In 2018, Choice University, the award-winning franchisee learning and development department within Choice Hotels, grew curious about our learners. A completed correlation analysis revealed that the more engaged hotel employees were with our L&D content, the more likely it was that the hotel they worked for had higher business metrics. As a result, it quickly became a goal for Choice University to pursue increased engagement.
To do this, we needed to focus on the learning experience. But what was the learning experience for our learners? Were we creating content to fit their needs? Were we presenting that content using methods they desired? When they entered our learning ecosystem, how did they feel about it and what were they doing? In order to drive the learning experience and increase our engagement, it was time to start answering those questions.
To begin, we started out simple. We went directly to our learners and asked them what they wanted. We did this by launching the Learning Preferences Survey. The purpose of this survey was to understand the desires of our learners so we could implement them in the content we were creating and the design of the learning ecosystem.
We started out with a few qualifying questions such as: “What is your job function?” and “How long have you been employed within your hotel?” to filter down our responses into different groups. Then, we dove into their preferences with questions like: “Why do you use the learning ecosystem?”, “What training method (video, e-learning, webinar, etc.) do you prefer to learn a new skill?”, and “What additional training can we offer to help improve your skill set?”
Our learners’ answers drove direct changes to the learning experience and our engagement. As an example, our learners overwhelmingly said they preferred the video training method. We overhauled part of the ecosystem to make it a video-only platform, reminiscent of YouTube, and refocused our content creators on delivering more video training. As a result, in three years, we quadrupled the view count of these videos, meeting the learners’ preferences directly.
Then, Choice University completed the Individual Engagement Analysis. This analysis was to understand the activity of the learners in our learning ecosystem. We accomplished this by monitoring users who registered for the learning ecosystem in January for different years and analyzing their activity after registration. This included everything from what content they were taking to how long they remained active on the learning ecosystem.
The results proved illuminating. In particular, it showed that line-level (non-management) employees of a hotel did not remain active on the learning ecosystem for very long, a little under 30 days to be exact. Knowing this drove us to make improvements to the new learner experience to drive our engagement numbers. These improvements included options like a walkthrough of the ecosystem upon registration of a new learner, and the creation and constant updating of “learning maps” to help guide learners to the content most recommended to them by our learning organization. These changes were direct improvements to our learning experience answering the discovered information about our learners.
Following the launch of the Learning Preferences Survey and the Individual Engagement Analysis, we began updating the gathered information on an annual basis. This is both to see if anything has changed since the last time we researched our learners and to ask newly gathered questions. The data provided from these methods has been particularly helpful in working with stakeholders, both within our department and without.
Within our department we were able to provide the data to our content creators, allowing them a better understanding of our learners. For example, a front office employee might be regularly distracted checking in and out guests from a hotel, so a long-form training method, such as an hour-long webinar, might not be the best suited for them. Video content, broken down into multiple short segments, might be a good alternative.
Outside of our department, it has allowed stakeholders a greater understanding of how our learners use the learning ecosystem. For example, if our line-level employees are only in the ecosystem for a short while, it would be recommended that a content launch involve more marketing, such as emails and internal messages, to both drive learners back to the ecosystem and to capture the attention of those already there. For our stakeholders, this has been a great way to increase engagement with their content and to increase engagement on the ecosystem in general.
Understanding our learners has allowed Choice University to drive the learning experience in a way that improves our engagement numbers and learning ecosystem. Surveying our learners allowed us to better understand their learning preferences by both learning more about them and determining how they want learning content presented to them. Analyzing learner activity showed us how learners were interacting with the learning ecosystem, which drove us to make changes to the ecosystem to better fit the needs of our learners.
All of this information, and resulting changes, allowed Choice University to take steps toward improving our learner’s engagement and driving hotel business results.
