‍‘I’m too busy for training’

‘We offer great training but nobody uses it’

‘It’s a tickbox exercise’

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If you recognise these phrases you’re not alone. It's a challenge many organisations face - people who need to learn new skills and acquire new information but they've simply tuned out and become disengaged with learning.

At the World of Learning Summit hundreds of L&D people sat down to share their barriers to learner engagement and how to overcome them - stories flowed and spirits were raised. Here are some of the insights from the round table discussion our CLO Stella Collins chaired.

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Question 1: What are the barriers to learner engagement andthe effects of low levels of engagement?

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A quick analysis of our brainstorm broke multiple barriers into 6 major factors that contribute to lack of engagement and the subsequent consequences (scroll down to see our full list).

Relevance & alignment – When learning doesn’t align with employees’ roles or business needs people waste time and energy and you’re left with persistent skill gaps.

Accessibility & inclusivity – if people can’t access learning the organisation risks excluding people, reduced workforce agility, missed potential and possible legal claims.

Organisational & cultural – A lack of leadership support and integration of learning into work culture leads to knowledge silos and resistance to change.

Time & workload pressures – Competing priorities and information overload  means employees deprioritize learning, leading to low participation and low skill levels.

Accountability & Ownership – Without clear expectations and autonomy, employees don’t apply what they learn so learning investments fail to translate into business impact.

Structural & Political Challenges – Budget constraints and internal politics stifle learning opportunities, hindering talent retention and long-term organisational success

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Question 2; How have you overcome the barriers you face?

These suggestions are all success stories from the field:

·       Learning interventions that are outcome focused,relevant, timely, aligned to employee and organisational needs, accessible,supported from the top and prioritised.

·       Implement a culture of continuous andintentional learning with technology that supports transfer and applicationrather than simply content.

·       Use evidence-based learning processes focused onbusiness outcomes and increase learning agility amongst the population

·       Encourage and give permission to make time forlearning

·       Create commitment, accountability and ensure alllearning interventions are followed up whether that’s with managers, mentoring,coaching or technology enabled options.

·       Evaluate impact and transfer – not only completiontimes or satisfaction.

·       Experiment, pilot and adapt an agile approach tolearning projects – sometimes a stealth approach can kickstart new initiatives.

·       Market and share success with internalevangelists, ambassadors and communications.

·       L&D/ HR to build relationships across thebusiness with procurement, IT, finance, product… Change procurement processesand review them regularly so vendors are up to date and relevant.

·       Cancel anything that’s boring! Then evaluate whether it’s necessary to rework it or let it go.

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Feel free to beg, borrow or steal these ideas and talk to us if you need to increase engagement in your organisation.

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 Here’s the full list of barriers from our table:

Lack of support, time to attend training, one size fits all,lack of initial assessment, lack of role models, compliance nonsense,irrelevant learning, low digital literacy, doesn’t meet needs of employees orthe business, inaccessibility, too strong a divide between work and learning,language barriers, lack of outcomes, lack of transfer, information overload, nofocus on skills building, lack of accountability, rare and irrelevantperformance conversations, solutions offered before problems analysed, lack ofchoice, too much choice, commercial barriers, internal political barriers.

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