The trigger effect: learning reinforcement

You have designed the perfect development program. Your participants complete it, and then promptly forget 75% of it; welcome to the reality of human nature!

German psychologist Hermann Ebinghaus quantified it with the forgetting curve. He demonstrated that a day or two after learning something new, most people forget about 75% of what they’ve learnt. He also showed that repetition and reviewing knowledge was key to knowledge retention. 

So high performing teams require more than just a development program that covers all the usual bases. Learning reinforcement is essential to refresh and build on the knowledge learnt as part of that program. This is where On.Board’s latest trigger feature comes into play. 

Triggering activities

Now, when your people complete a learning activity, On.Board will automatically send them a reminder/refresher/skills builder  further down the line — how far along, is up to you. 

Perhaps your new team members complete an activity regarding legislation pertinent to their role, it covers all the basics. They complete a quiz and the learning is signed off as complete. Completion triggers On.Board to deliver a refresher activity exactly one month later — this is learning reinforcement in action. 

This trigger activity helps managers verify whether their team members have learnt and retained the knowledge, which they may not have had to use in the month elapsed. This also serves as a reminder to employees on what they have learnt, and what knowledge gaps exist, encouraging them to revisit learning content and plug gaps in their understanding. 

This feature can equally be used to trigger team members to review and complete mandatory learning requirements six months or a year later, in line with relevant compliance regulations. 

The domino effect

What’s more, a series of triggers can be set up, incorporating quizzes, video, tasks to complete with confirmatory evidence etc. Each trigger can reinforce previously learnt knowledge while introducing something new. Over time, these triggers mitigate for the learning-loss and build a strong foundation for high performance.

Triggers will also soon be able to progress a learner from one program to the next as part of an overarching approach that supports graduation through different development levels. This is especially important in roles where progress is determined by technical or skills based capabilities such as engineers, technicians or compliance determined advisors. 

With On.Board, learning reinforcement is made easy; all you need to do is get trigger happy with your development programs.

To take a closer look at how On.Board works with all of our latest feature updates, request your demo.