The more we learn about the way we learn, the more it becomes apparent that a one-size-fits-all approach will almost never bring about incredible results.
When it comes to improving the impact and effectiveness of employee training, few strategies or tactics have shown as much promise as personalisation, and for good reason.
All of us have unique brains. We think and learn in unique ways, usually developed because of our unique life experiences. This means, all of us have unique ways to learn new things.
This uniqueness needs to be addressed in all forms of training, and personalisation is the best way to do it.
While personalising training for each one of your learners may sound like a lot of work, it is actually surprisingly straightforward when you have the right tools.
In fact, gathering the right tools is the primary step of the process of personalising the learning experience for your learners.
Let’s look at the entire step by step process:
Gather The Right Tools
As mentioned above, having the right tools can take out a lot of the effort from the task of developing custom learning content. For instance, learning management systems like Work Ramp will allow you to deliver your employees with personalised learning paths suited to their needs, strengths, and weaknesses.
Similarly, an authoring tool will help you create custom templates with your company’s branding, using which, you can quickly and effortlessly deliver a custom and professional looking learning experience for all your employees. These templates will even enable bigger organisations with a distributed workforce to deliver a consistent training experience to everyone within the organisation, regardless of their location or preferred language.
Employ An Outcome Based Approach
An outcome based approach is exactly what it sounds like- you begin by determining what skills you want your learners to develop as a result of your training.
What new things will they be able to do after successfully finishing your course? Will they have new abilities? Will they understand certain concepts better?
Answering these questions and employing an outcome based approach will enable you to create a focused learning experience. Moreover, educating your learners about these predetermined learning outcomes will also enable you to get them excited about the training and improve their engagement with the course content.
Finally, depending on your training objectives, an outcome based approach will have additional benefits. For instance, in the case of training employees, you will be able to ensure your training objectives are aligned with the overall growth objectives of the business.
Create Personalized Learning Experiences
As mentioned earlier, creating personalised learning experiences is only possible with the right tools. For instance, the right LMS will enable you to provide your learners with custom learning paths.
This will mean that learners will be able to skip lessons that are about concepts that they have already mastered. Similarly, if they find themselves struggling with a certain topic, they will be able to choose a set of lessons that help them work on their weak areas.
Provide Support With A Blended Learning Model
Self-paced learning has some incredible advantages associated with it. However, self-paced learning alone cannot deliver a holistic learning experience. Not to forget, algorithms and tools have limits when it comes to personalising learning experiences.
These limitations can currently only be overcome with the help of human intervention, and this is why a blended learning model that combines the advantages of instructor-led learning and self-paced learning is ideal in such a scenario.
The best part is that with the rise in popularity of web conferencing software, instructor-led training can be delivered without taking any sort of health related risk.
Conclusion
Despite having the right tools, personalising training and developing custom training experiences will demand a lot of work and time. With that said, if you do it right, the learning outcomes will be so incredible that spending this time and expanding the required effort will bring about positive results.