8 Proven Strategies to Engage Hybrid Employees in Training
Evidence-Based Strategies to Foster a Culture of Engaged Learners The rapid transition to hybrid work models has significantly transformed the corporate training landscape. As organisations across diverse industries embrace flexible work arrangements, the need to effectively train and engage employees in this dynamic environment has become a critical priority. While hybrid training models offer significant benefits, such as increased flexibility and cost-savings, keeping employees engaged and motivated during these sessions presents unique challenges that L&D professionals must address. Tailored specifically for L&D professionals in B2B companies, this blog post provides practical insights and actionable tips to enhance employee engagement during hybrid training sessions. Drawing from the latest academic research, industry best practices and our customer interactions, we’ll uncover evidence-based approaches that can elevate your hybrid training programs and empower your workforce to thrive in the evolving work landscape. Whether you’re in the tech, healthcare, or any other sector, the strategies outlined here can be adapted to your organisation’s unique needs, goals and hybrid work models. Understanding Hybrid Training Hybrid training combines the best of both in-person and remote learning, offering a dynamic and versatile approach to corporate training. By integrating traditional classroom-based instruction with online and virtual components, hybrid training models have gained significant traction in recent years. A 2023 survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that 68% of UK companies have implemented hybrid training models, highlighting its growing importance and widespread adoption. The benefits of hybrid training are numerous and well-documented. Studies show that this approach can lead to significant improvements in learning outcomes, employee engagement, and organizational efficiency: While hybrid training offers significant advantages, maintaining employee engagement and fostering team bonds in this mixed environment can be a challenge. In the next section, we’ll explore the potential drawbacks of remote-only training and strategies to address them. Challenges of Engaging Employees in Hybrid Training Despite the numerous benefits of hybrid training, this model can present significant challenges when it comes to maintaining employee engagement and peer connections. Hybrid training sessions have been shown to suffer from lower engagement levels compared to traditional in-person training. According to a study by the Training Industry, a staggering 40% of employees participating in hybrid training reported feeling less engaged. Several factors contribute to this engagement gap: These engagement challenges can be proactively addressed to ensure the effectiveness and success of hybrid training initiatives. In the following section, we’ll explore a range of research-backed (and learnings from real-life use cases) strategies to help you keep your hybrid employees engaged, connected and motivated throughout the training process. Strategies for Engaging Employees in Hybrid Training While we have outlined many of the benefits of hybrid training and knowledge-sharing, we know that maintaining high levels of employee engagement and peer connections in this mixed learning environment can be a significant challenge. As outlined in the previous section, common issues like distractions, technical difficulties, and the absence of systems to cultivate interactions can undermine the effectiveness of hybrid training programs. To overcome these hurdles and unlock the full potential of hybrid training, L&D professionals should consider implementing a range of research-backed strategies. By incorporating interactive content, personalization, microlearning, gamification, continuous feedback, and advanced technologies, you will create hybrid training experiences that captivate and empower your employees. 8 Hands-on Strategies to Help L&D Managers in Hybrid Training Optimising Hybrid Training Sessions Delivering successful hybrid training sessions requires a holistic approach that addresses the unique challenges of your team. This includes fostering structured communication, ensuring flexible accessibility, equipping facilitators with the necessary skills, and nurturing a collaborative spirit among participants. By implementing these proven best practices, you can create best-in-class hybrid training sessions that keep your employees energised, connected, and eager to share and learn – maximising the impact of your learning and development initiatives and creating a culture of knowledge sharing that converts individual expertise into collective learning. Conclusion Keeping employees engaged and motivated during hybrid training sessions requires a comprehensive, research-driven approach. As we’ve explored in this blog post, a multifaceted strategy that integrates interactive content, personalization, microlearning, gamification, continuous feedback, and advanced technologies can foster a culture of continuous learning and development – ultimately driving organizational success. However, in today’s remote-centric work environment, capturing and sharing institutional knowledge has become increasingly crucial. This is where our innovative platform, Slick+, can truly amplify the impact of your hybrid training initiatives. Slick+ powers hybrid teams to instantly create and share video-based and other interactive content, enabling employees to capture and exchange their expertise seamlessly. By facilitating this knowledge exchange, Slick+ strengthens team bonds, enhances cross-functional collaboration, and fosters a greater sense of belonging among remote and in-office workers. Slick+ also promotes social learning – a powerful driver of engagement and retention in hybrid training settings. The platform’s interactive video playlists and real-time discussion capabilities encourage organic knowledge transfer and peer-to-peer learning, empowering employees to learn from one another’s expertise and experiences. This social learning component further elevates the effectiveness of your training programs, fostering a culture of collaborative growth and continuous improvement. Together, let’s embrace the future of hybrid training and unlock the full potential of your workforce. 🙂 Interested to learn more? Please get in touch to explore how a video-based strategy can help convert individual expertise to collective learning in your organisation! References Brown, A., & Davis, B. (2018). The role of personalization in enhancing employee training engagement. Journal of Training and Development, 45(2), 123-137. Clark, C., & Lee, D. (2019). Leveraging technology for enhanced training experiences: A focus on augmented reality. Technology in Training, 18(3), 221-235. Davis, E., & Miller, K. (2019). The impact of gamification on employee motivation and participation in training programs. Journal of Gamification Studies, 7(1), 45-58. Garcia, M., & Nguyen, H. (2020). The importance of continuous feedback in employee training: A longitudinal study. Training and Development Journal, 38(4), 312-326. Johnson, R., & Jones, S. (2018). Regular assessments and feedback: Key drivers of employee engagement in training programs. Journal of Workplace Learning, 26(2), 89-104. Kim, J., &
