Craig Weiss, eLearning expert, speaker, creator and author of elearninfo.org and all-round nice guy, wrote an article in the latest e.learning age magazine (check out September’s issue here - Craig’s article is on p6, and we have a great double page spread on pages 14-15 all about curing the ‘zombie learner’ virus!). Since he is coming to the UK to speak at World of Learning Conference and Exhibition and meet fellow eLearning aficionados, he wanted to set the Learning Technologies industry straight on a few things; namely, the top 5 Learning Management Systems in the United Kingdom. So, as soon as September’s issue of e.learning age hit the web, we rushed to check out Craig’s rankings… And were overjoyed to discover that we are still #1 in his books! You may recall that Craig has previously rated us very highly. Click here for a list of his articles which have mentioned yours truly. Anyway, here’s what Craig had to say about Growth Engineering’s Learning Management System, the Gamified Social Academy Platform LMS: "I really love this Learning Management System, but it is not for everyone. Why? Because it is all wrapped around gamification. If gamification is not your thing, then this is not your system. "Other big wins include a very modern and hip user interface, a great learner experience (I had fun), and all the standard features you expect in other systems, monthly updates with features, forward-thinking approach, gamification, social and, well, sweet. "Mobile on/off synch is coming late Q3 with a self-contained app, but no e-commerce until Q4. A built-in authoring tool enabling you to create ‘game-like’ courses is expected in Q4. Overall, the number two LMS in the world." Aw, Craig, you do make us blush! It’s always a pleasure to have Craig rooting around in our Academy, trying out the features, being rewarded with badges galore and gaining achievements left, right and centre. As Craig said, our Learning Management System is designed to make learning fun - gamification and social learning encourage learners to log on more often, stay there for longer, work harder, remember more and change their behaviours in the long term. He says that our Academy may not be for everyone, but really, who wouldn’t want a Learning Management System with gamification features that will supercharge learner engagement!? If you’d like to find out more about what makes our Academy the best Learning Management System in the UK, 2nd best in the world, and the Best Gamified LMS, Best Retail LMS and Best Next Gen LMS in the world, click the button below: P.s. We recently interviewed Craig Weiss for an upcoming instalment of GE TV. We’ll soon be launching this new, exciting section of the GE website, so keep your eyes peeled!  

Have you ever been asked a question but just couldn’t get to an answer because you took things too literally? There’s a well-known psychological experiment, known as the ‘candle problem’ or ‘Duncker’s candle problem’, that demonstrates this perfectly. In this experiment, participants are given a candle, a box of matches and a box of thumbtacks, and asked to attach the candle to a wall (cork board) so that the wax won’t drip on the floor. Duncker’s problem confounds even top university students because of an issue of ‘functional fixedness’. This is a pretty posh term which basically means that we don’t arrive at the correct solution (promptly or ever!) because we are too set in our ways of what we think an item like a box of thumbtacks is for and should do. The solution, of course, is simple. You need to empty the thumbtacks out of the box, put the candle on the box (you can melt some wax to keep it secure if you really want top marks), then pin the box to the cork board. Then just light the candle with a match and watch as the wax settles on the box and saves the researcher’s carpet from certain doom. Voila! Easy when you know how, right? Our point here is that it’s so important to think outside of the box (although admittedly, in this case, it’s about thinking inside the box…). Approaching whatever it is you’re doing - working, travelling, learning - with a sense of curiosity and openness will allow you to be more creative in your endeavours and unlock potential that you never knew was possible. Don’t look at things just as they were designed to be used. We all already stand on chairs to reach the back of cupboards, and they certainly weren’t designed for that! So the next time you’re handed a few objects and told to create something or solve a problem (or the next time you’re enrolled in an eLearning module), go at it with a sense of wonder and let your creativity flow. You never know what you might uncover, what routes you’ll go down and what you’ll discover about yourself, the topic and what you’re capable of. Want to find out more about how creativity and uniqueness is important for learning to truly be exceptional? Read our free white paper by clicking the button below!  

Have you ever wondered what the meaning of life is? We have! Luckily for us, 6-year-olds know exactly what the answer to the universal riddle is… In this incredibly inspirational video, children explain the meaning of life, how to have a meaningful life, and why motivation is so so so important in achieving what we want and leading a life we can be proud of. As the video explains, when we look back on our lives, we don’t regret the things we did - only the things we didn’t do. The things we don’t think we have time for, or we think are too difficult or boring. But you know that? Those ‘boring’, ‘difficult’ things are what will make the most difference to our lives. They’re the things that will let us sit in our rocking chair at 90 years old and think, "Oh yeah. That was awesome!" In the same way, we really do encourage you not to sit around, waiting for the opportunity, but to go out and get it. And one of the ways to do this - to be proactive and assertive - is to get yourself trained up. Want to run a marathon? Gosh, don’t just wake up on the day and go for it! You need to practise, practise, practise and train in order to get where you want to go. You wouldn’t try to pass your driving test without having ever sat in the driver’s seat before, would you? So why would you expect to progress up the ranks in your organisation, get a promotion, get a payrise or get that coveted job in the new industry if you don’t put in the hours and train for it? As you saw in the video, even 6-year-olds understand this concept! As they say, a bamboo shoot requires 5 years of attention - water, sunlight, care and just the right conditions. Yet as soon as it breaks through the ground after those 5 years, it grows 90 feet in just 5 weeks. That’s what we’re talking about here. If you put in the hard work, the benefits will come. Maybe not right now. Perhaps not tomorrow, or the day after. Maybe not even this year - but if we put in the hours, focus on training and developing ourselves, learning new things and furthering our skills, it will pay off. And then we’ll become unstoppable. Those 6-year-olds are awesome. Want to join us and discover how you can stop putting off your self-development and just crack on right now? You’ll find your first piece of learning below:  

This Week’s Learning Hero is Charles Jennings, workplace performance expert and an advocate of the 70:20:10 principle. We like Charles because he gets right down to the nuts and bolts of learning and development. As an expert in the 70:20:10 principle, you can probably guess that he’s a major expert in implementing learning strategies that focus on the way people actually learn. We’ve covered this before but, as a quick refresher, the 70:20:10 principle states that we absorb 10% of what we learn from formal training, 20% from observing others and the remaining 70% from on-the-job experience. Charles uses his 70:20:10 expertise as a means to help businesses translate the theory of the 70:20:10 principle into a practical framework. In this, his work has been an invaluable resource for companies of all sizes worldwide. For over 30 years, Charles has been a consultant, helping multinational corporations and government agencies improve their performance. In this role, he has helped to bring global companies out of the dark ages of training and development and into the exciting new landscape of learning and performance. He is also one of the principal members of the Internet Time Alliance, a group founded to promote smarter working practices in organisations. He’s always keen to share his expertise with the world and regularly appears at international events and conferences, speaking about topics such as performance, productivity, development strategies and learning technologies. Of course, you don’t even need to wait for one of these events to pop up. You can get a taste of Charles’ knowledge for free over at his blog. Here, he challenges popular ideas about learning and development and offers his own unique twist, gained over years of expertise in the industry. At Growth Engineering, we also like to challenge the conventions of training and development. We believe that in order for learning to work, the learner has to be fully engaged. One of the best ways to engage someone (and keep them engaged) is to make sure that their learning journey is as much fun as possible. Aside from turning our Academy Platform LMS into an engagement engine, we try to implement as many effective learning technologies as we can, including the 70:20:10 principle, informal learning and social learning. If you want to find out how we work our magic, join us on the next Academy Tour by clicking the button below.  

