How to Make Training More Engaging and Change Behavior

Many people can recall a training that nearly put them to sleep. Annual compliance courses are a common example. The topic matters. The risks are real. The training likely included knowledge checks and a few scenarios meant to keep attention — often the same ones people have seen year after year.

And yet, engagement was limited.

This experience is widespread in virtual training. Interactive elements are present, but they don’t consistently hold attention or change behavior. Learners move through questions and scenarios with little showing up later in how decisions are made, risks are handled, or work actually gets done.

In this guide, we’ll explore what research shows about engagement, why common approaches fall short as training scales across teams and regions, and how to design learning that earns attention and actually changes behavior in real work.

Engagement is a design outcome

Training becomes engaging when people are required to participate cognitively. Attention increases when learners are asked to retrieve information, make decisions, or apply ideas, rather than move passively through content.

Research across multimedia learning and active learning consistently shows that short, focused segments support stronger engagement and retention than long, uninterrupted sessions. Embedded questions, reflection prompts, and learner control interrupt passive viewing and encourage deeper processing.

Why engagement breaks at scale

Engagement problems emerge when training design doesn’t account for how people work, decide, and prioritize in real environments.

Three patterns appear repeatedly in organizations:

• Cognitive overload
  Training often covers too much at once. Long sessions and dense modules ask learners to juggle competing ideas without clear prioritization.
• Context mismatch
  One-size-fits-all programs struggle to connect to specific roles, regions, or moments of need. When relevance is unclear, attention fades quickly.
• Passive consumption
  Many programs rely on watching, listening, or clicking through content. Even with questions or scenarios included, learners are seldom required to retrieve, decide, or apply ideas in ways that shape behavior.

As training is reused across teams, functions, and regions, these issues compound. Learning becomes harder to use because design choices don’t support focus or application.

Research on learning and engagement adds value here as a guide for making better design decisions.

What engaging training looks like

Engagement improves when learning is structured around how and when people actually work.

In-person sessions

Well-designed in-person learning uses shared time for activities that benefit from being together, such as:

• Small-group problem solving around real scenarios teams are facing
• Decision discussions that surface trade-offs leaders actually manage
• Practice with feedback guided by a facilitator

These moments help people test ideas, learn from others, and build confidence before returning to work.

Virtual training

Virtual learning holds attention when structure supports focus without overload, especially for distributed teams:

• Short prompts that ask participants to choose a response or predict an outcome
• Breakout conversations tied to specific tasks or decisions
• Reflection pauses that connect ideas to a role or responsibility

Designed with intent, virtual training alternates between listening and doing.

Large events and programs

Conferences and multi-day programs work best when they include:

• Scenario-based discussions anchored in organizational priorities
• Peer exchange across teams or regions facing similar challenges
• Guided reflection on what participants will apply after the event

Across formats, engagement improves when moments of recall, judgment, and application are deliberately designed into the experience.

💡 Key Takeaway
‍When learning is structured around relevance and participation, attention follows, and engagement becomes a natural outcome of effective instructional design.

Why engagement tactics break down over time

Many training teams understand what engaging learning should look like. They design shorter modules, add questions, and introduce scenarios. Early results are often positive.

Challenges appear as programs are reused and scaled. Content becomes harder to update. Examples lose relevance as tools and processes change. Interactivity becomes predictable. Engagement declines, not because the original design was flawed, but because maintaining relevance requires ongoing effort.

This is especially visible in onboarding, enablement, and compliance. New hires join continuously. Tools evolve. Regional differences matter. Engagement suffers when learning is frozen in a single format or tied to scheduled sessions that can’t keep pace with change.

Why video supports engaging training at scale

Once engagement is designed into the learning experience, the delivery format determines how easily that design can be applied and maintained.

Video works well because it supports several engagement-friendly design choices at the same time:

• Short scenes help learners focus on one idea at a time.
• Direct address clarifies what matters and why.
• Learner-paced playback allows people to pause, revisit, and apply ideas as they work.

Video also reduces friction when training needs to change. Updates can be made without re-running live sessions. Localized versions can be created without redesigning the entire experience, which makes it easier to keep examples current across roles and regions.

Used this way, video doesn’t replace good instructional design. It reinforces it by making modular, adaptable training easier to deliver without increasing coordination or facilitation effort.

💡 If you want to see how this works in practice, try a tool like Synthesia and edit a training template (like the one below) to see how interactivity is built into the structure.