One of the most important factors instructional designers consider when developing eLearning material is the user experience.  Online courses are created with the learner in mind - the objective is for them to gain knowledge they didn’t have prior to taking the course.

Despite this, it can be hard to find high-quality, engaging learning content that goes beyond learners ticking the necessary boxes.

When information is presented in an interesting, attention-grabbing way, this can be the difference between the learner being able to apply their new found knowledge, and forgetting it completely after completing the course.  

We recently looked at how to assess learners’ engagement in online courses. Regularly assessing learner engagement is crucial to a successful learning and development strategy.

In this article, we will explore how to select engaging online content and the features you can look for to help with this process. 

Depending on the quality of the learning culture in your organisation, it can be challenging to convince your colleagues that taking time out of their busy schedules for learning can be beneficial. 

Knowing what makes an online course engaging is the key to combating this. When you provide staff with learning they can really connect with, they are far more likely to see the upside, and this will create momentum. When searching for the right content for your team, start by asking the following questions:

Personalising learning is the difference between content being engaging or boring. Content needs to address an individual’s learning needs as accurately as possible, and advancing technology is helping to simplify this process.

Some courses will do this better than others, or perhaps include features which enable you to integrate learning with platforms your workforce uses regularly.

Having to listen to a familiar concept being taught in great detail is neither engaging or useful. When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, even slightly irrelevant content is a waste of precious time. 

2. Are opportunities for active learning included?

Active learning involves any activities which encourage the learner to participate in learning beyond consuming media, such as text or videos. 

When learners are actively engaged with a task, they will need to use high order thinking skills to complete it. These include applying new knowledge to practical contexts, or using the knowledge they have gained in a creative way. 

An example of an “active” task would be to ask the learner to read a text and record five key points as they do so. It doesn’t have to be complicated, it just needs to go beyond basic consumption of information to be more interesting. 

3. Does the course have clear learning objectives?

Clear learning objectives are essential to any well-designed lesson. Without them, the purpose of the learning can easily go astray, and the learner will become disengaged quickly.

It is also important that these objectives are referenced throughout a lesson, not just at the beginning. This way, the learner can stay on track as they complete each activity, and reflect on whether or not they have achieved that objective. If they haven’t, they might need to revisit a section of learning or do further research.  

When assessing the quality of learning objectives, look for action verbs that describe what the learner will be able to do by the end of the course.

It is also important not to confuse learning objectives with learning goals, which are longer term and less defined. Objectives are included to give structure to a specific lesson or course. 

Practical stories help to put learning in context, and are particularly important for workplace training. One of the main goals of staff training is for the participants to be able to apply their knowledge in a practical context. Acknowledging this during the learning process makes the transition from online to real-life scenarios much easier. 

Stories also give learners a familiar context to work with. This forms a great basis for gaining new knowledge and information, as they can make connections between new information and situations they already understand. 

This might seem obvious but the success of an online course is highly reliant on the quality of visual design. Jorge Reyna, scholar of digital media for learning at the University of Technology Sydney, explains that, “design aesthetics have a profound impact on how users perceive information and learn, judge credibility and usability, and ultimately assign value to an online experience.”

Pay attention to the quality of visual content and the learners will reap the benefits. 

A one stop shop for all things training, Go1 makes it easy to compare the best training options available, and find the right resources for your professional development, compliance and business training needs. 

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How to choose engaging content for workplace learning

We are excited to have been recognised as one of the best startups to work for in Australia by LinkedIn.

This is the second consecutive year Go1 has been named in LinkedIn’s Top Startup in Australia list. 

LinkedIn Top Startups is an annual ranking of the hottest startups to work for around the world. The list is compiled by LinkedIn’s editorial team through a combination of proprietary platform data and editorial expertise to spotlight new and fast-growing companies that are attracting attention and recruiting top talent.  

Go1 co-founder Vu Tran said the award recognises Go1’s priority in its people and culture – vital ingredients for being a great place to work.

