Top 5 Ways To Increase Employee Engagement Through Learning and Development

Introduction

Providing professional development opportunities to employees can significantly impact their productivity and performance at work. It promotes a positive attitude towards work, which helps them remain focused and improve their productivity.
Moreover, keeping employees engaged is even more pressing amid rising resignations worldwide. One strategy every organisation can attempt is to provide the right skill and training programs to increase employee engagement at work.

Why Engage Employees Through Learning And Development?

The need for various skills keeps emerging, and companies must keep their employees upskilled to drive performance. A well-thought-out learning and development strategy can help employees learn the right and necessary skills. These may vary from role-specific learning to developing management and soft skills.

Gaining new proficiency through learning and development keeps them engaged and interested in their work. Hence, organisations should invest heavily in L&D to increase employee engagement.

Benefits of L&D For Employees

Apart from fostering employee engagement, learning and development can have many benefits. Some of the benefits are as follows:

• Reduces staff turnover and increases retention.
• Increases professionalism and mannerism among employees.
• Empowers employees and develops future leaders.
• Fosters workplace relationships and creates healthy competition.
• Improves performance, productivity, and knowledge retention.
• Offers consistent growth and development opportunities.
• Encourage value-based work culture and environment.
• Gives employees a sense of inclusion and belonging.
• Boosts employee confidence and positive self-esteem.

Top 5 Ways to Increase Employee Engagement Through Learning and Development

Evaluate The Needed Skills

Before setting up a module for upskilling, the organisation needs to map the available competencies and skills. Then identify the specific skills the company may need in each employee. It will give a clear picture of the skill gap and training requirements.

Companies can also ask employees to list their proficiency to understand the kind of L&D needed to bridge the gap. The upskilling plan should be evaluated, at least keeping five years in mind.

Develop An Interesting L&D Plan

Exciting modules in the upskilling program are the most impactful way to increase employee engagement. There is no one-size-fits-all to developing an upskilling program. It should be varied based on different training goals and plans.
Grouping employees based on their needed skills and developing a program can be an excellent way forward. Employee engagement through learning and development plans should be specific, time-bound, challenging, and fun.

Encourage Employee To Take Up Upskilling

It may not seem like it, but encouraging employees to take up programs for upskilling can be challenging for any organisation. Typically, employees are busy working on projects, and pulling out time for L&D may not be feasible.
Organisations should try and convey the benefits of L&D and provide them with the necessary resources and support to take up the training. Rewards, bonuses, completion certificates, and time off can encourage employees to participate.

Provide The Best Upskilling Platform

To increase employee engagement, organisations need to hire the best training platform. The best HRMS platform will come in-build with hiring, onboarding, background verification, payroll management, and upskilling features.
Companies must employ a platform that offers interactive sessions, quizzes, live classes, feedback posting, group learning, gamification, and other features to make the L&D interesting. Ensure to run the training program on LMS before making it accessible to all employees.

Collect Feedback And Track Progress

Employee engagement through learning and development is continuous. After hosting the training program, it is important to collect feedback on how the employee enjoyed the program or if they have any suggestions to refine it.
Furthermore, organisations should track the progress of employees’ performance after the training. It will help to know what skills are working and what more skills are needed to be added to the L&D.

To Wrap It Up

An organisation should put in efforts to increase employee engagement. It motivates them to improve the company’s performance. Employee engagement through learning and development is a crucial factor that opens endless growth and upskilling opportunities.

Hence, organisations should carefully plan and execute their training program and understand its impact on employees.