
6. Let Them Make Mistakes
7. Chunk Information
8. Gamify Your Training

See? That wasn’t that hard! And now you’re super motivated to read the rest of the post, right?

Rewards and Take Aways

You should supply certifications/awards for completing courses. Everyone loves getting awards. But remember, participation is not enough. Make the rewards for successful completion of courses instead of just for taking a course. Rewards that are meaningful are much more appreciated that participation awards.

You can even get creative and provide rewards outside your training program. Maybe everyone who completes a course by a certain date is entered into a drawing for an iPad or the team with the most course completions per member is treated to a company sponsored happy hour.

Include Humor

This one is easier than it may initially sound. You don’t have to be the greatest stand-up comedian to spice up your training with some humor. Everyone has a sense of humor; as long as your training isn’t extremely dry, you’re a step ahead. If you absolutely don’t have any sense of what is or isn’t funny, you can always ask the accounting department.

Pick the Right Topic

Make sure you are teaching them something they want to learn. Have clear goals of what you are trying to teach them, and then ask some of your employees if they actually want/need to learn that material. Build competency in an area that will help them, not something they already know.

And while review courses are great, they’re usually pretty boring. If you are going to have a review course, you need to find a way to change up the material or else everyone is just going to skate through it. You don’t want to give them chores, provide them something of value instead.

Add Social Aspects

Adding social aspects can be as easy as having group learning lessons or assigning mentors to new trainees. You want to make sure there is a dialogue about the course. Making sure you have feedback is just one way to add a social aspect to your training and it also helps you improve.

Someone who has just gone through training is the ideal person to train the next group going through training. And teaching can increase retention of knowledge. Both groups win. Another option is to implement an online forum so people can exchange ideas freely with little to no friction.

Let Them Make Mistakes

Courses need to be challenging, but they still need to teach the trainee. This is a fine line. It might take a few iterations of a course to find the right balance. Feedback on mistakes should happen as quick as possible; then let them try again. Studies have shown that we learn more from trying and making mistakes than just from studying alone.

Chunk Information

Transform your training into smaller chunks. Having small pieces of training helps prevent fatigue. There are many other benefits of micro-learning. This can be difficult and may take a lot of time, but your trainees will thank you for the change to smaller content.

Gamify Your Training

First off, gamify isn’t a word, so we should probably explain what we’re talking about. When we say gamify, we are just saying to add aspects of games to your training. Some systems have built in gamification (one example: RomyLMS has progress bars), but with others you’re going to have to get creative.

While this is probably the toughest of the eLearning motivation ideas in our list, it’s definitely something doable no matter your skill level. You can develop game content into the courses themselves, or the gamification can be handled outside of the system with competitions or activities.

Other eLearning Motivation Ideas

There are tons of great ways to keep trainees interested in learning. Make sure to vary your content to keep people interested. Use videos, text, audio, quizzes, images, etc. Change up how your content is delivered. Have hands on activities and pure studying. Mix it up. Give your employees a lot of option of courses to choose from.

Training shouldn’t be something employees dread, it should be rewarding and fun! Like skydiving:

Reward for successfully completing an eLearning course or torture?

Do you have other eLearning motivation ideas you would like to share? Leave a comment!