"We’re delighted to get this award from LinkedIn. It’s recognition of the effort everyone has and continues to put in to make Go1 a supportive and rewarding company to work for,” Mr Tran said. 

“We’re hopeful this award will help us to continue to attract the best talent in Australia and internationally as we expand and create more alliances with partners that share our workplace philosophy. 

"One of our key practices is supporting employees to advance themselves. Pursuing targeted and relevant training is important not just for individuals but also for the success of the organisation. Enabling people to run their own training agenda and go beyond their core training has big benefits for everyone,” he said.

Employee wellbeing and mental health are top priorities at Go1, where staff are encouraged to maintain a healthy balance between work and their private lives.  

"A safe, supportive workplace means healthier employees, better performance and productivity. Awards such as LinkedIn Top Startups are very important for raising awareness of how important a supportive work environment can be, both for attracting new talent and retaining talent. This is all the more critical given the global skills shortage, and the challenge many startups face in attracting the right people," Mr Tran said. 

Go1.com makes it easy for businesses to train their staff, with the world’s largest compliance, professional development and general training marketplace. By providing a single platform that extends from first aid training through to degree bearing courses, Go1 makes it easy to find and compare the best training options available. The marketplace features over 500,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts. Customers include SEEK.com.au, Oxford University, State and Local Governments and St John Ambulance.

Since launching in 2015, Go1 has grown to be a world leader in online learning and education. Local and overseas investors include Y Combinator, SEEK, M12, Tank Stream Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, and Our Innovation Fund.

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Go1 named one of LinkedIn's 2019 Top Startups in Australia 

The partnership will see intelliHR customers able to access Go1's online courses, enabling a seamless learning and development flow between the two platforms. 

Go1 is pleased to announce our partnership with intelliHR, an Australian HR people management platform. This partnership will bring together two of Australia’s fastest-growing technology companies to provide an integrated HR solution for global workforces. 

intelliHR is an analytics-first software-as-a-service platform with local and international customers, recently expanding into ten countries. They work alongside an array of clients to maintain a real-time handle on performance, create workplace culture aligned with business strategy, and enable decision-making with data-driven insights.

The partnership will see intelliHR customers able to access Go1's online courses, enabling a seamless learning and development flow between the two platforms. Go1’s elearning and platform will complement intelliHR’s people management tools, and allow intelliHR’s clients to easily access Go1.com for induction, compliance and professional development learning purposes through the Go1 portal to provide a greater engagement with the workforce.

intelliHR's Founder and Director Rob Bromage, recently explained the integration, “as intelliHR's people management tools help customers identify individual skill gaps, users can then be immediately linked to one of Go1's online training courses.”

 “Conversely, the integration allows intelliHR customers to capture completed Go1 training details giving them piece of mind that the intelliHR platform provides a 'single point of truth' of all HR records for customers.”

Go1.com Lead Distribution Partner Manager Simon Yeowart, was pleased to be partnering with a company that shares a similar vision to transform the learning and development ecosystem. 

 “At Go1, we’re excited by this partnership, which will strategically benefit both organisations and enhance the learning and training capabilities of intelliHR’s clients.”

"Go1’s off-the-shelf eLearning library, has a large variety of courses that can increase employee performance and business outcomes for intelliHR’s clients.” 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Go1 and intelliHR join forces in new partnership

As those responsible for workplace training know, it can be difficult to find high-quality, engaging eLearning content. 

It can be equally challenging to know whether your colleagues find the learning process insightful, or if they are just ticking the necessary boxes.

When looking at how to address a growing need for learning within an organisation, regularly assessing learner engagement is crucial to a successful learning and development strategy.

If employees find the learning content interesting, they are far more likely to take new information on board and be able to apply it to practical situations. 

With this in mind, we have looked at the best ways to measure learner engagement, and which strategies you can use to assess the quality of a learning experience.

What does an engaged learner look like? 

Learner engagement reflects the quality and quantity of a learner’s participation in their courses. It is a measure of how successful a learning experience is for each individual. 