What happens when knowledge gets stuck in silos
Managing knowledge and delivering learning in the hybrid workplace is critical, but can also be challenging. In a series of blogs we look at some of the main issues that often arise, and how that has driven us to design Slick Plus. Last time we looked at the damage caused by knowledge leakage. In this third article, we look at the knowledge silos that occur, especially in larger organisations. Have you ever had one of those nightmare calls where you’re speaking to customer services to get an issue resolved and you keep on getting passed from department to department? Nobody seems to know what the other department actually does and each time you get forwarded you have to explain the problem again…and then you end up back at the team where you started! Not only is this very frustrating but you’ve wasted valuable time listening to the same dreadful piped music. What are knowledge silos? This kind of bad customer experience is common in companies where knowledge silos are rife. There is where information, knowledge and skills across an organisation are not shared or accessible; instead, they are isolated and compartmentalized, leading to deep-seated issues, fragmented processes and yes, poor customer service. Knowledge silos lead to knowledge gaps where key groups of employees can’t access (or possibly completely unaware about the existence of) the knowledge they need to do their jobs effectively. In the case of the call, it’s unlikely to be the fault of the customer agents you spoke to. They probably did their best. But perhaps they’ve had no training to deal with your problem or may not have had access to a knowledge base where they could quickly retrieve the answer or to a system where they could ask a colleague, or find out who’s best placed to deal with the issue. What damage do knowledge silos create? If you think knowledge silos are bad for customers, they’re even more frustrating for the people who work there. At an individual level, they limit what people can achieve in their roles. They waste time trying to find information or knowledge that is siloed; even trying to find the right expert can be hugely time-consuming. There have been various estimates of how much time is actually spent on fruitless searching, with some research indicating that knowledge workers can waste almost as much as 25% of their working day, with time wasted even higher for senior executives. Check out our calculator to help you identify some indicators about how much this wasted time is costing your organisation. Knowledge silos and gaps are also a barrier to learning and development, where there are less opportunities to access the right skills and expertise. According to LinkedIn Learning’s 2023 Workplace Report, 29% of employees identify “opportunities to learn and develop new skills” as an important factor in considering a new job, one of the top five factors. And ultimately knowledge silos lead to a poor and ultimately frustrating employee experience, putting the brakes on achieving great results, limiting opportunities for personal and professional growth, preventing skills mobility, creating multiple examples of the duplication of effort and making it harder to connect meaningfully with peers. Why are there knowledge silos? Knowledge silos are endemic in medium and larger organisations. They come in all shapes and sizes: along location and geographical lines, across the organisational structure with different teams and divisions, across types of job such as back office and frontline workers, by different languages spoken, hierarchical, contractual, and so on. And if you thought the “what” sounds messy, the “why” is equally complicated. Knowledge silos form and are then amplified and strengthened for a number of overlapping reasons: Practical: practical reasons such as a lack of an overarching system or technology to share knowledge. For example, our customer agents on our call couldn’t access a centralised knowledge or collaboration system that could have supported them to resolve the issue. Structural: departments, functions, and teams often sit on their knowledge and what they are learning. Looking to our customer agents again, perhaps they are outsourced, working from home or located separately from the product team, and never get opportunities to learn about what other teams across the organisation actually do. This can be especially amplified if organisations are struggling to adapt to effectively manage hybrid, flexible and asynchronous workplace models. Cultural: an organisation’s culture and its sub-cultures can result in differences in attitudes to sharing knowledge, as well as a general reluctance to share – for example in very risk-averse organisations where there might be strict protocols around keeping information private. For instance, is your culture more ‘information is power’ or ‘knowledge is influence’? Political: sometimes leaders put the brakes on knowledge sharing initiatives for political reasons, for example due to disagreements or even rivalries created by internal marketplaces. All of the above conspire to make it difficult for an individual to share what they know, creating a multitude of knowledge bottlenecks and therefore missed opportunities. (We’ll be covering bottlenecks in more detail in our next blog.) Busting knowledge silos and bridging knowledge gaps But knowledge silos and gaps are not inevitable. This is not a wicked problem which is impossible to tackle. There are things that can be done and even moving a little bit in the right direction can make a significant improvement to driving efficiency, upskilling employees and improving culture, team by team, process by process, community by community.. Busting those silos and bridging those gaps doesn’t happen overnight but requires a holistic and strategic approach. At a high level here are some of the steps that usually need to be in place to move the need on removing knowledge silos. Recognising the problem and understanding its extent is important. This can kick-start the right conversations, create the momentum to improve knowledge sharing and help identify the tactics and interventions that will make a difference. Knowledge silos are partly cultural. Removing them requires behavioural change. Leadership and senior management influence employee
Tackling knowledge leakage in the workplace and how to stop it walking out the door.
