As most employees’ connections at work are now pixelated. L&D teams must make extra effort to connect emotionally with their learners.

Creating an emotional connection means learners are far more likely to invest their time and attention. Thus improving the impact of your learning intervention. You could measure this by engagement, completion rates, knowledge retention, and desired behaviour change. Like the telling of a good story, evoking emotions brings your learning to life for the learner. Helping to inspire, challenge and change mindsets.

Many techniques leverage the latest in digital technology. But at its core, the learning design itself is based on human values and needs. This is what will make it accessible to most people. The digital learning that we produce can be self-directed or designed to support a tutor. Always using the best technology for the specific goal. These being impactful and relevant imagery, audio, illustration, interactivity, scenarios, and simulations.

For anyone who wants to understand more about connecting emotionally with their learners. Please continue reading, and consider requesting a recording of our webinar ‘eLearning with an emotional connection’.

Stories connect with people emotionally, engaging with people’s universal human values. In the context of creating effective corporate learning, we need to humanize our content. Because before people can engage at even the simplest level, they have to care. It’s not complicated, some excellent examples of human values that work well within learning. These include security (removing the fear of the unknown) power & achievement (personal gain) self-direction (a sense of control) and tradition (a sense of cultural continuity).

If we package up these values into a learning journey. We can connect with people at an emotional level and start to teach them new knowledge and skills.

Choose powerful imagery that creates a response from the learner. Try using images of people and their facial expressions, but ideally, avoid generic stock photos. If possible use photos of your staff. Learners love real-world examples that make the learning more relevant to them.

We use a wide range of bespoke illustrations and animations. Often using characters to represent personas within an organisation. These are excellent means to convey emotions and illustrate different points of view. By using a wide selection of person types (covering a range of roles within a business). We allow many access points for learners who locate themselves within the context of the training.

An immersive listening experience helps draw a learner into the content. We like to combine listening experiences with questions that encourage reflection and activities. Creating powerful soundscapes that add to the learning. Be creative – sound effects, background music, and audio files are great instruments for building emotion.

Playing to people’s natural passion for achievement, rewards, competition, and collaboration can lend itself to game design within learning. In our experience, these games must appeal to everyone (not just the gamers). Whilst still supporting the wider learning objectives. Rather than any secondary specific game objective.

Simulating a scenario (like a sales meeting) or a new process (instruction manual) puts the learner at the centre of the experience. Pushing them to test their knowledge and capabilities. Creating a simulated environment locates the learner in a realistic setting and allows them to learn by doing. Also, using branching scenarios provides the learner with choices and the reflection of what else could have been.