When reviewing how engaged your colleagues are in a course they are taking, look out for the following signs that they are both enjoying the process and on track to learn something new. An engaged learner will be:

Actively engaged - when a learner is enjoying a course, they will actively take part in the process. They might ask questions, or do further research of their own to explore a concept. 

Eager to participate - there are a few signs that a learner is excited to take part in a course or lesson. If you are present while the learning is taking place, their body language and general attitude will give you very quick feedback as to how they are finding the process. If they are completing the learning in their own time, well-structured follow up surveys and feedback will also give you clear indicators.

Willing to expend effort - an engaged learner will go beyond the bare minimum to participate in training. They will strive to do well in the course they are taking, and log in to the training platform regularly. 

Motivated - if a learner is motivated, they will be both willing to expend effort and are eager to participate without too much extra encouragement. They’ll be keen to find out what they’re learning, and eager to engage with new material.

Inspired - this can be a little more difficult to achieve when there is so little time for learning at work, but there is nothing better than a colleague being inspired by a course or lesson they have taken. Being given the opportunity to learn something inspiring will also make them feel valued and happier in their work. 

While data on the LMS dashboard will tell part of the story of learner engagement, the following strategies will give a more in-depth understanding of the learning experience in your organisation:

As your colleagues start engaging with an online course, organise a time to catch up with a few of them to ask key questions about their learning experience. Ask them to be as honest as possible! While surveys are useful, conversations with a few, carefully selected people will provide you with a more in-depth understanding.

Although some eLearning courses will come with in-built feedback features, you might like to design your own surveys to ensure that the learning content is meeting the specific needs of your team. While the majority of content is targeted to specific industries, each organisation is unique and the learning might need to be adapted to suit your context.

Your LMS dashboard is a great place to assess learner engagement. The login and completion rates can be helpful, as if these are low, it could be a sign that the content isn’t quite the right fit. 

If you are seeing low numbers, a few other issues could be the cause. The content might have been engaging, but perhaps the learners found it difficult to use. Maybe they didn’t have enough time to complete it. You may need to do some further digging, but finding out will be beneficial in the long run.  

Although time constraints are a factor with workplace training, finding opportunities to observe learners using their new knowledge or skills in a real-life context can help to determine whether a course has been successful. For example, if you have organised a course for compliance in your hospitality business, look for practical opportunities to check whether your colleagues are able to apply the new knowledge. You could do this through observing their process at work, or chatting with them informally as they complete a task. 

How to assess learners’ engagement in training

Welcome back to our monthly round up of all things Go1! We've had some great articles come out in the press that you might find interesting, so we’ve put together this round up of links for you to read over. We encourage you to catch them now if you missed them earlier, or re-read them to see if there’s more you can learn! 

LiveTiles share price higher after announcing partnership with Go1.com

Via Dynamic Business featuring Scott Cooper, VP of Marketing at Go1

Go1.com and Rosterfy set to redefine global training and workforce management in new partnership

Via Logan City Council featuring Go1 co-founder, Vu Tran

News Xtend partners exclusively with world’s largest workplace training marketplace Go1

Via News Corp featuring Go1 co-founder, Andrew Barnes

Stay tuned for some more amazing things to come in September!  

Let's take a look back at some of the great things Go1 has been involved with in August 2019. 

When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, there is an increasing demand for learning to be delivered in manageable, easy to access formats.

Micro-learning is defined as the breaking down of information into topical, bite sized chunks. By engaging with information in such short bursts, the likelihood of retention is increased, making the time spent learning more efficient. 

Having already been hugely beneficial in the fast-paced corporate training arena, micro-learning tools are continuing to shape the ever-changing landscape of learning in the digital age. 

Micro-learning is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of corporate training. Around the same time the first smartphone was released, quick snippets of information in the form of videos, quizzes, interviews and talks were becoming increasingly popular. 

The formats and tools used for micro-learning are wide-ranging, including infographics, PDFs, eBooks, flipbooks, animated videos and whiteboard animation.

