Top 10 Methods to Increase Employee Motivation in Online English Training Courses
Are you and your Business English training provider doing enough to make sure your staff are staying motivated when studying Business English? Motivation is critical to the success of all students and companies. Motivation is a special key which can unlock new skills and make the training goals of an organisation a reality. The question on everyone’s lips is: how do we keep students motivated? Simply by utilising a couple of easy techniques you will be helping your staff to stay motivated to attend and thrive when taking part in English training. These techniques have been tried, tested and proven to really help staff and their companies to produce better results in training and to go on to achieve great business goals.
The top 10 methods to increase employee motivation in online English training courses are as follows:
1. Make it social
Facilitating an online training community or forum helps to create a ‘safe place’ where staff can start learning discussions and find out information from Q&As. Moreover, colleagues can assist in motivating each other by providing tips and advice about a range of different subjects. Social platforms can be the perfect places to share success stories and create leading examples to follow. Online events and spaces are wonderful but let’s not forget offline events. Offline events can bring people together, providing a sense of community, fun and social life through learning.
2. Break learning down
Support staff to break their learning down into bite-sized chunks. They should be able to see clear obtainable milestones and objectives, when the end is in sight students work harder. We want students to achieve a lot without burning out!
3. Empower People to mentor
Select top achieving students and encourage them to mentor and coach. This will enable them to provide amazing knowledge and positive experiences. This doesn’t just help the other students from thriving from additional input but helps the mentor with learning leadership and training skills which will benefit them when working in their departments.
4. Reward People
One of the most overlooked methods of rocketing motivation is that of rewarding students at different stages of their English courses. This could be after the halfway point or at the end of an important milestone. At Learn English Mate we promote platform gamification to instill motivation to achieve personal learning goals. Rewards could be tangible such as gifts. You could also recognise the achievements of students with an event to highlight achievement. At Learn English Mate all students receive a certificate and report to reward their attendance and achievements.
5. Invite & Remind
Inviting students to attend training via outlook, google calendar and other popular scheduling tools. This can help students to remember to attend training. At Learn English Mate our platform has a direct synchronization with all the major scheduling tools. We also send out regular email reminders to help remind them of the dates and times and benefits of training. Our Learner Success Managers are quick to answer questions and concerns.
6. Relatable & Relevant Learning with action planning
Training should be relatable and relevant to tasks or future tasks. This really helps with motivation as students can see a direct link and understand why it is important. More importantly, it will help them to see why they should invest their time in learning. Training should be linked with career planning and responsibility changes to aid motivation. At Learn English Mate we help students with action planning so they can practice using the skills they learn in the real world before refining the same skills with their trainer. This is how we maintain motivation and prove results at the same time.
7. Training KPI’s
As mentioned earlier we use gamification however we also use a number of key performance indicators to gauge performance and motivation. At Learn English mate we hold regular check-ins with students, their line managers, teachers and other stakeholders. After years of testing, we know that this 360 degree unified method of following up and collaborating works the best and yields the most motivation when everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and can share their views and ambitions.
8. Incentive program
Training can be motivating when it is a part of an incentive program. This could be an incentive program for an individual staff member or for a team. Financial rewards are popular but we recommend using a tiered system to keep motivation high throughout the program. If financial rewards are flat, you could see a spike in motivation and then a big dip. Whereas a tiered program fits with the milestones of different levels of English or subject areas. At many private hospitals in South East Asia, staff are incentivized by financial rewards for achieving their TOEIC scores and then maintaining their scores from one year to the next.
9. Fines & Performance reviews
Fines or disciplinary penalties are used by some of our clients to encourage staff to focus on training, keep motivated and protect their company’s investment. If our client’s go down this route we recommend that our clients provide students with an agreement for signature before the start of training.
As opposed to financial fines or penalties, training success and motivation may be discussed and acted on in performance reviews which can help with motivation. This is more popular than fining participants, as it helps highlight the connection between training and employee job performance.
10. Support and encouragement
Many students may find learning and conversing in group speaking classes or 1:1 with a Native English Teacher to be scary due to confidence or cultural issues. Give learners support and encouragement and make them feel comfortable. As mentioned previously Learn English Mate works with clients directly to ensure that students get the best level of support and encouragement.
We hope you enjoyed reading about The top 10 methods to increase employee motivation in online English training courses. Learn English Mate also has a motivation guarantee and training investment guarantee which we offer to all our clients and we would be happy to share that information with you. Feel free to schedule a meeting with us below.
