Managing emotions is essential for success, especially in the workplace. In this article, I’ll explore the role of emotions in the online training process, as well as 5 tips to create the best online training environment for your corporate learners and increase the emotional impact of online training.
How to Increase the Emotional Impact of Online Training
Many employees dread the online training experience because it is mandatory and lacks personal meaning. They know that it’s necessary to develop their skills and comply with company policy. However, they simply aren’t able to connect with the online training content on a deeper level. But what if you could increase the emotional impact of your online training? What would happen if your employees invested their hearts and minds into their professional development?
The Role of Emotions in Online Training
There are two key reasons why emotions play such a pivotal role in online training. The first is that positive experiences stand out in our minds. These online training experiences are associated with feelings of happiness or satisfaction. Thus, our brains automatically flag the ideas that are linked to these favorable emotions. For example, employees are more likely to remember the company policies if they are framed within a positive online training environment.
The second reason is more physiological in nature. Our brains house the amygdala, which is in charge of regulating our emotional state and retaining memories. When an online training course triggers the amygdala, employees are more likely to remember and retain the information. This small but powerful region of the brain also determines the emotional significance of everyday events and activities. It also uses our feelings to evaluate and interpret the meaning of personal experiences.
In addition, emotions typically trump more practical thought processes, such as decision making, problem solving, or evaluating a situation. As such, creating a positive online training environment puts employees in the right frame of mind. This enables them to build a solid emotional foundation before jumping into other practical pursuits, like putting their skills into practice via an online training simulation.
5 Tips to Create the Ideal Online Training Environment
1. Delve into the Backgrounds of Your Remote Employees
What makes one person feel anxious or stressed may bring about feelings of calm in another. It’s all a matter of personal perspective. For this reason, you must research your audience to strike the right emotional tone and have an emotional impact on your employees. Explore their backgrounds, preferences, and needs to create an online training environment that is supportive and motivational. This also gives you the ability to avoid elements that may alienate members of your audience, such as images that are controversial in their culture or go against societal beliefs. Consider hiring a localization team who can offer greater insight into the emotional significance of your eLearning course design.
2. Use Visuals to Foster Emotional Connectivity
Speaking of images, using visuals is one of the most effective ways to increase the emotional impact of online training. Our brains are hardwired to take notice of visual stimuli. As such, we are more likely to remember images over text. Visuals also evoke specific emotions based on our past experiences and cognitions. For example, a photograph featuring a smiling older woman holding a pie evokes memories of family and home. We experience the warmth and comfort of nostalgia. Likewise, a picture of a successful business person tends to motivate and inspire corporate learners.
3. Set the Tone with a Story
There is a reason why people lose themselves in books and films. It’s because these stories make us feel specific emotions and immerse in other worlds. You can use the power of storytelling in your online training course by incorporating real-world examples and personal anecdotes. As a matter of fact, tales have the power to set the tone for the entire eLearning course design. Corporate learners will remember stories that pull at their heart strings or bring a smile to their face, and these positive emotions will carry over into every online training activity, module, and assessment that you include.
4. De-Clutter Your eLearning Course Design
The secret to a successful online training experience is a cool, calm, and collected mind. Online learners must be able to concentrate on the online training activities, instead of worrying about everything else on their to-do list. Therefore, you should de-clutter the eLearning course design to put corporate learners at ease and help maintain their mental focus. In other words, your online training course should not become a distraction in-and-of-itself. Employees already have to contend with plenty of external distractions. Omit unnecessary graphics, break text blocks into lists, and include a sufficient amount of white space. You can also include links to supplemental online training resources, instead of flooding the page with extraneous online training content. That way corporate learners have the option to access the online training materials if and when they need additional information.
5. Choose Your Colors Wisely
Every color has a particular meaning. Yellow symbolizes happiness. Red is the shade of urgency. Blue soothes the nerves. As such, you should pay close attention to the colors you integrate into your eLearning course design. Consider how each color makes employees feel and behave. Then opt for hues that align with the online training activity and subject matter. For example, use calming colors before a certification online training exam to help reduce feelings of anxiety οr red fonts to draw your corporate learners’ attention to the online instructions. Once again, it’s crucial to research your employees’ backgrounds before deciding on your color scheme, as different cultures assign different meanings to particular shades.
Emotions play a crucial role in our lives. Thus, it’s only natural that they increase the emotional impact of online training. Create an online training environment that fosters positivity and supports corporate learners on an emotional level. This way they will be more likely to remember the key takeaways and apply them in the workplace, thereby improving your online training ROI and employee satisfaction scores.
Do you know how to tap into the power of colors in eLearning? Read the article Colors In Online Training: How To Transform The Online Training Experience Of Your Learners to discover top tips on how to transform your online training experience of your learners with color psychology.