These tools have benefits over more in-depth eLearning courses, as they are more digestible and easier to complete quickly. They can also be accessed anytime, anywhere.  

Additionally, they are better value and low-cost to produce, which is great news for learning and development professionals with tight budgets to consider! 

Globally renowned industry analyser and research analyst, Josh Bersin, describes a new paradigm emerging in corporate training. He labels this, ‘learning in the flow of work’, which means presenting employees with opportunities to learn through platforms they are already using to work.

The advent of micro-learning tools is paving the way for such advances, as they enable employees to quickly view new material while they are logging in, or engaging with a regular activity in their daily routine.				      										

How to make the most of micro-learning tools

There is no doubt that micro-learning is already having a massive impact in the corporate training sector, but how can learning and development professionals support employees to use the tools effectively? 

These tips will help your colleagues to make the most of the learning tools on offer to them, while respecting the limited amount of time they have:

It is important for learners to take ownership of their training where possible and identify topic areas they may need more assistance with. Using the diagnostic assessment tools available on the LMS dashboard, either instructors or learners can decide which pieces of information they need to view next, and gain knowledge in a targeted way. 

Micro-learning tools are designed to be easy to engage with and snappy. This makes the information easier to digest, but recording the key points after watching a video or looking at an infographic will help learners to further embed the new knowledge. Your colleagues can do this by putting the information into their own words, perhaps by taking notes, creating an audio recording of their thoughts or drawing a mind map.  Encourage them to pick a tool that works best for them. 

An important part of learning new information is engaging with it actively. Watching a video to learn something, while beneficial, is a fairly passive activity, so it is important to engage with the information on another level. Encourage your colleagues to ask questions, or to be curious about the information they have just learned. Do they agree with it all? Or do they have further questions?

Talking about learning with others or sharing knowledge is also an important part of embedding new information. Where appropriate, it might be helpful to give staff opportunities to share and discuss what they have been learning about that week as an opportunity to extend the learning further and swap new thoughts and ideas. 

Finding out what your employees think of the eLearning process in your organisation is also crucial to their ongoing engagement. If a particular course was too easy or too difficult, it is unlikely that they will take an interest in the rest of the content. 

With learning content becoming more condensed and widely available, staying focused without getting distracted is important.  There might also be a temptation to use learning tools to procrastinate. Avoid this by tagging learning time onto the end of particular routines or activities employees are already completing.  

Learners can use diagnostic data to understand if there are any topics they need to learn more about. They can do further independent research if necessary, or perhaps complete an additional online course.

If training is disseminated in large groups, it is unlikely to have the same impact as a more personalised approach. Micro-learning tools are helping to facilitate a more tailored learning experience for different individuals. 

The benefits of micro-learning tools for employee learning

You are about to deliver a team presentation and have been anticipating it for the last month. Although you are well-prepared, a feeling of dread washes over you - at least it will be over in an hour’s time!

This situation will be familiar to many, and while you can learn to become a more confident public speaker, you’ll still need to practice and learn to sit with the uncomfortable sensations. 

No matter how you feel about addressing a large group, research suggests that one of the quickest ways to improve your confidence in any situation is to make small alterations to your body language. 

It is tricky to be aware of how you hold yourself, especially if you sit at a computer for most of the day. Nonetheless, checking in and making a few small adjustments could make you both feel better, and communicate to others that you are self-confident and have a positive mindset. 

Social psychologist, Amy Cuddy, discusses how body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves.

In her popular Ted Talk, she argues that “power-posing” - standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don't feel confident - can boost feelings of confidence, and might have an impact on our chances for success.

In her study, participants sat either in a high-power pose (in an expansive position) or a low-power pose (leaning inward or legs crossed) for two minutes. Cuddy found that those who sat in high-power poses performed better in mock interviews than those who had adopted the low-power poses. 

The two key takeaways from her research were that those who sat in high-power poses not only felt more powerful, but that the poses actively changed their body chemistry.