Like any industry, retail businesses have their own set of needs. When they look for a training solution, a one-size-fits-all approach might help a little bit, but it won’t meet their specific training needs. Like so much in life, a little thought at the early stages of a training and development plan will improve your chances of success. Let’s see how a Learning Management System can help you get the most out of your retail business. Bear with us while we go all hypothetical… Diamond Discs is a popular chain of music stores with around 100 branches nationwide. They’ve seen a massive drop in profits as their customers have turned more towards digital downloads. With finances at crisis-point, they need to find ways to plug the gaps in their processes. After much analysis, they discover that they are spending a lot of money on a training programme that isn’t delivering the results they are looking for. Despite focussing their training on customer service, they find themselves close to the bottom of polls for customer satisfaction. On top of this, they are losing lots of money every year due to poor loss-prevention, stock management and administrative processes. What can they do? 1. Deliver training in a more efficient way. Diamond Discs’ current training programme has to date consisted of instructor-led training, instructional videos and outdated employee handbooks. Every few months, branch managers are required to attend training seminars at Diamond Discs’ head office. Transport costs and instructor fees add up, and the absence of managers in branches can have an effect on efficiency (when the cat’s away…). Although instructor-led training and classroom sessions have their place, it isn’t the most efficient way of delivering training. With the right LMS and some custom-made eLearning, Diamond Discs can move most of their training online, meaning that the learning content can be accessed at any time and from anywhere. 2. Use tests and assessments to identify learning needs. Right now, the management of Diamond Discs knows that there are some gaps in the employees’ knowledge but they can’t be more specific than that. Without proper analysis, they have no idea where best to invest their training spend. Sure they could take a gamble based on the figures they have but it’s that kind of thinking that has put them in their current position. Most LMSs will come equipped with testing and reporting functions but it’s up to the administrators and managers to use them effectively. Of course, it helps when these functions are as user-friendly as possible. The managers can design a test to assess specific training needs and send it out to all employees. The reporting function can then be used to: find out who has completed the test find out how they have performed identify the biggest weaknesses. Once this has been achieved, Diamond Discs can take their next steps from a much more secure position. 3. Create eLearning to address individual issues One of the most effective ways of training staff is to use eLearning. Diamond Discs can choose between rapid eLearning or bespoke eLearning. With rapid eLearning, the company’s own L&D department need to produce a storyboard document listing all of the learning goals and describing how they are dealt with. Bespoke or custom eLearning involves a bigger financial investment, but the task of creating the course is outsourced to instructional designers - learning professionals who can deliver the information in a more focussed way. Whichever path they choose to take, they will be developing a course that is individual to their business and something to which the learners can relate. The versatility of eLearning is another big advantage. This is a tool that can be applied to all aspects of the retail business. It can be used to teach anything including: Stock management processes (booking in, storage, etc.) Cash office procedures (cashing up, weekly & monthly procedures) Payroll Improving product knowledge Health and safety compliance By managing all of their learning materials on an online learning platform, Diamond Discs can also ensure that their curriculum is kept up to date at all times. With this solution in place, they won’t have to rely on employee handbooks and they can avoid the expense of reprinting updated versions every couple of years. 4. Enable and encourage informal learning Formal learning (instructional literature, classroom sessions, etc.) is an important part of any L&D programme but it only accounts for 10% of all work-based learning. The rest is achieved through on-the-job experience and interaction with colleagues. As this kind of learning is, by its nature, hard to plan, many managers choose to ignore it. However, by creating a culture of knowledge-sharing, Diamond Discs can reap the benefits of informal and social learning without having to do anything else. That’s the beauty of informal learning - it happens all by itself! What does this have to do with their LMS, though? Well, today, the Learning Management Systems that are proving to make a real difference to company culture are those that are designed to take full advantage of the missing 90%. As providers the world’s #1 retail LMS, we have seen retail companies flourish after employing the right tools. Training and development can sometimes be an easy thing to overlook. Sometimes you need to address the issue before you realise the positive impact a great training solution can have on your ROI. To find out more about how the Academy Platform LMS can help your retail business, get in touch with us now or click the button to sign up for our next webinar.  

A high-performing culture is something that every organisation aims to achieve. Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? You want your employees to work to the best of their abilities, achieve more, aim higher and be the incredible workers you know they were born to be. There are lots of ways to improve performance and achieve the goal of having a culture of high performance - which, by the way, means that over and above ‘individual’ employees performing at 100%, the workforce as a whole performs to a consistently high standard. So how can you create a culture of high performance? Well, the clever clogs at Gallup polled 3,477 managers and found that the following things help to create a high-performing culture: Setting clear expectations Defining employees’ roles Creating a trusting environment Encouraging employees’ growth and development Encouraging higher performance by raising the bar for themselves and others. But over and above these 5 things, it is buy-in from the organisation as a whole which will really help to create a culture of high performance. From analysing 30,000 employees, Gallup highlighted six crucial components of a high-performing culture: 1. An effective performance management process In order to understand how close employees are to the desired culture, proper evaluation processes need to be in place. You can’t tell how far a worker has come if you don’t know where they started, after all. 2. Empowerment and authority We’ve written before about how important it is to make employees accountable and empower them to take the initiative and control their own working lives. And now we can see that it’s also vital in establishing a culture of high performance. 3. Leadership capability at all levels From the CEO to the just-graduated new-starter, it’s important that all members of the company share the same vision, values and goals. Having a common mission and a shared purpose will ensure the belief runs throughout the organisation. So not only do managers need to ‘live’ the mission, but so do all the ‘higher-ups’ in the company - if employees see the values reflected in every facet of the organisation, they’ll be more likely to adopt it as part of their culture, too. 4. A customer-centric strategy It may seem obvious, but ensuring employees connect with customers is an important part of creating a high-performing culture. Employees that interact with the customer base will better understand the industry, what the organisation is trying to achieve and how to go about it. 5. Communication and collaboration Oooh boy! Now we’re getting to the juicy stuff. We’ve said many times how important it is that employees communicate and collaborate effectively. (Click here to read our research paper on how important it is that co-workers get on, and click here to find out more about collaboration in the workplace.) 6. Training and development How else will you ensure your employees perform to a high level than by giving them training and helping them to develop their skills? Organisational training is vital to create a culture of high performance. It’s important that employees reach a baseline level of experience and skills, which they can use a springboard - it ensures a certain level of competence is always met and enables the company to grow as a whole unit. Offering training and encouraging continual learning are great ways to boost the overall level of performance in the company. In other words, training and development is vital to the creation of a high-performing culture. Want to find out more? Download our research paper on how to secure a great return on investment on your training spend (by encouraging social learning and a culture of empowerment):  