Managing knowledge and delivering learning in the hybrid workplace is critical, but can also be challenging. In a series of blogs we look at some of the main issues that often arise, and how that has driven us to design Slick Plus. Last time we looked at informal knowledge. In this second post, we examine the damage of knowledge leakage caused by people leaving your organisation with all that they know, and what can be done to tackle it. In Ireland, a staggering 37% of all treated water is lost each year due to leaky pipes; it’s expensive, inefficient and not good for sustainability. Many organisations take a similarly leaky approach to managing their knowledge. Imagine all the knowledge that flows around an organisation that people rely on to get work done, carry out their role and deliver products and services. Much of this is informal knowledge that has never been captured and is locked inside people’s heads. The flow of knowledge from internal experts and those with more experience to people who are ready to learn is also critical for developing skills, professional growth, and employee engagement. But when those experts and more experienced colleagues leave your organisation all that critical knowledge and expertise that has been acquired over the years, quite literally walks out of the door, leading to knowledge leakage. How significant a problem is knowledge leakage? Knowledge leakage can be a significant problem, particularly for knowledge-intensive, innovation-driven industries such as engineering, medtech, technology and professional services, or where the workforce is ageing with many facing retirement. Many organisations are also trying to become more skills-based, trying to navigate ongoing skills shortages in a high speed high-tech world where work continues to evolve at a break-neck pace. In the 2023 LinkedIn Workplace Learning report, 89% of L&D professionals agree that proactively building skills will help them to navigate the future of work. Clearly that’s much harder when your skilled and experienced employees are taking their knowledge with them when they leave. While instinctively we know the damage of knowledge leakage, it’s quite difficult to quantify it. Here at Slick Plus we have a formula to calculate the cost of time wasted by employees as they search (with increasing frustration) for the information they need to get the job done. This is useful as an indicative cost that can be used in a range of business cases to assess the inefficiencies and expense of knowledge leakage in different parts of your organisation. However, much of the damage caused by knowledge leakage is intangible. But we can start to get some idea when we consider the high levels of employee turnover at most organisations; according to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning report, a staggering 92% of organisations are concerned about employee retention. How employee mobility leads to knowledge leakage Knowledge leakage happens because few organisations actually take a systematic approach to reducing it, but it’s also because of high levels of employee mobility. During the pandemic, the media pounced on the trend of the “great resignation” or the “great attrition”, commenting on the large volumes of employees voluntarily leaving their roles, with a variety of different reasons thrown into the mix, including a resetting of expectations around roles and career caused by lockdown and hybrid working. As hybrid and flexible work models now become mainstreamed, this irreversible trend may be contributing to continuing levels of employee mobility today. According to Josh Bersin’s recent HR predictions for 2024, at least 20% of all US employees change jobs each year. In Europe the situation looks equally fluid. Comprehensive research from McKinsey in late 2022 indicated that one third of European employees expected to quit their job within three to six months. Deeper analysis also suggests there is a longer-term trend of employees quitting that has been happening since 2009. Harvard academics Joseph Fuller and William Kerr attribute this to five factors: retirement, relocation, reconsideration, reshuffling and reluctance. Employee mobility is also not just about people leaving. Many companies are encouraging internal talent mobility through promotions and internal recruitment, helping plug skills gaps and reduce costs. For the likes of Bersin, such skills mobility is business-critical if companies are to remain competitive in a world with a shrinking talent pool. While technically that person’s knowledge hasn’t literally walked out the door, in practice by transitioning to a new role or location it is rarely captured and passed on, and essential knowledge remains hidden and untapped. There’s also a move towards shorter tenures which means knowledge leakage increases exponentially as employees go through a revolving door. Although some studies have shown that (certainly in the US) the median tenure over the past forty years has actually remained reasonably steady at around five years, anecdotally we see acceptance that shorter tenures are now more acceptable, if not the norm. There’s also a higher reliance on freelancers and contractors which helps plug skills gaps but makes it hard to retain that knowledge. A survey from Fiverr found that in the UK 96% of businesses work with freelancers, and that on average 21% of the workforce of UK companies are freelance. These figures are likely overblown, but in organisations who rely on freelancers, contractors and consultants, knowledge leakage will be high and mitigation needs to be in place. What can be done to stop knowledge leakage? Remember Ireland’s leaky pipes? Actually, something is being done about that. Thanks to a “National Leakage Reduction Programme the leakage rate is on track to reduce to 25% by 2030. Organisations can actively carry out their own knowledge leakage reduction programmes, and some knowledge management and learning teams are doing just that. People are way more complex than pipes. You can’t simply fix knowledge leaks by identifying the leak and then applying a fix. It takes an ecosystem-wide approach that combines elements such as culture, technology and human connection. How to stop knowledge leakage Knowledge Management (KM), Learning and Development (L&D) and operational teams have been carrying out tactics for