L&D Resources For Employee Engagement During The Holiday Season
The holiday season is typically a time of joy and reflection for employees, but it can also bring significant stress and challenges as the workload peaks before the Christmas break. As a result, many employees get distracted and tend to neglect their Learning and Development activities, which can ultimately harm their overall productivity and progress. However, if you choose the right L&D resources, you can sustain motivation and participation, helping your staff continue building on their skills. In this article, we will discuss 8 L&D resources for employee engagement that are great to use as the end of the year approaches.
8 L&D Resources For Employee Engagement
1. Training Workshops
A great way to keep employees engaged in their learning journey during the holiday season is to change up their courses. Instead of the usual training materials, spruce up your L&D library with courses on time and stress management, work-life balance, project management, task prioritization, and more. By offering them learning opportunities that resonate with their daily routines during this time of the year, you are helping them improve their performance and manage their tasks more effectively.
2. Gamified Learning Experiences
Leveraging gamification can be very effective in engaging employees who would definitely enjoy a break from their everyday tasks. Offer them gamified learning experiences that are quick and easy to complete so that they can fit them into their busy schedules. Making them accessible from mobile devices is an even better idea, as employees will be able to learn on the go or during a lunch break. Don’t shy away from incorporating holiday themes to make the modules more appealing to the eye and boost employee morale.
3. Collaborative Activities
During this demanding and mentally taxing time of the year, focusing on collaboration is always a good way to promote employee engagement. There are various L&D resources you could use to foster collaboration and support your employees’ development. For example, you can hold in-person or virtual workshops that require employees to solve problems through cooperation and teamwork. These activities will help your employees relieve some stress while improving their skills and strengthening their relationships with their colleagues.
4. Microlearning Modules
It’s understandable that you don’t want the holiday workload to hinder your employees’ learning journeys. However, it’s important that you are mindful of their limited time and increased mental load during this period. Leave the longwinded, in-depth learning courses for the new year and focus on bite-sized L&D resources that take only a few minutes to complete yet provide immediate feedback and value. These can include short video tutorials and podcasts or infographics and brief articles.
5. Personalized Learning Paths
If you want to implement company-wide learning courses, the last month of the year is certainly not the best time. Instead, focus on your employees’ personalized learning paths that you’ve discussed throughout the year, making sure that you are aligning with their individual goals as well as organizational objectives. Specifically, recommend shorter online courses that match their short and long-term goals so they are motivated to complete them. And make sure to give them the flexibility to take these courses at their own pace so they don’t feel overwhelmed.
6. Performance Reviews
Another L&D resource for promoting employee engagement is conducting performance reviews through templates for personal development plans. Besides, the end of the year is a great time to look back on the past 12 months, identify which goals were met or not, and establish new goals for the upcoming year. Take the time to support your employees through this process either by offering dedicated one-on-one sessions or hosting webinars on setting SMART goals. This way, employees will be more engaged in the goal-setting process, as they’ll know they have your guidance at each step.
7. Flexible Learning Options
Flexibility in learning during the holiday season is so important that it deserves its own section. Employees are often extremely busy and pressed for time as they work to wrap up their responsibilities, and the last thing they need is employers who don’t respect that. We already mentioned that reducing the length of courses is essential, but what else can you do? Online learning platforms enable your employees to access courses at any time, even if they are not in the office. This gives them the freedom to complete modules when work slows down or even outside of working hours, e.g., while commuting.
8. Social Learning Opportunities
The final L&D resource for employee engagement that we suggest you take advantage of is social learning opportunities. Give employees the chance to learn from one another as they navigate the increased demands and challenges of this period. Social learning platforms and forums provide employees with insights into the best practices their colleagues implement to tackle the heavy workload of the weeks leading up to the end of the year and handle their stress to maintain their productivity at the desired levels.
Conclusion
L&D initiatives and resources during the holiday season go beyond their main purpose of skill-building. They can also improve employee engagement, encourage reflection, strengthen relationships among colleagues, and support personal development. It all depends on the specific resources and topics you will choose to place emphasis on. During this time of the year, it is essential to focus on flexibility, bite-sized content, relevant goals, and collaboration. Implement the L&D resources we suggested in this article, and you will not only notice enhanced employee engagement but also increased productivity in years to come.