Internal marketing for eLearning

Probably the most common barrier to eLearning is the lack of training time. While traditional, analog training courses are naturally assigned specific timeframes due to their dependence on time and place (after all, employees cannot be in two places at once), eLearning is unfortunately often not taken seriously enough. Even when eLearning is introduced, employees are rarely adequately relieved of their day-to-day work to the extent that they can really learn in peace, or it is not sufficiently communicated that employees are allowed to schedule their own training time. So it is key that employees know they are allowed to take time for eLearning, and how much. Take a random sample: Ask any employee in your company if they know they are allowed to take time out for training, how much, and if they think it is enough.

The same applies to mobile learning. In theory, eLearning can be done anytime, anywhere, but only if learners have access to the necessary devices and are allowed to use them at any time. In conservative companies in particular, these necessary freedoms collide with smartphone bans in the workplace, or even just the knowledge that smartphones are not welcome at work. Here too, the successful implementation of eLearning requires clear communication and the necessary freedoms to be granted, otherwise the potential will remain untapped.

Note that mobile learning is a particular issue for blue collar workers. While white collar workers usually at least have access to a PC or laptop for learning purposes, blue collar workers tend to have no or only limited access to suitable devices. Blue collar workers should therefore be the first to be given access to mobile devices.

Perhaps the easiest way to inform employees about eLearning—at least if the employees (still) meet regularly in the company’s offices—is to use posters and traditional information events. Posters do not even take up your employees’ valuable time.

Of course, what works in the analog world also works in the digital one! The digital counterparts to posters and information events include newsletters, intranet content, and communication apps such as Staffbase—all excellent ways of providing information about new eLearning content. Note: If you employ blue collar workers or older people, always use both digital and analog communication channels to ensure that you reach all employees regardless of their digital skills and access to digital devices.

The more likeable, popular and respected a manager is, the more likely employees are to consciously or unconsciously observe and imitate their actions—after all, employees usually want to advance to that next career level themselves at some point. This role model concept can be used to convince employees of the benefits of eLearning.

You could ask people who are seen as role models to make a short video review of recently published eLearning courses in which they explain how they have benefited. Videos with tips on how people can integrate learning into their everyday work can also encourage positive imitation—even if the effects are not immediately apparent.

In addition to role models, however, peer ambassadors who know about new eLearning offerings and their benefits, and can report on them with a certain degree of enthusiasm to the workforce at suitable junctures, can also help. So keep your eyes open: Who is particularly committed to learning? Who has often asked for additional training on their own initiative? Invite these people to information events, involve them in beta tests, and provide them with the right arguments to back up their cases. Of course, you can also openly ask colleagues to report on the new eLearning content.

It’s no coincidence that people are always talking about making learning ‘child’s play’. Each of us still has an innate instinct to play—it’s why we tend to be taught knowledge, values and norms in a playful way during childhood and adolescence. This play instinct, however, is not limited to childhood. It lasts a lifetime—even if we often follow it with less intensity in adulthood. Nevertheless, there is still huge potential in gamification: Learners sometimes forget that they are learning at all and/or develop unexpected motivation through fictitious, positive competition systems.

This means that gamification not only makes sense within the eLearning application itself, but also beforehand when it comes to motivating employees about it in the first place—for example by advertising competitions, posting leaderboards, and offering incentives. Of course, employees must always give their consent to participate.