6 ways to boost your employee communications with eLearning

What’s eLearning for? In the eyes of many organizations, eLearning courses have a clear and specific purpose. For some, eLearning is just for compliance content. For others, it’s a tool for sales training or role training. While these are fantastic use cases, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. eLearning is designed to engage users with memorable and digestible content, making it the perfect way to deliver your messaging. Whether you’re onboarding new hires or looking to sharpen your employee communications, eLearning incentivizes your people to engage with—and retain—everything you need to say.

If you want your people to absorb and retain those all-important internal communications and keep track of the latest industry developments, eLearning content is a great alternative to the infamous ‘meeting that could have been an email’. Read on to discover how eLearning can be used to deliver and improve your organization’s messaging.

1) Turn your employee handbook into a course

Employee handbooks are a fantastic resource for new and existing employees alike. They’re a great repository for policy and procedure, they offer an in-depth look into the culture you’re trying to cultivate, and they express the values that define your organization.

They’re also—let’s be honest—a little bit daunting.

By transferring this kind of lengthy, text-based document into an eLearning course (or series of courses), you’ll instantly create a more memorable and engaging way to articulate your organization’s mission. Busy employees and overwhelmed new hires will be far more likely to pick up and absorb information that takes the form of digestible, bite-sized chunks filled with interactive assets.

2) Use step-by-step illustrations for your processes

If you work in a technically demanding industry, or if your employees have to tackle complex tasks as part of their roles, eLearning offers a more effective way to explain what’s expected of them.

Unlike a text-heavy handbook or manual, eLearning courses are packed with media assets like images that your people can navigate, explore, and return to as often as they like. A good content authoring tool will allow you to take full advantage of imagery by offering resizing and placement options, plus hotspot functionality allowing learners to click on areas within your image or diagram to trigger an action. Combine this with engaging features like buttons and animations, and you’ll find your users eager to engage with content that might not otherwise hold their attention!

3) Mix up your training with video tutorials

Why stop with a still image when, through the magic of eLearning, you can embed video content into your courses? When today’s learners want to find out how to do something, they’ll often turn to video platforms like YouTube or TikTok to learn the ropes—and your employees will benefit from content that follows suit.

In fact, if your authoring tool supports iframe content, you’ll be able to embed externally hosted content from sites like YouTube, delivering your messaging in a way that your learners are accustomed to.

When it comes to the specifics of your organization, though, you’ll want to add unique video content that will give new hires all the details they need—and that can’t be found anywhere else. The possibilities here are endless, but even embedding a simple talking head, recorded on a smartphone, into a piece of eLearning can provide an extra dose of character and flair to your messaging.

4) Create team introductions

New hires will also want to get a sense of who they’re working with—but busy senior team members aren’t always able to schedule meetings with the latest batch of recruits.

eLearning is a fantastic middle ground, adding a personal touch to the onboarding process by providing virtual introductions (that can include images or video) without disrupting the day-to-day activities of your wider workforce.

5) Make company news more engaging

We’ve all overlooked, misplaced, or just plain ignored the occasional organization-wide email. Meetings that involve your entire workforce, meanwhile, can be highly disruptive.

At the same time, it’s essential for your people to keep on top of the latest news your organization has to offer. Not only do they need to keep informed of any changes to process, procedure, or policy, but company-wide news updates are also a great chance to celebrate success and reinforce a sense of community across your workforce.

Delivering company news via eLearning allows you to present your latest achievements and developments without any disruptions to the working day. Plus, with interactive features and attractive visual styles to play with, you’ll be sure to produce something more eye-catching than a simple email.

Your eLearning courses can even act as a repository of previous news, allowing new hires to gain a fuller understanding of your organization’s story.

6) Keep on top of industry insights

Are your people up to date with the latest developments in your field? Are they keeping an eye on new practices, evolving competitor relationships, or exciting new opportunities?

In many industries, there’s always something new to learn—and what better way to encourage this kind of learning than through learning content delivered straight to your LMS?

Industry news doesn’t need to be limited to high-level discussion or water-cooler gossip—it’s a valuable resource to inform your people’s activities. By housing anything from updated policies to teachable moments within a robust eLearning course, you’ll help your people (and your organization) to keep pace with the leading lights of your profession.

Learn more about the many uses of eLearning

We’ve got plenty more to say about the role eLearning can play in your organization beyond standard training! This article offers a few ideas that you can apply to your employee communications—and especially to your onboarding training. Our recent ebook goes even further, highlighting the power and versatility of eLearning as an onboarding tool, and providing some handy hints on making content reusable, personal, and easy to return to.