Why choose Mentem?
We (and our learners) finish what we start.
ByLiz Smith
Supporting completion rates in reskilling programs
“For the best return on your money, pour your purse into your head.” ― Benjamin Franklin
Investing in reskilling programs is a smart move for both individuals and organisations. However, if completion rates are low, Franklin’s suggested investment can quickly turn into a waste of resources.
What's the problem?
Successfully balancing work and study is a well-documented challenge. Part-time university students have a completion rate nearly 20% lower than their full-time counterparts. This discrepancy is largely attributed to the difficulty of balancing work, life, and study commitments. In the world of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), the double-edged sword of flexibility can come with learner procrastination, lack of motivation and eventual withdrawal, resulting in an average completion rate of just 12%. All these challenges are magnified further for adult learners studying whilst in the fulltime workforce.
How to best support adult learners to successfully complete a reskilling program requires careful consideration.
Adult learners have distinct needs and preferences compared to younger students. Juggling full time work, study and life commitments is not easy. Adult learners are motivated by and benefit from practical, relevant content that can be immediately applied to their work. They need to see the relevance of the learning to the personal goals and how it links to their experience and their place in the organisation. Knowing that the organisation values the learning culture in the workplace and the outcome is important. The ability to be self-directed and afforded flexibility in learning schedules and formats is crucial to accommodate work and personal schedules.
By attending to these principles, we can create the conditions for learner success.
Let’s take a deeper dive
So, what does this look like in practice? There are things that both the organisation and the learning provider can do to really set their learners up for success, AKA completion.
The organisation can support learner completion by:
| At Mentem, we’ve helped organisations create expression of interest tools and processes for gauging learner suitability and provide information sessions and brochures to ensure that learners have the information they need to make the decision to enrol to maximise employee potential realisation. |
| At Mentem we work with organisations to ensure we schedule courses and live sessions to accommodate learner locations, time zones, schedules and major workplace initiatives. |
| At Mentem we assist organisations with information and communication across the organisation, so managers understand the program and can support their teams to complete. |
| At Mentem, our discovery process ensures that we understand how our program fits with the broader strategic workforce planning of the organisation. This helps us create content pitched at the right level, and is relevant, and in turn, motivating for learners. |
| At Mentem we create assets for the organisation to help communicate benefits to learners including video, print and live sessions. |
| At Mentem we encourage senior leadership to participate in kick off sessions to connect organisational strategy with the course and to show support for learners. We include an organisational welcome in all course materials. |
| Mentem’s Insights platform allows organisations to track learner progress and identify learners requiring follow-up. Mentem also provides coaching resources to assist organisations better support their learners succeed in their learning goals. |
Enterprise learning solutions providers can support learner completion by:
| Mentem’s course structure allows learners to complete online topics at anytime from anywhere. 20-minute bite size learning can easily be accommodated in work and personal schedules. |
| At Mentem we work closely with the organisation to determine a realistic volume of learning each week and the duration of the program. Live sessions are scheduled to maintain momentum and integrate social learning opportunities to help learning ‘stick’. |
| Mentem co-creates curriculum with the organisation to ensure examples and case studies are relevant to learners and can be applied on the job. |
| Mentem works closely with organisations throughout the discovery and design phase to ensure content relates to the organisation. Bespoke, organisation specific topics are created where required. |
| Interactive LMS features such as online discussion boards are used for general support and targeted content-based discussion with discussion prompts included throughout online modules. |
| Weekly live ‘on the job’ sessions in cohort groups led by Mentem experts allow practical application of weekly content. |
| Mentem programs include formal, social and on the job learning experiences. Online modules utilise a combination of text, video, discussion and practical exercises to accommodate learning preferences. |
| Mentem sources facilitators with both teaching expertise and industry experience to support learners. Where appropriate Mentem utilises organisation based leaders to provide a workplace context to content presented. |
| Social learning and the formation of communities of practice is encouraged through discussion groups and groupwork during on-the-job sessions. |
| A dedicated Mentem Learner Success Team combined with the Mentem Insights platform ensures that proactive support is provided to facilitate learner success and completion. |
By implementing these actions, organisations and corparate learning solutions providers can create a supportive learning environment that aligns with adult learning principles, ultimately leading to higher completion rates and more effective upskilling programs.
So, if the proof is in the pudding, we think at Mentem we’ve developed quite a tasty offering. How can we tell?
The acceptance rate for our digital badges is 25% higher than the global average. Our learners are proud of their achievements, and it’s a real buzz to see my LinkedIn feed filled with posts beginning with ‘I’m proud to share I've achieved a new qualification’ and even better, ‘I’m pleased to share I have a new role’.
Hundreds of learners apply through our EOI tool for each upcoming program - our clients have a long list of candidates to select from and all courses are easily filled. Read more: Why Mentem? Because we solve real problems for our clients
The vast majority of our learners rate our programs as relevant or highly relevant.
And finally, our completion rate consistently sits above 92%
Liz Smith
Liz has more than 25 years’ experience in learning design and the student experience in higher education. She has designed some of Australia’s most innovative and highly regarded learning programs and received national recognition for her work. Liz developed the Mentem learning model and FIRST principles and leads the learning design team who ensure Mentem programs meet client and learner needs. In her spare time, Liz is a keen cyclist, hiker and café and coffee research assistant.