The New Zealand rugby team performing the haka before every international game is a great example of expansive, powerful body language in action.  

How your team can build confidence through body language

Most people can agree workplace communication is very important to a business. After all, when providing a professional service, clear and concise communication with prospects and existing clients is essential. Excellent communication skills are just as crucial when dealing with internal staff. So, how can your team put the science of powerful body language into practice? 

In her book, Presence, Amy Cuddy summarises her research and experiences, offering the following tips to get started: 

This sounds simple, but isn’t always easy to do. If you are performing a task or role, and deep down you don’t believe that you are equipped to do it well, this will come across in your body language and others will pick up on it.  

If you suffer from imposter syndrome in certain situations, yet your boss or somebody else has chosen you to perform a role or task, do your best to challenge your thoughts and tell yourself a different, more positive story about yourself.

2. Being present - presence begets presence

A great way to be aware of the position of your body and your internal dialogue is to stay present in the moment. Cuddy also explains that presence begets presence, meaning that once you are able to start being present, your will gain momentum and find yourself spending more and more time living in the moment. Mindfulness training is a proven way to train yourself in this skill. 

If you notice that your self-talk is negative and your confidence is low, you can make simple changes to your body language to interrupt this negative thinking pattern. A gesture a simple as smiling, no matter how you are feeling or what state of mind you are in, has been proven to interrupt negative feedback loops in the brain, and turn them in a more positive direction.

Again, this action might sound simple, but, like smiling, tweaking your posture can really make a difference. It is easy to start slouching when you are sitting down, particularly when your attention is focused on a computer screen or phone. The more you can check in with yourself and readjust, the more you will reap the benefits of having a better posture.

Cuddy identifies a few poses which are helpful for boosting confidence. These are proven to make changes to the body and mind as a whole, so perhaps try a few out before your next public speaking gig! The images in the top row show “high-power” body language, and the bottom row shows “low-power” body language.

Images courtesy of Amy Cuddy, Harvard University

Good communication plays a key role in maintaining staff productivity, job satisfaction and positive staff morale. It’s also central to the effective dissemination of information across any organisation, and vital for building relationships of trust and commitment.

In Go1 Premium, you’ll find courses on many aspects of workplace communication, including negotiation, delegation, and how to make meetings as productive, engaging and efficient as possible.

This guide from Toastmasters, a non-profit organisation that teaches public speaking and leadership skills, also gives a detailed explanation as to just how much your body speaks. 

How to build self-confidence at work through body language

Cast your mind back to the classroom at school. The teacher begins explaining how to solve a problem you already understand, and you start looking out the window, whispering to a friend or throwing screwed-up pieces of paper at your classmates. 

Fast forward twenty years to a face-to-face training course you are attending for work, and you find yourself in exactly the same situation. Hopefully not disrupting the rest of the group as you have, of course, matured slightly since then, but perhaps doodling or thinking about what will be included in the free lunch. 

Similarly, when learners find themselves completely lost in a session, they are just as likely to drift off or subconsciously focus their attention on something else.

Over time, eLearning content providers and LMS platforms have developed systems to make the learning process increasingly personalised. 

Improved tools for diagnostic assessment have given both instructors and learners the opportunity to understand how well the learning is going, and if there are any topic areas which are particularly difficult for a group to grasp. 

Bersin uses the following example to explain the concept:

“In the application of safety and operational training (an enormous market in most heavy industries), there are now adaptive learning solutions that deliver small 2-3 minute videos each day when an operator checks into work. The learning is carefully curated, spaced, and designed to deliver an outcome – and the employee answers questions (including questions about their confidence in the answers) to give the system enough information to decide what should come next.  This is happening now.”

As technology advances, we are better able to tailor an individual’s learning experience and embed learning into pre-existing tasks or routines. 

What can you do to personalise the eLearning experience?

In addition to using the latest advances in technology, it is also possible for learning and development professionals to create a more personalised learning experience for employees. 

