Embedding E-learning into your organisation is not just a technical problem, far from it. At its heart it’s a process of change; specifically a behavioural change in the way employees train and learn. Changing the behaviour of workers in your organisation is a notoriously difficult task. But it is a challenge you must be willing to take on if you really wish to evolve your company into one which embraces an E-learning culture.

My MBA dissertation centred on the concept of the Tipping Point and behavioural change. Organisations with experience of behavioural change often report that it takes a long period of time to try and change people’s actions. The Tipping Point, as described by Malcolm Gladwell, offers a theory of enacting rapid change. Gladwell’s book is more about hindsight than method and as such we looked at identifying a usable method to try and create a “Tipping Point” in a process of organisational behavioural change. We identified a series of five levers which could be used to enact behavioural change:

• Walking the Talk
• Influencing the Influencers
• Sticking the Message
• Rewarding the Behaviour
• Embedding the Understanding

None of these are groundbreaking on their own, but what we did develop was a piece of academic research (derived from over 700 respondents to a questionnaire) that showed these levers to be direct influencers on exactly how much an employee adopts a new behaviour or practice. Allow me to elaborate…

Walking the Talk: An oldie but a goodie. If you want to embed E-learning in your organisation, leaders have to embrace it first. You need to be the first person through it and you need to make sure others know that. It is often said that employees will copy your worst trait as a leader. You cannot tell your employees how important E-learning is whilst you ignore it. They won’t change and perhaps more importantly, they’ll think you’re a bit of an idiot.

Influencing the Influencers: Leaders aren’t the only source of influence within an organisation, far from it. Others within your organisation will wield the power to influence others, regardless of the presence of any legitimate power. They might be the loudest person, the oldest person, the youngest person, the coolest person. Whatever, when they talk, people listen. You will know who these people are. These are the people you need to be your evangelists for change. In some organisations there exists a culture that acts like an opposite force to management direction; whatever you say, they do the opposite. It is these influential’s who hold the key. Identify them and put them in a pilot group, you need them on board.

Sticking the Message: Again, this is simple. Your change needs an identity and its sticky message will be it. Your change initiative will need a name and an elevator pitch. Think Martin Luther King Jr – “I Have a Dream“. That was one hell of a sticky message. Come up with the message and then make sure it is everywhere – notice boards, walls, emails, mugs, mouse pads, whatever. When you’re enacting behavioural change you need to make sure that no-one can blag that they “haven’t heard about it”. If you can’t see a poster with your changes name and tag line on from wherever you’re sitting the job isn’t done yet.

Rewarding the Behaviour: This can be a tricky issue, mostly because people think it involves money. It doesn’t. When an employee starts to show a new behaviour you need to be quick on the draw with the reward. If they go so far as to actually do what you want, they need praise heaped upon them from a great height. In these circumstances, emotional reward is more important than monetary reward. For all but the most menial of tasks, money is not a motivator. Remember that. Little touches will reward behaviour suitably. If you send an email out to your team requesting they complete a piece of learning, or use a new tool for capturing learning you need to follow it up. The first person who does as you wish needs to be identified and then praised publicly. Follow up your first email with a group email that says “Big thanks to John for being the first person to use our new tool, a great example for others to follow”. Equally important here is the issue of medals. Everyone likes a medal. Make sure that completion of any formal course of E-learning comes with a certificate – a printable one. And make sure that any record of informal or social type learning is captured and look to reward suitably, consider Whuffie for example. There could be financial rewards here and do reinforce these where they appear (think pay rises dependant on a good Personal Development Review), but money is not sustainable or effective as the cornerstone of your reward package.

Embedding the Understanding: Knowing the tag line of a change process is not enough. For it to really embed within the organisation over the long-term, workers must understand why the change is better than the current situation and what the change really means for them. Take John Lewis (a major UK retailer) for example. Their sticky message is “Never Knowingly Undersold”. Ok, so I know the tagline, but what behaviours does this drive? As an employee, what is my reaction when a customer comes to me with a lower price from a competitor? This is more often than not a case of formally training employees. Assuming that people will “figure it out” isn’t enough – so what if they can use the features of a tool, they need to know how and why this is better and why it improves their life. Understanding the need for change is the single most important driver of embedding a behavioural change. Don’t leave it at an intuitive interface; people need to know how it is going to improve their lives!

Using these levers it is possible to influence the rate of change within an organisation. You need to lean on them all, but in doing-so it could be possible to enact change more rapidly than otherwise thought possible. Perhaps the most important lesson here is to realise the significance of using E-learning within your company. It’s not a nice little initiative that’s going away. It’s going to be a major part of working practice for decades to come. So do the groundwork now and you might find your people are much more open to innovation and new technology in the years to come…