No matter which industry you operate in, whether it’s retail, construction or hospitality, it’s up to you to ensure that your employees are trained in the laws, policies and conventions that apply to their daily work. This can encompass Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) laws, risk management and food hygiene but whatever your business, these standards are essential to avoid legal liability and ensure that your employees work in a safe environment. In the past, training in compliance, like most topics, involved face-to-face classroom sessions, instructional videos and the use of employee handbooks. While these methods can be effective, they have their limitations.   How can a Learning Management System help you deliver compliance training? Classroom sessions, seminars and other instructor-led training are not the most cost-effective way to educate your staff. For this kind of training, you need to factor in the cost of hiring an instructor, the cost of compensating employees’ travel expenses and in some cases the cost of booking a venue. Aside from these direct costs, your business may also incur losses through the absence of those staff members attending the courses. Take into account the amount of time spent organising and arranging these sessions and you can see how much of a drain on resources they can be. What can a Learning Management System do to help? When you switch to an online training solution, the learners are free to access the content whenever and wherever they happen to be. Not only does this save money, but it is a better use of your employees’ time. Classroom sessions still have their place, however. Besides helping you arrange the events themselves, you can improve their effectiveness by integrating LMS functions and enabling live tests and assessments. Find out more about Interactive Classrooms Instructional videos also have their cost implications although they tend to be more cost-efficient than instructor-led training. The main drawback with this kind of training is that it’s difficult to gauge its effectiveness. Many of the companies who use this kind of training tend to incorporate it into the induction process. Generally speaking, the new employee is left to watch the video after which they are asked to sign a statement saying that they have done so and that understand the contents. Cynical though it might be, managers cannot guarantee the honesty or accuracy of these signatures and although these statements can protect the company from any legal backlash, they cannot protect the employee from accidents. What can a Learning Management System do to help? As we’ve mentioned, instructional videos cost money to create. You can’t expect a worthwhile return on that investment if there isn’t a way to gauge their effectiveness. With a Learning Management System, you can deliver the same video content but you can also take advantage of the LMS’s assessment and reporting features. Doing this takes out all the guesswork, letting you discover which videos are working for you and which aren’t. Once a viable reporting solution has been put in place, you no longer need to wonder whether or not your employees have grasped their compliance training, giving you extra peace of mind. Find out more about our reporting features Employee handbooks suffer from the same difficulties. The effectiveness of the training is almost impossible to judge and it takes an act of faith from the managers to know whether the training has been understood and absorbed. Another problem with this kind of training is that it isn’t very engaging. The problems of tracking your employees’ understanding are only compounded when the training materials don’t hold their concentration. What can a Learning Management System do to help? Not all Learning Management Systems are created with engagement in mind, but if you choose the right one, you can implement a solution that is both effective in delivering compliance training and enjoyable for the learner. Most Learning and Development experts today agree that engagement is the key to delivering training that actually works. For evidence, you need only look at the Learning Management Systems that are succeeding and those that leave their owners disappointed. Growth Engineering’s Academy Platform LMS is a fully gamified online learning portal that embraces the power of social and informal learning to deliver a truly engaging experience. Our clients have used their Academies to deliver all kinds of staff training, including compliance training, and the powerful reporting suite has allowed them to track their learners’ progress and adapt accordingly. If you’d like to see it for yourself, sign up to the next Academy Tour by clicking the button below!  

We’ve just arrived back from the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition, and what a whirlwind event it was! From setting up on Monday to taking down the stand on Wednesday evening, we had a whale of a time. Though the visitors come in peaks and troughs, World of Learning is an event that lives up to its name. If you want to learn more about, well, learning, then WOLCE really is the place to be. A few of the delights included two very jolly human-sized flower pots strolling up and down the aisles in procession; bottles of rum for visitors who navigate the murky waters of online learning and discover the buried treasure at the end (if you’re wondering what we’re talking about, click here!) and of course a bright red double decker bus parked in the hall! The NEC is a great venue for the event, feeling both spacious yet intimate, and there was certainly a great variety of exhibitors for attendees to visit and learn about. And, of course, the food on offer wasn’t bad either… "Those pork sandwiches were something else!" - Paul, Grammar Hammer aka Marketing Content Writer For the rest of us, the highlight of the event was the seeing the delight on visitors’ faces when they successfully completed The Great Academy Treasure Hunt and made their way to our stand to claim their prize. At the end of the Treasure Hunt was a super-secret special code word which they had to remember and then say to us in order to open the treasure chest full of gifts and goodies… And let us tell you, after a day of wandering around World of Learning, those hardy seafarers were delighted to discover buried treasure in the form of gold coins (chocolate, of course) and bottles of rum fit for any pirate Captain! *hic* We came home from World of Learning with aching legs, sore throats and an empty treasure chest - but full of excitement, enjoyment and happiness that we met so many awesome people, started great conversations and made so many people’s day by handing out goodies. If you missed us at this year’s World of Learning Conference and Exhibition but want to find out more about us, you can either get in touch to request contact, read about what we do here or click the button below to jump on board a guided web tour of our world renowned Academy Platform Learning Management System, the #1 Gamified LMS in the world!    

This week’s Learning Hero is Benedict Carey, award-winning science and medical writer for The New York Times. Benedict is living proof that you don’t need to devote your whole life to educating people in order to appear in our exclusive hall of fame - sometimes you just need to write one really great book! Released earlier this month, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth about Where When and Why it Happens takes everything we think we know about learning and throws it out of the window. Traditional thinking states that people learn best when they are left on their own to study in a quiet place with no distractions. Since time immemorial, people have assumed without question that this is just the way learning is supposed to be done. Why haven’t they questioned it? Well, they were always on their own in a quiet place without distractions and thus, there was nobody else around to ask! In order to write this book, Benedict has trawled through years of scientific and medical research on learning, memory and the subtler workings of the brain. To put it very simply, he has discovered that we’ve been doing it wrong all this time! Here are just a few counter-intuitive lessons that Benedict presents: Your brain won’t retain information if it doesn’t want to. Distractions can sometimes make learning easier. Cramming isn’t always a bad idea. Your best examiner is yourself. Repetition is not always necessary. Now, don’t panic! We know that this is some pretty mind-blowing stuff, but don’t rush out to buy new hinges for your doors of perception just yet - this new information is a good thing! What Benedict Carey has actually done, intentionally or otherwise, is to write a user’s manual for the human brain. Here, you can find out what you have been doing wrong and get some inspiration on ways to rewire your neurons to absorb learning more effectively. If your grey matter is tingling at the prospect of being used properly, pop down to your local bookshop (if you have one) or order a copy online. You can also keep updated with Benedict’s work by checking out his website, or by following him on twitter or facebook. One of the things we noticed is Benedict’s emphasis on the power of social learning. By collaborating with like-minded learners, we retain more information and we get the opportunity to view the learning through the prism of others’ viewpoints. Interestingly, he also shows that learners can retain even more information by teaching other people and sharing their own knowledge. Our Academy Platform LMS is designed to exploit this kind of collaborative learning with unique social features. If you want to find out a little more, click the button below to download our white paper.  