If you aren’t sure where to begin, the following steps are a good place to start:

1. Develop a culture of learning in your workplace  

When organisations prioritise learning and development, employees can become more agile and adaptive, meaning they have an improved ability to cope with and respond to the rapid rates of change expected of them in the digital age.  

This will provide a foundation for a more personalised learning process, with both employees and those in leadership positions valuing learning equally. 

2. Encourage employees to take ownership of their learning

It is also important for employees to take responsibility for their learning. The best learning and development strategy, course content and HR professionals can only take employees so far. When your employees understand what they need to learn next and when they need to learn it, they will be able to make progress at their own pace. 

The LMS dashboard, both for instructors and learners can help to make the learning process more personalised. If you have access to diagnostic assessment data, you will be able to see if there are any general gaps in employee knowledge, and be able to address these as they pop up.  

Learners can also use diagnostic data to understand if there are any topics they need to learn more about. They can do further independent research if necessary, or perhaps complete an additional online course.

4. Ask employees for feedback and respond

Finding out what your employees think of the eLearning process in your organisation is crucial to their ongoing engagement. If a particular course was too easy or too difficult, it is unlikely that they will take an interest in the rest of the content. 

It can also be helpful to find out what they thought of the eLearning system. Were the courses easy to follow? Was the content presented in an interesting way?

If learners can see that you value their opinions and they are taking part in the ongoing development of the learning process, they are far more likely to be engaged and invested. 

Personalised learning: the secret to engagement in online courses

Watch this webinar to learn how you can create more effective and productive working relationships in your organization, using Vado’s new eLearning toolkit. The toolkit will be going live into Go1 on Friday the 16th of August. 

Is the DISC Assesment of Human Behavior the answer to your workplace communication challenges? 

The DISC model is a great tool for building relationships, reducing conflict, and getting better results. Unfortunately, it does not work if you stop at taking an assessment.  To get great results and value by making a connection with and building relationships with people, you have to know how to use the DISC model in practical, everyday situations. That's why Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris created the DISC toolkit. 

In this webinar the Go1 team are joined by Guy Harris  Coach in the DISC Model of Human Behaviors and Cindy Pascale Vado eLearning co-founder, to learn more about the new Vado DISC courses and talk about what's in store next for the longstanding partnership between Go1 and Vado. 

Vado are a leading Go1 content provider and very popular with our United States based customers, given the thorough Discrimination and Harassment content they have available via Go1. Go1 has been proudly partnered with Vado since 2017, and they are one of our many content providers helping Go1 customers improve the performance of their team. 

Guy Harris is with The Kevin Eikenberry Group in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Kevin Eikenberry Group is a leadership and learning consulting company – a world leader in equipping leaders to reach their full potential and productivity.

Guy draws on more than 25 years of combined professional and military experience when he consults, coaches, or trains in the areas of workplace conflict resolution, team and interaction dynamics, communication strategies and tactics, and emotional intelligence.

Typical client concerns prior to working with Guy are: forging a team from a group of individuals, moving a team past the conflict stage of team development, developing other leaders, expanding personal influence within the organization, communicating more effectively, and developing buy-in for new programs and processes. In other words, he helps you understand – and work through – the reasons why your relationships are getting in the way of getting things done.

Guy is a Master Trainer and Coach in the DISC Model of Human Behaviors and a Workplace Conflict Resolution expert.

Cindy, a Vado co-founder, has primary leadership responsibility for business development, account management and operations at Vado. She has 16+ years of HR, Training and Development, and OD leadership experience, with 12 years experience as a COO and CEO of various talent management consulting and assessment organizations.

Webinar Recap: Vado’s new eLearning toolkit

With communication in the workplace continuing to change rapidly, we now have an unprecedented capacity for interaction across the globe. And as a result, the daily routine for many workers involves a considerable amount of screen time.

