L&D for Employee Engagement
Wisetail | 3 min read
Employee engagement is not a new concept, but in the era of “Great Resignations” and “Quiet Quitting,” creating and maintaining a sense of engagement is more important than ever. Building a culture of engagement may sound difficult, especially when so many companies find themselves navigating new remote and hybrid workplace dynamics — but the first step to better engagement is as close as your learning management system (LMS).
Benefits of a highly engaged workforce
Highly engaged employees are happier employees, but how does engagement affect your organization’s health? High engagement is closely tied to an employer’s investment in their employees, specifically in ways that increase employee connection to their work and their colleagues.
An engaged employee understands their role and purpose within the company and how they fit into its future success. To stay engaged, employees need proper training and some measure of autonomy over their personal and professional development. With these factors in place, your employees are in shape to perform better and make better decisions on the job. In an employee-centric culture, employee engagement offers other benefits as well, including:
- Increased productivity. Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability. These employees, given clear expectations about performance and the appropriate tools and support to meet their goals, will work harder, more efficiently, and with more enthusiasm because they know their work is a valued part of the company’s formula for success.
- Better attendance. More than half of employees feel burned out on their jobs. This type of stress can lead to absenteeism, poor physical health, and poor mental health. Missed workdays, poor performance, distractibility, and stress-related exhaustion contribute to even more disengagement on the job.
- Improved recruiting and retention. A lot of employees feel disengaged at work — and nearly 74% of them are actively looking for new job opportunities. Job seekers, for their part, are looking for positions in organizations with a reputation for a human-centric culture focused on employee well-being and engagement.
Elevating L&D in the “new normal” workplace
With many businesses working with new hybrid or remote work models, employers are challenged with engaging their workforces across the virtual divides created by this new normal. Meanwhile, employee expectations for validation, recognition, and feedback have, if anything, increased. Learning and development (L&D) offers employers the opportunities they need to create engagement and recognize employee achievements.
The rapid transition to digital and online work created skill gaps for some employees, and L&D plays a crucial role in addressing these gaps to ensure every employee can work, communicate, and engage regardless of their physical workplace. And while many companies are rising to the challenge and satisfying on-the-job training needs, employees also need structured development, such as training, mentoring, and coaching.
Employers should take time to look beyond their current L&D capabilities. With a flexible LMS platform, training programs can address more than just onboarding and job specific training. Leadership training, health and wellbeing programs, upskilling, and reskilling all offer opportunities for employees to learn, grow, and engage.
LMS for L&D engagement
How can your company use your LMS to leverage L&D resources for more employee engagement? Incorporate the following strategies:
- Make content easy to access and discover. While a digital-first strategy is the norm now, an LMS provides an engagement system for employees to share resources relevant to their work, specific projects, or the whole of your industry. An LMS allows organizations to harness the best parts of corporate social learning by presenting employees with the information most relevant to their work and employee experience.
- Prepare for crowdsourcing resources and knowledge. In a hybrid work world, popping into someone’s office to ask their advice isn’t always an option. But with a solid, engaging LMS platform, someone can post a question to their team’s workspace, and invite the entire team to generate ideas and solutions.
- Curate content for continuous learning. Use your LMS to create content playlists that give employees access to relevant e-learning modules, PDF resources, videos, and external content links. These may include thought pieces, industry-related podcasts or blogs, or other related content. The point is to get employees thinking and talking about topics in new ways.
- Nurture a collaborative workplace, even if it’s virtual. Simple communication is crucial. Maintain open communication channels to highlight good work and build strong work relationships. Chatrooms, message boards, and other virtual spaces can be dedicated to team projects, learning cohorts, or discussion groups.
Employee engagement drives success, and learning and development drive engagement. Use your LMS to create human-centric L&D strategies that empower employees to engage with, and contribute to, organizational success.
Check out our Case Study to learn how Bagel Brands used their LMS to empower employees and foster engagement.
