How to Make Training More Engaging (9 Tactics)
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Nothing frustrates me quite as much as bad training. You know the kind where you're thinking to yourself, "this is a waste of my time." Maybe the content is generic or the facilitation is less than inspiring.
Whatever the reason, you disengage. And your brain goes from actively processing information to its default mode, which is daydreaming. Information goes in one ear and out the other. Your working memory isn't transferring to long-term memory, which means you're not retaining anything.
What makes training engaging?
Engaging training is thought-provoking. It challenges you to think.
Think about it this way, when you describe someone as engaging, what are you really saying? You're saying the person is captivating or perhaps animated. They draw you in.
The same is true for training that is engaging, it invites you to participate. But participation isn’t sufficient. You can take an action, like responding to a poll or clicking a hotspot, without really thinking.
Engagement is about what's going through someone's head as they take the action. It's about cognition. And that doesn't stop when the training ends. It continues when they apply what they've learned at work.
9 tactics for more engaging training
If I'm facilitating a small workshop my approach to designing for engagement will look different than if I'm creating a training video for hundreds of account executives.
I can tailor the workshop to the audience, and during the session check in with people, using their names to ask if they have questions or something to add. As a facilitator, I know how to dig deeper to get to second order discussions, and how to pivot when something isn’t landing.
None of that is possible when I’m designing a training video. I have to anticipate what I could be competing with — whether that’s someone watching the video on a treadmill or the subway ride home, or something else competing for their attention (looking at you, TikTok).
That’s why you have to modify your approach to engagement based on the training medium. Here are 9 tactics to try.
1. Open with purpose
It's tempting to provide exposition when you start any training. (Professors are notorious at doing this during lectures.) But in workplace training, you need to get right to the point. Set the expectations for the training, what will people walk away with?
2. Show what's at stake
After you've identified the purpose, show what's at stake. I call this the so what. Why should someone spend their precious time in this training? The so what should be measurable, for the business and for the employee. For instance: "This training will help you reduce customer cancellations by giving you a script and strategy to deescalate upset customers." This is your time to market the training. Be convincing.
3. Weave in real examples
Keep attention by preparing several real examples (this also reinforces the so what). You can collect these during your needs analysis, and use an LLM to spot patterns. In a live session, you could be prepared with these examples in case a discussion question falls flat, or in an async session, you could use the examples to prompt reflection. The goal of these examples is for employees to be able to relate.
4. Design challenging scenarios
Scenario-based learning gives employees the opportunity to make complex decisions in a risk-free environment. Good scenarios are nuanced. Offer multiple paths that appear to be correct at the surface. If the scenario resolves too easily, then no one is learning. Design for this tension.
5. Ask questions that require judgment
Depending on where you were educated, you may feel pressure to ask questions that are easily answered. You don't want people to be discouraged from raising their hand or responding to a prompt, so perhaps you start with softball questions. But then build towards questions that spark debate.
6. Create opportunities for peer learning
Some of the most effective training is designed around peers sharing knowledge. That can be entire sessions, like a "lunch and learn" or a postmortem after a product launch. It can also be a “pair and share” in a breakout room or even reflection prompts in a course (where you can see what others have shared before you).
7. Do less, change more
Identify one behavioral change you want to make with the training and design around it. Nothing else. Say you work in manufacturing and run a monthly training series. This month, after speaking with team leads, you learn there's one issue that keeps coming up. You design a five-minute training to correct the behavior. It’s so important that it's the only topic you cover this month.
8. Personalize at scale
One of the hardest parts of learning design has always been personalization at scale. Yet it's one of the most effective engagement tactics. With AI tools, you can more sustainably design for personalization at scale. Small touches, like a regional example or acknowledgement of cultural, regulatory, or competitive differences, go a long way.
If you want to see why personalization matters, read about Justdiggit. With AI, they localize training for more than 25,000 farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa.
9. Deliver learning in the flow of work
Learning in the flow of work is getting employees the information they need, when they need it. That means a sales rep preparing for a call in their CRM can find training resources right there, without switching tools. If you can put training where employees are already working, you're making it easy for them to opt in.
Applying the tactics
If you've already designed a training but aren't getting the engagement you want, here are a few examples of how to apply the tactics to improve the experience.
How to measure if training is engaging
If you've invested the time in redesigning your training, you probably want to know if it's actually more engaging.
There are three signals you can look for:
- Attention: Are employees completing the training or dropping off at a certain point?
- Thinking: Are employees responding immediately to questions in live sessions, or are they pausing, reflecting, and explaining their answers? In async content, is everyone selecting the same answer, or do responses vary?
- Application: Is the behavioral outcome you identified in the needs analysis changing? Look at the business metric.
No matter the training format, the question is the same: is the training changing how people behave?
This can also help you identify a training to start with. If there's a training that isn't driving impact, pick one engagement tactic I've shared and redesign around it. You can always try using our free video generator to convert existing content into short videos, and free up your live session time for the discussions that actually drive thinking.
Amy Vidor, PhD is a Learning & Development Evangelist at Synthesia, where she researches learning trends and helps organizations apply AI at scale. With 15 years of experience, she has advised companies, governments, and universities on skills.
Frequently asked questions
What makes training engaging?
Training is engaging when it earns attention. That means participants understand why the training matters to them, and how they can take what they learn and apply it to their work.
Does interactivity improve training engagement?
Engagement requires cognition. Someone can click through an interactive video, but that doesn't guarantee engagement.
For interactivity to lead to engagement, it needs to increase the level of thinking (e.g., asking someone to make a decision with real consequences).
How can I make compliance training more engaging?
Compliance training is often dull because it's generic content developed by a third party vendor. It has been designed to meet regulatory requirements (e.g., length of time), and not to change behaviors. That's a problem when compliance training has the potential to impact employee safety and wellbeing, not to mention organizational security.
To make compliance more engaging, personalize it, use storytelling, and segment the content. And if all else fails, turn the training into a competition. You'd be surprised what a leaderboard and some friendly competition can do for engagement.
Are training videos more engaging than slides or documents?
No format is inherently more engaging than another. A well-structured SOP can be more engaging than a poorly-structured video covering the same content.
Video can be more engaging than other mediums when it uses visuals and audio in a way that reduces cognitive load rather than adding to it.
How do you keep training engaging at scale?
One of the best ways to keep training engaging at scale is to identify ways to personalize content, whether by role, region, or both. AI platforms like Synthesia make this sustainable.
You can easily design one training video that is the source of truth, and then create versions that adapt to someone's responsibilities or local nuances.
What is the 70/20/10 rule in training?
In the 1980s, the Center for Creative Leadership released data that concluded 70% of learning happens on-the-job, 20% through social relationships, and 10% through formal training.
The "rule" makes several assumptions, including that unstructured learning automatically results in skill development, and that formal training transfers on the job without reinforcement. Because it was based on self-reported data from executives about leadership skills, researchers do not recommend it as a framework.
How do you know if training is engaging?
To measure whether training is engaging, look for signs of cognition. If the training is live, are people asking questions? Is the discussion moving to second-order thinking? If the training is async, are people pausing and rewatching? Are they giving quality responses?
After the training, you can look for signals of behavioral change, whether that's fewer questions in a support channel or a reduction in reported errors.
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