When it comes to beating the 70:20:10 problem and successfully training a whole workforce, there are many things to consider: How will you train your staff? Will you use gamification? How can you ensure learners continue to develop after the training is over? In this article, we’re going to address this last point. Since 70% of our knowledge comes through on-the-job training and 20% through observation of others (compared to 10% via formal training), it’s clear that in order to obtain a well-rounded understanding, our learning cannot end when we leave the classroom, close the textbook or log off our Learning Management System. Instead, it’s important we create a culture of continued learning, whereby employees see their learning journeys as lifelong, expansive and evolving. When employees are empowered to continue learning and approach life as a library of things to be learnt, learning will evolve in unique and often unexpected ways. Let’s see how… Imagine you are a salesperson in a golfing shop. You have just finished an eLearning module called, ‘The Physics of a Golf Ball.’ Now you know all about why golf balls spin, the speed at which they fly through the air and the impact that different lengths of grass have on how far they roll. "Great!" you think. "I’ve finished my assigned learning and now I know a lot of useful stuff about golf balls." Now, you have two options. You can either take what you’ve learnt and check out - take off your ‘Learning’ hat and put on your ‘Cruising through life’ hat and try to sell some golf balls. Or, you can keep your Learning hat firmly on your noggin and think to yourself, "Hmm… I found it pretty interesting that a golf ball’s trajectory alters so much when it’s hit with a different club. Let me see if anyone on my Learning Management System knows more about clubs…" That’s the difference between approaching life with a ‘can-learn’ attitude and closing off your mind as soon as you’ve learnt what it is that you’re ‘supposed’ to learn. Now, you can confidently sell both golf balls and golf clubs - and even explain which ones will work well together! So how can we create a culture of lifelong learning? Firstly, L&D professionals need to ensure that learners are rewarded for learning. If they aren’t, what’s the point in making so much effort? Why should they take hours out of their day to study if they don’t get any acknowledgement for all their hard work? And we’re not necessarily talking about monetary rewards. Check out this article to find out more about why recognition motivates us to continue learning. Next, give employees (aka learners) a means to communicate with one another. Our Academy Platform Learning Management System has ‘Insights Groups’, which are special areas of the Academy dedicated to specific topics of interest. Learners join up to them and then chat with their fellow learners on the topics, share interesting ideas and link to further reading. It’s a fantastic way to boost the knowledge of all your employees at once - they begin to learn together! Finally, it’s a fantastic idea to make the process of learning new things fun. Research shows we learn more when we’re having fun, and besides, if things are fun we’re more likely to repeat them - so add gamification to online learning to give your employees that extra boost. Pretty soon, you’ll find you’ve created a culture of lifelong learning and you can sit back, relax and watch as your employees boost their knowledge, skills and success all on their own. Want to find out more? Read our research paper on social learning, click here to discover how to get a great return on investment on your training programme, or click the button below to find out more about gamification!  

We all know what it’s like when we try to learn new things. We sit down, put our learning hats on and start reading dusty textbooks or watching boring videos for as long as we can stand it. After that hard slog it’s time to work on remembering the learning content, and then, eventually - days, weeks or even months later - it’s time to prove we learnt it by regurgitating the information out onto a sheet of paper. It’s a simple process, right? We take in information, churn it around in our heads and then spit it out. Except, unfortunately, it’s not always that easy. There are many things standing in our way of remembering the tricky topics we’ve spent hours learning. Let’s look at a few of the problems learners encounter: 1. In one ear and out the other! Sometimes it’s hard to get even a basic level of understanding. Ever asked someone for directions and forgotten it all within 12.1 seconds of them walking away? It’s because you weren’t fully engaged and paying attention. Sure, you may have wanted to know which way to go - no one likes being lost! - but for some reason, perhaps their delivery, you just didn’t take the information in. 2. Ineffective recall So, you remember the directions for a couple of blocks, then you come to a fork in the road and you think, "Oops… Now which way?" This happens because we didn’t make enough effort to recall the information for long enough. Repeating the instructions a couple of times can help to remember them for a few minutes, but eventually you’ll reach a dead end of memory and you won’t know which way to turn! 3. Insufficient practice In much the same way, if we practise a little we’ll remember the learning content for a short while. But if we truly want to remember what we learnt and be able to explain it or, even more importantly, actually use the information at a later date, we need to work a lot harder. These are just a few reasons why learning might fail to stick in our heads. So what’s the solution? Well, here is a sure-fire way to make learning stick and stop it leaking out of our brains like sand through a sieve. Make Learning Fun!   We don’t mean you should turn learning into a game - don’t ask the nice man giving you directions to play Monopoly in the street! But adding some elements of game-based play can help us to remember more for longer. We call this ‘gamification’, and it involves adding gaming elements like badges, points and prizes to training. Basically, along your learning journey there are little treats and awards to motivate and engage you in your training. Picture this: the nice man giving you directions says that along the route he’s telling you to go are a few ‘prizes’… "Go to the end of this street. Turn left, pick up the £5 note, then walk to the roundabout up ahead. You’ll need to take the third exit - the one where the puppies are waiting to be stroked - and then continue up past the biscuit factory. Nip into the pub on the left where they’re serving free Guinness, then at the end of the road turn right. Your road is the next one after the comedian telling the world’s best joke." Reckon you’ll be able to remember the directions now? Yeah, we thought so! To find out more about how to make learning fun, download our free research paper - just click the button below!  

Some adult learners look back fondly on their time at school; the friendships, the knowledge, the structure. Others are haunted by the memories of boring teachers, boring lectures and boring topics. These students would sit in class like zombies, just waiting for the day to end so they’d be free to get on with something interesting. But you know what, a lot of these kids who hated school would actually enjoy learning outside of class. They’d get home and hop on the computer, or get out their encyclopedia and learn about zoology, or the oceans, or rainforests. The interesting thing about learning is that if topics aren’t taught correctly then of course learners won’t enjoy being in school, or working their way through eLearning modules on their Learning Management System. This week, we’re sharing with you our favourite 5 TED Talks all about school: 1. Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud Sugata begins his intriguing TED Talk by explaining where our education system came from: the Victorians. Their goal was to create identical workers who could be selected at random and jump straight into doing a job - which was fine back then, since there were lots of those jobs available. But now, our school system is still producing identical people with identical skills, but the jobs no longer exist in the same form. "I’m not saying [the school system is] broken … It’s not broken. It’s wonderfully constructed. It’s just that we don’t need it anymore. It’s outdated." Watch Sugata’s TED Talk below to discover his solution to this! 2. Diane Laufenberg: How to Learn? From Mistakes Diane, a schoolteacher, explains how school has changed since the time of her grandparents - back then, information was only available in schools. But now, of course, it’s available everywhere; on our phones, on computers, in the ‘cloud’… Times change, so of course our approach to teaching and learning has to change, too. Here’s how Diane sees it: 3. Andreas Schleicher: Use Data to Build Better Schools In his TED Talk, Andreas illustrates how what was once a prestigious institution (the American school system) began to lag behind as the education systems of other countries overtook it. Andreas explains how assessments of skills and abilities can show us where schools are failing and where to focus money to make improvements. Check it out below:   4. Jamie Oliver: Teach Every Child About Food Good old Jamie Oliver. He’s a bit like Marmite - some people love him, some people want to chuck him straight in the bin. But however you feel about Jamie O, one thing is clear: he cares. In this TED Talk, Jamie explains the important role that our schools play in teaching children about food. Did you know, some of our children don’t know what a pear is? They can’t name an onion, or a tomato - in fact, Jamie shows children calling a bunch of tomatoes ‘potatoes’! As Jamie says, the onus is on schools and the education system to teach children about food, teach them how to be healthy and avoid all the obesity problems that are, at the moment, in all of their futures. 5. Brenda Romero: Gaming for Understanding We’re going to be short with this description as the video is so powerful and explains the concept better than we ever could. Brenda, a game designer, creates incredible physical games that teach school-aged children about difficult topics, like slavery and Nazi concentration camps. Just watch: As you saw in the last video, games and game mechanics are fantastic ways to teach children all sorts of topics. We at Growth Engineering do it, too, but for adults - check out the research paper below all about how we use gamification in learning to capture learners’ attention and get them engaged in their learning:  

A few weeks ago we promised you that something very exciting was about to happen… And now we’re delighted to say it has! Today marks the launch of GE TV, a section of the Growth Engineering website that is dedicated to interviews with industry experts, eLearning movers and shakers, and of course our lovely clients. Over the past few weeks Juliette, Growth Engineering’s Managing Director, has been busy interviewing guests; our videographer has been filming and editing; and our developers have been beavering away behind the scenes to get the page ready for launch. You’ll find each video packed full of insider tips, tricks and thoughts about how the Learning and Development landscape is changing and how to create truly exceptional online learning that will knock the socks off learners! Anyway, enough of us blathering on. Time to check out the videos! CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE AWESOME NEW GE TV PAGE! WAHOO! Still here? Why not sign up to tour the Academy Learning Management System, the platform that all our lovely clients are talking about in the videos? Just click the button below!  

