Personalized Learning & Employee Retention: A Happy Marriage
Personalized learning is the most recent buzz term in the L&D space.
It has become like a ‘religion’ of sorts.
You have to believe in it, and you have to live and breathe it.
However, we are unsure if everyone talking about it knows what it means.
If you are one of those people, this is what personalized learning means: “an approach to education that considers differences in learners’ backgrounds, skills, interests and learning preferences and uses these differences to inform the design of curriculum and instruction.”
So, now that we have established that we all agree on personalized learning let us look at why this is beneficial for companies.
But..before we jump into the various benefits of personalized learning, let us ask you a simple question:
“Do you want your employees to learn more or be happy?”.
The answer for most organizations is a resounding yes for both. This is why employee retention and personalized learning go hand-in-hand.
Training employees for the challenges of today and tomorrow
Employers have always dealt with employee turnover (even more so these past two years.)
Employees are leaving bad bosses. They are leaving low wages. They are going because of the lack of development.
And while some turnover is inevitable, there are ways employers can help mitigate that loss by focusing on employee learning for today’s real-world challenges. This means that you have to stay away from the one-size-fits-all approach.
Instead, we mean planning training around employees’ specific goals, needs and workloads, then tracking their progress toward those goals so you know when to revise their learning experience.
Helping create clear career paths for employees
Providing employees with clear career paths from day one allows them to begin working towards their professional goals immediately.
In short, personalized learning helps employees stay engaged, improving retention rates.
In fact, in a recent study, 70% of employees are willing to quit their current job to work for a company that invests in employee learning.
Also, according to the same study, personalized and relevant training is preferred by 91% of employees.
That’s why we suggest you align your employee’s immediate career path with their long-term goals and watch employee engagement soar!
Make all your employees feel valued and optimistic!
If you didn’t know –Employees want to feel valued at work.
However, they often don’t know how to voice their concerns or if their thoughts will ever be considered by their employer.
Providing employees with personalized learning and tools that give them autonomy over their education helps them feel like a part of your team, reduces turnover, and increases productivity.
More than anything else, giving employees control over their development instills a sense of responsibility for personal growth that extends into every aspect of your workforce.
It takes some time to develop these relationships, but it’s an investment worth making.
The way to ensure that happens? Personalized learning—not just for current employees, but new hires too. This is critical to remember as it is one of the most fundamental reasons that impact employee retention.
Instead, personalizing learning experiences for every employee helps make sure they’re getting the most out of their work experience.
It makes them feel like they’re getting what they need while also giving back to the company by providing input on how to run it better.
How does learning personalization help with employee retention efforts
Personalized learning techniques are one of the most potent ways to improve employee retention.
- Happier employees
Personalized learning tailors activities to each person’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and motivations.
These allow people to move up based on their skills rather than just staying at one level for years. This means they won’t feel like no matter how hard they work or how much effort they put in; there will be no growth.
It doesn’t take too much effort to understand that this makes everyone happier at work and more engaged in work, resulting in less turnover.
- Increases interest
You may not realize it, but employee retention isn’t just about keeping your best employees around longer.
It’s also about improving morale and productivity amongst those who are onboard.
Over 59% of the turnover rate can be reduced if you know how to engage your workforce.
Because each worker is different, personalized learning aims to get as close as possible to a curriculum that adjusts itself based on its audience.
- It can reduce time and costs
This may sound counterintuitive but bear with us. When employees learn at their own pace, they don’t waste time or leave work wondering what they missed.
You won’t only save money in the long term, but they will also learn faster.
If your employees can study whenever they want from wherever they want, those two realities alone will help keep turnover down.
Employees feel more invested in their careers when they know their education progresses.
So do you as their employer!
Conclusion
To conclude, we can say that the problem with a “one size fits all” approach is that it doesn’t fit everyone.
Many employees feel underutilized in their work, and the employee retention rate at many companies is suspect at best.
By investing in personalized learning systems, companies can improve employee satisfaction, reduce turnover, and increase profits for everyone.
Personalized learning isn’t a solution looking for a problem.
Instead, it’s an innovative solution that will help employers attract, retain, and develop their best talent in these rapidly changing times.
It’s a marriage that makes perfect sense.