To demonstrate just how quickly things have changed, email came into general use approximately twenty years ago, and the first Apple smartphone went to market in 2007. It’s difficult to imagine both our working and personal lives without these tools now, yet we are still in the infancy of understanding how to optimise the advantages they bring, and the impact they are having on our productivity and wellbeing. 

With this focus on screen time at work, the millennial workforce is craving opportunities for face-to-face interaction and collaboration. The question is how to build meaningful face-to-face interactions into the working day, without using precious time unnecessarily. 

According to research, 93% of communication occurs nonverbally, through body language and tone of voice. Only the remaining 7% is communicated through words. This shows how much we are missing out on when using email and messaging platforms instead of talking to each other face-to-face.  

While employees can use instant messaging platforms to ask each other quick questions, it is important to be aware that much of what is said is lost, and misunderstandings could easily happen without talking things through in person. 

In the early, formative stages of a relationship, face-to-face communication is essential for building a connection and trust between two individuals. 

First impressions really count. It takes only milliseconds to make an initial judgement on somebody new, and reading nonverbal cues plays a huge role in this process. This means that meeting face-to-face is very important for building a better-informed connection between two parties. Without it, a relationship can develop, but the depth of connection and level of trust will be limited. 

When two individuals take the time out of their day to meet with each other, this shows a commitment from both parties to give their attention to the conversation. The full range of communications can be picked up, and a better connection built. If it is a difficult conversation involving conflict, but both parties have good intentions, this will come across much more easily in a face-to-face interaction than in an email. 

If you are meeting with a new client, a meeting face-to-face shows that you have committed your time, effort and money to building a relationship with them. With information and demands on our time coming at us from so many different places, we are now living in what is described as an attention economy. Now, more than ever, your efforts to meet up won’t go unnoticed. 

How to use time effectively is the question on every manager and employee’s mind in the digital age.  It can be so easy to get carried away and distracted by the onslaught of information, finding ways to be more productive are like gold dust. 

Although it may seem more time-consuming to meet with people face-to-face, it can actually improve efficiency in the long run.  Instead of writing ten emails back and forth, your conversation could be resolved in a matter of minutes over a coffee - much more enjoyable!  You will also gain all the additional benefits of having taken the time to meet, so it’s a win win.

If physical distance isn’t a limitation, meeting in person is almost always preferable. When working remotely, or with team mates from different locations, video-conferencing is a convenient way for employees to discuss, plan, and build positive working relationships. 

Sometimes, we need to share information that is only meant for one other person. Meeting in a private setting can build trust between two individuals, particularly when the information you need to talk about is sensitive. This way,  you know that only you and the person you are talking to have heard the information - as long as there’s nobody behind you eavesdropping! 

Although the advantages of face-to-face communication are clear, some interactions are better than others.  Research shows that 92% of attendees choose to multitask during group meetings, meaning they are neither using their time productively, nor gaining many of the benefits quality interaction can bring. 

Alternatively, one-to-one meetings can increase productivity.  Instead of two employees emailing each other back and forth all day, which breaks the flow of the conversation and focus on other projects, a similar conversation could be had in a half hour meeting, without the interruptions. 

Many organisations are now setting up their offices to give employees full ownership over their workspace.  These changes have come in to meet the needs of the millennial workforce, who are looking for more opportunities to engage with their team members. The ‘co-working’ set-up is now favoured, giving employees the option to work independently or collaboratively as they see fit, rather than having to work at the same cubicle everyday next to somebody they don’t always need to interact with.

If you find that there isn’t much need to catch up in the line of work you do, meetings don’t always have to be work focused to be productive.  Coffee catch ups, walks and meals with colleagues all contribute to morale and give you all the benefits of communicating in person.

Perhaps the best way forward is striking a balance between online and face-to-face communication.  Think about the kind of conversation you need to have and adjust accordingly.  That way you won’t miss out on the advantages of the different methods available.  

Why we should still value face-to-face communication in the workplace

Welcome to the Go1 blog. Helping you to achieve your L&D goals through the latest learning and development insights, trends, and technology.

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