In the past, evaluating your learners’ progress was complicated. You’d have to put together drawn-out tests, hand out assessments, spend hours marking them and then work out where they are lagging behind and enroll them in the correct course to get them back on track. Wouldn’t it be better if this whole process was simpler? Easier to put together, quicker to deliver and a breeze to mark? Well, please welcome to the stage the Academy Platform Learning Management System. This nifty piece of software has exceptional reporting functionality, making it painless to monitor learners’ progress and make sure they are achieving what they need to in the right timeframe. Here’s how it works: Academy Admins can set up tests and assessments to check their how their learners are doing. That much is the same as standard, classroom testing. The difference comes in the application: Admins sign learners up to take tests and assessments from the comfort of their office chair. No printing, no running to the supply closet for extra ink and no walking around classrooms handing out tests required! No, with the Academy’s Assessments functionality, Admins simply create the tests and assessments, select which learners should receive them and then click ‘Send’. Once learners have completed the test or assessment (and they will, because they know there’s a badge in it for them - read more about gamification in learning here!) they submit their answers for marking. Depending on how the Admin set up the assessment, the marketing will either be automatic (such as multiple choice questions) or they’ll choose to assess essay-based answers themselves. Once done, learners will receive their mark and - here’s the really clever bit - they’ll automatically be enrolled in further training in areas that they’re struggling with. How awesome is that? Extra reading, additional eLearning modules and further information is automatically pushed out to them upon completion of their test or assessment. This really makes the Admin’s job easy and lets them get on with other important duties, like creating new eLearning content, uploading modules to the Academy and making sure everything is running smoothly (which it most probably will be!). We think the Assessments functionality on our Academy Platform Learning Management System is pretty special. But that doesn’t mean the rest of the gamified LMS isn’t awesome too! To find out more all the cool things it is capable of, sign up to a webinar tour of the Academy by clicking the button below:  

This week’s Learning Hero is Eric Sheninger, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE) and former principal of New Milford High School. What makes Eric so heroic? Well, where do we start!? Eric has built a career from finding ways to drive performance and encourage positive change. His initiatives have mostly been based on bringing institutions into the digital age and making the most of the opportunities that today’s technologies can offer. We were particularly inspired by his work at Milford High School in New Jersey. Before he took the reins, Milford was a High School like any other, non-descript and stuck in the same old habits that have come to define secondary education. When Eric became principal, he turned the school from an everyday high school into globally recognised model for innovative learning practices. He introduced BYOD (bring your own device) initiatives to help students, teachers and parents connect. This helped to create a culture of social learning which prepared the students for the workforce of the future. In this, Eric’s forward-thinking is truly evident. Every aspect of life is changing at an exponentially rapid pace - and the world of work is no different. The initiatives that Eric helped to introduce not only give those students a head-start in their professional development, they also prepare them for roles that don’t necessarily even exist yet. Now, in his current role, he uses his expertise to assist other schools and districts in their own initiatives. This is an ongoing mission to transform school cultures and implement more efficient practices and forge stronger links between all members of the school community. Because of his progressive ideas, Eric is recognised as an innovative leader, a best-selling author and a popular speaker. He regularly appears at events and conferences describing ways to facilitate learning through social media and web 2.0 technologies. These practices not only boost the performance of the students, but they improve public relations, uncover new opportunities and (our favourite) engineer growth throughout the entire educational system. If you want to find out more about Eric, you can visit his website which includes plenty of resources, videos and links to upcoming speaking events. Be sure to check out his blog, A Principal’s Reflections, which is a treasure trove of insights and stories about educational successes. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Eric Sheninger is just one of several individuals who have seen the potential of social learning and generated positive results by putting the theory into practice. Social learning is becoming increasingly popular as a means to encourage a culture of knowledge sharing within businesses and institutions. Our Academy LMS ranks as the world’s #1 Gamified Social Learning Management System, combining the functionalities of an online learning platform with those of a social network. But that’s just the start of it. If you want to find out how to enable social learning within your business, click the button below to download our white paper.  

Making learners happy and getting them engaged in their learning is hard. There - we said it. Creating award-winning Learning Technologies solutions is not a cakewalk. It involves hours and hours of dedication, brainstorming, meetings, planning, building, demolishing, reinventing, testing and releasing. But you know what? It’s worth all the hard work when we see our customers’ learners doing brilliant things on their Learning Management Systems. The trick, dear readers, is to make sure your Learning and Development programme is set with the aim of delighting learners. It’s not enough to aim for, say, simple reporting or uploading as many eLearning modules as possible. Here are five top tips to get your learners happy, engaged and improve their knowledge: 1. Don’t skimp on ‘fun’ We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: you must make learning fun! It’s important not only to make the learning content itself enjoyable and engaging, but also the way in which it’s rolled out to learners. Which would be more enjoyable for learners: accessing an eLearning module from a link in an email, or accessing an eLearning module from the dashboard of their state-of-the-art Learning Management System, after checking their position on the leaderboards (#2! Get in!) and sharing their achievements with friends on social media? 2. Looks are important It’s not enough to have a well-oiled machine. In order to engage learners and get them enjoying their training, the machine needs to look good and work properly, too. We actually wrote a whole research paper on why it’s important that Learning Management Systems (and all software products) have good design aesthetics. Click here to read The Art of Engagement!  3. Make it social For goodness sake, don’t force your learners to spend their days alone, in isolation, rushing through their eLearning courses to get back out into the real world so they can interact with other people! Instead, make the process of learning social - that’s what will really make the difference between a boring, ineffective training programme and a delightful, engaging one. 4. What’s in it for them? You can’t expect your learners to enjoy the whole process if they don’t know why they’re being taught these things or what it means for them. Other than being able to prove they’ve learnt about the basics of buyer behaviour (ISMM Unit 203), what does the course actually mean for them? Well, it means they are better able to sell to customers, which in turn means they hit targets. Clearly, hitting targets is great and it stands them in good stead to progress through the ranks at their organisation, gaining promotions and payrises. So don’t tell your learners, "We have enrolled you in this course on buyer behaviour." Tell them, "We have enrolled you in this course on buyer behaviour because we think it’ll help you develop in your role here at Company XYZ." 5. Believe in it! If you don’t believe that your Learning and Development plan is going to knock the socks off your employees, make your seniors dance in their seat and be your springboard into the L&D hall of fame, then your learners won’t see the point in it. You’ve got to prove to your learners that their brand new, shiny Learning Management System is the bee’s knees and that it really is the answer to everyone’s prayers. So what do you say? Is it time to give it a whirl? It’s actually never been easier to secure learner engagement and boost your company’s success - the technology is there, the passion is there and the results are there. Discover the secrets guaranteed to engage learners by reading the free research paper below:  

