How to improve employee training
A practical guide to building employee training your people will actually use
How to improve employee training with the help of leading LMS systems
Employee training is one of the biggest investments organisations make. It’s also one of the most scrutinised.
If you want to improve employee training, you need more than updated content. You need:
- A clear strategy
- The right systems
- A learning experience that fits real working life
It can be hard to know where to begin, so we’ve gathered these practical steps to get you started.
- Audit “digital friction” instead of content
Most organisations assume their training problem is about quality, when the real problem is friction.
This is something we at Thrive have been focussed on recently, with our acquisitions of Huler and Guider last year positioning us as The Digital Front Door to Work. These acquisitions have been all about how our tools can work together and complement one another, ultimately removing unnecessary effort from people’s working day.
Your learning content might be incredible, but if people can’t find it easily – or if they forget it exists altogether – they’re inevitably going to disengage from it.
Improving employee training starts with removing barriers.
Look closely at:
- How many clicks it takes to find relevant learning
- Whether training is embedded in existing workflows
- How clearly progress is surfaced to individuals and managers
- Whether tools talk to each other
... and audit for friction. Your LMS should actively reduce effort instead of adding it, and it should integrate with the platforms your teams already use.
- Make personalisation the rule
… not the exception. The time for generic training has passed. Each individual employee has their own needs, learning preferences, job duties, interests, and too many other variables to count. You won’t always be able to meet every single person exactly where they are, but you can design a learning strategy that is personalised.
Your workforce is made up of a mix of new starters, senior leaders, experienced specialists, emerging leaders, and everyone in between. They won’t all need the same content at the same time.
Make sure your LMS can use data to tailor the most accurate and beneficial learning journeys for each person. This can include:
- Curated pathways for specific roles
- Skill-based recommendations linked to career progression
- Insights and analytics that support development conversations
- Mentoring software that lets mentees pair up with suitable mentors based on their personal interests or aspirations
- Make use of internal expertise
This is one of the easiest and most sustainable ways to improve employee training, and doesn’t require you to buy any new content.
Think of all the people in your workforce who have knowledge locked up in their heads. This could be anything from a complex process, to the technical aspects of a certain product line, to the quirks of a specific customer.
Whatever it is, User Generated Content takes this valuable knowledge out of your employees’ heads, and places it in your learning platform so that everyone can benefit from it.
Make sure your LMS supports this feature, and allows teams to share their knowledge with one another.
This could take the form of:
- Short videos
- Practical guides
- Insight from real lived experience
- Events and live discussions
Take inspiration from Thrive customer DECIEM. Instead of trying to resist the “Tik-Tok-ification” of skincare education, they leaned into it, encouraging their staff to share short videos within their platform to spark discussion. This then resulted in a huge uptick in engagement, with User Generated Content dominating the platform (53%) and only 23% content coming from the L&D team.
Learning belongs to everyone, and your platform should reflect that.
- Simplify compliance without reducing standards
There’s no getting around it: Compliance is essential. Even though it might not be everyone’s favourite training to complete, it’s mandatory for a reason. It protects both your company and its employees – so how do you simplify the process for yourself as well as your learners?
It comes back to the concept of removing friction. An LMS worth spending precious L&D budget on will actively remove friction by:
- Automating reminders
- Removing administrative burden
- Centralising reporting and analytics
- Making mandatory learning easy to access
- Choose technology that people enjoy using
This matters more than you might think.
After all, would you want to log onto a platform that looks like it was built in 2001, with a clunky interface and a labyrinth of different content libraries that you have to struggle through just to find the training you need to complete?
Look for a platform that feels like a natural part of your learner’s day; something as easy as Netflix or Instagram. That means:
- Navigation should be crystal clear and intuitive
- Answers should take a matter of seconds to find, hopefully supported by AI-powered search
- Content discovery should be as simple as choosing a TV show
- Reporting should be straightforward and easy to understand
At Thrive, we believe learning systems should feel as natural as the apps people use every day. If the experience is smooth, people are bound to return to it.
Turning improvement into sustained performance
Improving employee training requires focus and consistency. When these elements work together, training becomes a driver of capability rather than a box to tick.
If you’re ready to build learning that strengthens performance across your organisation, explore how Thrive can help you create training that delivers measurable results.