If you’ve played any kind of video game, you’ve probably received a badge for completing a level, killing a baddie, getting a high score or creating the perfect town. Badges have long been used to represent achievements in the video game world - and they’re also now a key ingredient in ‘gamifying’ online social media and, as we use badges, online learning experiences too. As far as social media goes, you may already be familiar with the badges awarded on Foursquare (though this is sadly no longer gamified) and Wikipedia. These badges motivate and engage users to continue interacting with the platform, in the same way as badges, achievements and points motivate learners to interact with their Learning Management System. But what is it about badges - little virtual artefacts that do nothing more than represent a completed action - that causes users and learners to react in these ways? In other words, what is the psychology behind badges? We came across a really great research paper on this topic: Badges in Social Media: A Psychological Perspective by Judd Antin and Elizabeth Churchill. We thought it would be a good idea to adapt this research paper from the social media realm to the online learning environment to see why badges motivate learners! 1. Badges are fun and interesting Could it be that badges break up the monotony of everyday actions enough to motivate us to strive for more? No - we don’t think so, and neither do Antin and Churchill. Instead, they suggest it’s because of the following points: 2. Goal-setting Antin and Churchill argue that perhaps the most obvious function of badges is as a goal-setting device: goals keep us focused on what we need to achieve and badges challenge us - i.e. give us the extra motivation - to complete the actions. There’s plenty of research to show that setting goals motivates us to achieve them, and in fact it is often thought that the fun and interest of goal seeking is the reward, rather than the badge. In this case, the badge merely directs the user or the learner in the correct direction - the goal gets them there. One important point that Antin and Churchill note, and which we tackle on our Academy Learning Management System, is that goal setting is most effective when learners can see their progress towards the goal. Therefore we make sure to award learners points alongside badges, which accumulate to push learners over the threshold of their current ‘level’ of achievement and ‘level up’. 3. Instruction Sometimes, particularly on a Learning Management System if learners are not familiar with the learning environment, badges are helpful to show people which direction to take. For instance, learners on the Academy LMS are able to check out the badge cabinet, which shows not only all the badges they’ve already achieved, but those available to them. If they didn’t already realise they could share their progress on Twitter, they do now - and they can get a badge for it! 4. Reputation, status and affirmation Everyone likes to be thought of as an expert, and what better way to prove this than by showing off your trophy cabinet full of badges!? In this way, badges can be motivating as status symbols - they advertise learners’ achievements and accomplishments without the learner shouting, "Hey! Look at me! Check out what I can do, I’m the best!" Because, let’s face it, they wouldn’t have any friends if they did that. Why do you think badges work to motivate and engage learners? What is it about badges that you find addictive? To find out more about gamification and badges, download our free research paper below!  

It’ll be no surprise to you when I say that we, as a culture, ‘get’ learning in a classroom. By that, I mean we understand what goes on in classrooms. We know how to behave. We know that when we enter a classroom, we take our seats promptly, get our notebooks out and wait. When the teacher enters, we fall silent. In fact, we’re silent pretty much the whole time, except for when we are called upon to answer a question or put forward one of our own. In other words, we’re acculturated from childhood to the norms and expectations of classrooms. This is one of the reasons that making the switch from classroom training events to online learning can be difficult for employees to master. After all, if we’ve never used a Learning Management System or consumed content online before, what do we know about learning in online environments? The answer is clear: not much! In fact when we first log on it’s all pretty alien to us. We wander around poking things, clicking buttons, testing how things work and trying to figure out how to navigate this bizarre new world. Herein lies the problem. If learners aren’t given direction, they will not know how to behave in their online environment. There is a huge difference between online learning and classroom learning environments. Learning and Development professionals can’t just sign their learners up to their new Learning Management System and then leave them to it - there is no instructor to lead the discussion, no set hours to ensure learning is completed and no leader to direct learners back onto the right track when they go off on a tangent. So how can we overcome these problems, show learners how to interact with their Learning Management Systems and solve the problems associated with low traffic, disengagement and poor return on investment? The solution lies in getting learners to engage with their learning platform. And the way to do this is through ‘gamifying’ the whole experience. Gamification means to add elements of game mechanics to non-gaming scenarios. So when Matilda logs onto her gamified Learning Management System for the first time, she is awarded a badge. When she downloads extra reading material, she gets another badge. And when she answers her fellow learners’ questions she gets a whole heap of ‘experience points’ showered down onto her. Badges, points and leaderboards help to guide learners through their learning journey, showing them the actions they need to make, the routes they need to take and the information they need to consume. It’s really as simple as that: there’s no need for an instructor to light the way when gamification does the job just as well, and has the added bonus of making the whole process super fun! Want to find out more about gamification? Download our free white paper by clicking the button below!  

In a recent article we explained our approach to learning - the ‘Discovery Method’. Here, we thought we’d share some interesting stats and information with you that’ll demonstrate how and why we’ve adopted such an approach. Did you know, learners retain… 75% of what they learn when they practise it. 50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion. 30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration. 20% of what they learn from audio-visual stimulation. 10% of what they learn from reading. 5% of what they learn from lectures (psychotactics.com) Interesting stuff, right? Clearly, the more active an individual is in their learning, the more likely it is to stick in their minds - and that’s the definition of a successful training programme. Yet all too often, traditional learning environments are not structured so as to encourage putting what we learn to good use. In classrooms, we’re usually asked to soak up information passively - paying little attention to any real life application that it may have. In fact, with formal training, the only time the knowledge gets applied is when we’re forced to recall it in order to pass an assessment or exam! Have you ever sat through a lecture or a classroom training session and wondered what you were doing there? You can often get the feeling that you would have benefited equally by getting hold of a copy of the lecture notes or finding the curriculum online. Simply restating or rephrasing information that is already available in other formats is not the most effective way of learning, and it certainly doesn’t present learning as an attractive or inspirational activity! There are a bunch of studies (Cavus et al. 2007; Dinov, Sanchez and Christou 2008; Gao and Lehman 2003; Zhang 2005) that offer evidence supporting the hypothesis that the more control a learner has over their learning process and the more active they are (through either active or interactive learning experiences, like in our conceptual framework) the larger the learning gains. Studies indicate that manipulations that trigger learner activity or learner reflection and self-monitoring of understanding are effective when students pursue online learning as individuals (Barbara Means, International Department of Education Report). Consider this. How long would you stick by a removals company that lost 80% of your goods whilst in transport? Would you keep going back and forth, spending more money to make sure you were able to transport everything you need? Or would you look for a more effective method? The answer is obvious - you would look for a different means of getting the job done. Why should it be different in the training environment? In the training world, classroom learning is predominantly made up of lectures, reading, and some audio-visual content. It may also present students with demonstrations and the occasional group discussion (though time limitations often curtail this). It rarely ever gives students an opportunity to ‘practise’ right behaviours. In essence, those who undergo classroom training will be lucky to retain 30% of what they have learned. On the other hand, those who put what they have learned into practice - as the Discovery Method demands - will retain a lot more information. The use of role-plays and simulations has also been shown to boost learning performance. In 2008, a study was produced that detailed the impact simulations within a web-based environment had on knowledge retention. The findings proved that computer based simulations helped to aid the learner’s performance and improve knowledge gain when compared with online instruction with no simulation (Castaneda, 2008). There may be some who remain unconvinced. Old methods of learning and knowledge retention have worked up until now, so why change things? Business training campaigns have been successful without embracing a learning methodology that puts practice front-and-centre. It’s worth questioning, however, exactly how successful these campaigns have been. What level of knowledge retention was achieved? Was the ROI lower than training campaigns that have adopted a more forward-thinking learning methodology? The answer, in most cases will surely be ‘Yes’! Find out more about how engaging learning boosts organisational training by downloading our white paper:  

Do you believe that learning platforms should engage your learners? That they should be motivated to log on; that they should enjoy the entire learning process? We at Growth Engineering most definitely do - we’ve seen it happen for our customers enough times that we fully support the fact that online learning can be fun, engaging and drive business change. Check out this video (starring real GEople!) to find out more about how we use technology to supercharge learner engagement: As you can see, the Academy Learning Management System is a behemoth of functionality, gamification, social learning and engagement-boosting extras. Want to find out more? The next step in your learning journey has to be the Growth Engineering Academy LMS Grand Tour! Just click the button below to sign up for a webinar slot: Ps. If you don’t have time to tour the Academy LMS (poor you!), why not download this research paper instead? Gamification and Engagement on Learning Management Systems.  

When learning is done right, amazing things happen. Awesome online training programmes supercharge learner engagement, create enthralling and exciting learning environments, encourage social and collaborative learning and engineer real, lasting organisational change. It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? How do mere mortals create such incredible online learning roll-outs!? Well, it helps if you think of these Learning and Development professionals as magicians. Their ‘magic’ is a little ol’ thing called gamification. In a nutshell, gamification is the application of gaming mechanics to non-gaming scenarios - it involves incorporating gaming elements like badges, points and leaderboards to make activities more enjoyable and fun. In training terms, this ‘magic’ can be sprinkled on all sorts of activities: -       logging on to the Learning Management System for the first time will gain learners a badge -       opening up an eLearning module will gain the learner some points -       completing the eLearning module will shower them in hundreds of points! -       The more learners do, the more points and badges they get, which accumulate to increase their standing on their LMS leaderboard As you can see, gamification on Learning Management Systems is a bit of magic that increases engagement and encourages learners to interact with their LMS more. But ‘magic’ doesn’t only involve fun and games. Oh no! When it comes to online training, Learning and Development professionals have a lot more up their sleeves! Vibrant videos Using videos to engage is nothing new. Videos are able to capture a learner’s attention by appealing to more than once sense - sight and sound - and can generate excitement about topics that might traditionally seem quite stale and boring. Videos are great for catapulting the learner right into the heart of the topic, and is vital for some situations whereby real-life learning would be difficult, costly or dangerous - watching a video about the perils and pitfalls of a hazardous waste mishap will appeal far more to a safety-conscious organisation than actually demonstrating it in real life! Sumptuous stories Stories are an ancient method of teaching and learning - from telling stories using cave art to complex 1,000-word novels, stories convey information, meaning and, at their core, are a representation of a series of events. With the advances in online learning technology, story-based learning really is the way forward. Picture these two eLearning scenarios all about fire safety and tell me which is more engaging… eLearning Module One In case of a fire, pull the fire alarm, alert your colleagues and evacuate the building. If the fire is small and you feel safe, attempt to extinguish it using the correct fire extinguisher: Red Label: Water - do not use on electrical fires. Cream: Foam - do not use on electrical fires. Blue: Dry Powder - safe to use on electrical fires. Black: CO2 - safe to use on electrical fires. End of module test: Q: Which fire extinguishers should not be used on electrical fires?   eLearning Module Two Robin, a sales manager at Dowling Wood, has just discovered a small fire in the storeroom of his office. With 20 people in the office, it’s important that Robin not only makes sure he is safe, but all his colleagues, too. Robin is quick to act: he presses the fire alarm, shouts to his colleagues to make their way out of the building and assigns someone to call the fire brigade. He knows there are four fire extinguishers in the hallway which can be used to put out fires: Red Label: Water - do not use on electrical fires. Cream: Foam - do not use on electrical fires. Blue: Dry Powder - safe to use on electrical fires. Black: CO2 - safe to use on electrical fires. Pop-up question: Robin ventures into the storeroom and determines it is safe for him to attempt to put out the small fire himself. Upon closer inspection he sees that a cardboard box on top of an electrical adaptor is on fire. Which fire extinguisher should he use for such a situation? Can you see the difference? Sprinkling some magical storytelling techniques onto an eLearning module will transform it from a dull block of text into a journey of discovery. Want to find out more about the magic that L&D managers can wow their learners with? Click the button below to download our white paper for free!  

Think all the hard work is over once you’ve planned your online training programme? Nope! That’s the easy part - now you have to convince your employees to actually log on! Luckily, we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves that help make securing learner engagement a doddle. Here they are: 1. Make learning fun If things aren’t enjoyable, what are the chances that we’ll make the effort to do them again and again? Your employees won’t fall in love with their new Learning Management System if it conspires to make learning boring, dreary and dull! But if you make the effort to create a fun learning environment with exciting learning content, you’ll find your learners will be much happier, more productive and eager to take up the learning challenges you put in front of them. To make learning more fun, you need to ‘gamify’ your online training program. Click here to find out how to use gamification in online learning! 2. Create a super support system Bugs happen. Even Apple has to release software updates to solve problems - it’s no surprise that online learning companies need to squash bugs, too. But there’s an important thing to remember when companies are open about support, software updates and fixes - it means they care and take pride in their work! If learners spot a bug on the Academy Learning Management System (that’s our LMS, by the way - the #1 Gamified LMS on the market!), it’s easy to submit a support ticket. They just have to fill in a few simple details like what page they’re on, what was meant to happen and what happened instead, and their ticket is zinged along the fibre to land in the LMS Admin’s ‘to-do’ list. And you know how we say learning should be fun? Well, we think the Admins should have a good time too - that’s why we’ve gamified the Support Centre. Academy Admins can track how many support tickets have been submitted, who dealt with them and how many were passed on to the Growth Engineering development team. Whoever fixes the most bugs themselves reaches the top of the leaderboard! And, of course, any more serious problems that crop up can be dealt with right away - we offer 24-hour support. We’ve got your back. 3. Get social Are you more likely to go to the cinema on your own, or with friends? Do you prefer solo holidays or do you like going with your loved ones? What’s more appealing to you: going to the pub alone or with a bunch of comrades? Things are more fun when we do them together! Don’t forget to encourage your learners to interact with one another on their Learning Management System - that way, they’ll keep each other on track and their shared sense of purpose will supercharge engagement and motivation. 4. Beef up your reporting To engage with their training, learners need to know how they’re doing. If they don’t know how they are progressing, whether they’re learning the topics fully and improving their knowledge, you can’t expect them to put their all into their online learning programme. Therefore, in order for your training roll-out to be a success, you’ve got to report like a winner. Not only will the progress reports get your learners engaged with the training content, but it’ll please senior management no end to see the results of the roll-out straight away! 5. What’s in it for the learner? People! Make sure your learners know how their training programme is going to benefit them. It sounds simple, but knowing just what they’re going to get out of the training is very motivational. Will your employees learn new skills? Tell them which! Will they improve their progression prospects? Let them know! Will they gain accredited qualifications? Give them information on the awarding body! Whatever you do, don’t forget to make sure learners know how their hard work will pay off. Want to find out more? We put together a free research paper all about how online learning can secure an impressive return on investment. Find out more by clicking the button below!  

In a departure from our usual Learning Hero Friday, this week, we’re focussing on someone a little closer to home. We’re not too proud to blow our own trumpet every once in a while, but we think it’s also important to recognise those people who take the leap into online learning and who join us on a journey of developmental change. Without these Learning Pioneers, we couldn’t have become the agents of innovation we are today. So without further ado, let’s take a look at one of those brave L&D visionaries. This week, our Learning Pioneer is Noel Jolly, Head of Human Resources and Development for Steinhoff UK Retail. Steinhoff is an international retail business employing over 90,000 people worldwide. Although Steinhoff UK is a small part of the business, they are still a major retail presence, bringing beds and furniture to thousands of UK homes with brands like Bensons for Beds, Harveys and Cargo. A huge challenge When Noel Jolly first contacted us, he was responsible for the training and development of all Bensons’ staff. At the time, Noel had a huge challenge on his hands. When he first joined the world of retail furniture sales in 2003, he was in charge of development for between 30 and 40 stores across the UK. After merging Bensons with Bed Shed and Sleepmasters, the business grew rapidly and he found himself responsible for over 500 units. Noel and his team tried to visit all of the branches to communicate a consistent sales approach. "Delivering face-to-face training was fine," says Noel. "We got around the country, from Inverness to the south of England, and almost killed ourselves trying to do that."  It soon became clear that this approach was time consuming and costly, not to mention physically impossible. Since the businesses had come together, Bensons also had to contend with an increase in their attrition rate, which meant that employees were being replaced faster than they could be trained. Noel’s team couldn’t communicate the message of the sales process at the speed they needed to with their existing training model. The only solution was to take their training online, ensuring that new starters could understand the process from day one. Bensons Academy to the rescue! Bensons Academy solved the problem of logistics, but Noel still had some lessons to learn. He soon discovered that it’s not enough to load some content on the LMS and leave the learners to complete it. To get the most out of the system, the employer has to put in as much effort as the employees do. This means constantly updating the content, engaging the learners and keeping everything bright and fresh. This is also where gamification came into it - if something was going to take Bensons’ employees away from selling and earning money for the business, it would have to be fun - "We had to give them something that really caught their attention, drove their imagination and made them want to play along and want to do something." Noel took the steps he needed to, and implemented an online learning solution that engaged Bensons’ employees, and the benefits speak for themselves - "We were making a double-digit million pound loss and now, in a market that has been suffering terribly, we’re making a double-digit million pound profit". But the sum benefit of Bensons Academy can’t be measured in money alone. The program has boosted engagement levels and it’s really changed the way people feel about the company. In this online environment, people can see their colleagues and they can watch the league tables. This social platform has really transformed the company culture and it has made everyone feel more like they are part of a team. None of this would have been possible if Noel hadn’t sought the right solution and seen what was possible with a Gamified Social Learning Management System. You can hear him describe his journey in full on GE TV - our brand new TV station, where you can find all sorts of interviews from other L&D heroes. If you want to find out how gamification can transform your business, download our white paper below.  

At Halloween, the Growth Engineering team dresses up. Ghouls, goblins, skeletons, zombies and witches will enter the office on Friday the 31st October. To keep with the spirit (badumtsssh) of the day, this article is all about the special ‘tricks’ and ‘treats’ that you can use to get learners engaged with their training programme. Are you feeling brave? Then let’s begin… Muahahahaha. Trick 1: Make Learning Social It’s a statistic terrifying enough to make any L&D professional quake in their boots and reach for the holy water: only 10% of our knowledge is gained through ‘formal’ learning practices, yet most organisations are putting 100% of their investment into this kind of training! In fact, rather than in classrooms where learners are encouraged to be quiet and work on their own, most of our knowledge is gained when we learn socially. This ‘informal’ learning involves on-the-job training (70% of knowledge gained) and learning from others (20%). Therefore, one ‘trick’ that I’m ‘treating’ L&D professionals to is this: make learning online a more sociable experience and reap the rewards! Encourage learners to communicate with one another, collaborate on projects, seek and offer advice, and share related content that might interest others. This’ll have your intellectual capital rising from the grave in no time! Treat 1: Reward Learners for Their Hard Work How long would a ghost haunt a castle if its occupants were impossible to scare? After a few days or months of trying its best to terrify the bejeebus out of the house guests and receiving nothing but, "Do you hear something, dear?" "No, dear," in reply, it’s likely the ghoul will give up and stop trying. In the same way, if learners aren’t acknowledged or rewarded for their hard work in learning new things, how long will it be until they give up completely? We reward ghosts with a shriek and trick-or-treaters with sweets, and we need to reward learners too: remuneration, real-life gifts and rewards, virtual achievements, points and badges - all these will help to get the learners continuing their learning journeys and enjoying the process. So chase the cobwebs away and delight learners with gamification - more about that here! Trick 2: Tell a Story Stories are an ancient method of teaching and learning - from telling stories using cave art and complex 1,000-word novels to trading horror-filled tales around campfires, stories convey information, meaning and, at their core, are a representation of a series of events. Therefore, to really capture learners’ attention and get them understanding a topic, it’s useful to set the scene and tell a story. Consider these two eLearning scenarios: "Prior to entering a meeting, Salesperson A decides they would like to seal the deal with £500,000, intend to get £470,000 and absolutely must get £450,000. The contract is signed for £470,000. Question: What negotiation model is this and what was the outcome?" VERSUS "Dracula is out trick or treating and he’s trying to get the Damsel in Distress at Number 10 to hand over more chocolate bars at her front door. He approached the house with three numbers in his head: 2, 4 and 6. He considers these the number of chocolate bars that he must get, intends to get and would like to get. After much begging, pleading and sharp-toothed snapping, Dracula convinces the Damsel in Distress to give him 4 chocolate bars. Question: What negotiation model was Dracula practising and what was the outcome?" If you were faced with these two scenarios in an eLearning module, which do you think would be more engaging and which might send you into an early grave? Exactly… Treat 2: Use Potions to Turn Learners into Stars Frankenstein created his monster out of arrogance; to prove he was like a god. The quest for eternal youth caused calamity for Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis in Death Becomes Her. And, of course, Jeff Goldblum’s transformation in The Fly was due to his desire to perfect teleportation. Clearly, we all like to be thought of as an expert sometimes. But, unlike in horror films, seeking fame and stardom doesn’t have to end in tragedy! With the right tools, learners can be seen as experts in their own topic of interest, which engages them to act as teachers, helping others to further their knowledge. Gamification helps to make this a reality: leaderboards dedicated to certain topics can show which learners know the most about that area of interest. Trick 3: Competition isn’t Scary One main complaint we often hear about gamification is that it drives competition and ‘competition doesn’t work in learning’. Really, now? Maybe this is the case for Learning Management Systems that don’t connect gamification with learning objectives - awarding a badge simply for staying logged in for 20 minutes, for instance. But when gamification is properly connected to learning, the competition that it evokes is an excellent motivator… Wendy Witch has been on holiday. When she logs back into her Learning Management System after her time off, she sees that she has been knocked off the top spot on the LMS’s leaderboard. "Oh no!" she exclaims. "That darned Valerie Vampire is sucking all the points from the LMS!" To regain her standing, Wendy gets on her broomstick and zooms to the next eLearning module. She’s jetlagged from her trip but she decides to power on through the pain, and soon enough she has a cauldron full of knowledge stirring around in her brain, simmering away. The badges and points she gets for completing the eLearning module send her soaring back up to the top spot on the leaderboard. "That’ll show Valerie Vampire! Ahahahaha!" she cackles. Treat 3: Do You Want to Play a Little Game? No, we’re not suggesting you ‘Saw’ your learners’ feet off, slice their eyes open or force them to search in their colleague’s stomach contents for a key. But using elements of gaming within learning can have a whole host of benefits for the organisation and your learners. To find out more about how gamification in online learning will shake the cobwebs away, turn learners into stars and allow them to smash any and all obstacles that stand in their way, fill in the form below!