So, how do all the companies make corporate training more effective? How do they improve the e-learning experience for an audience whether it being employees or students?

Well, they have found a way to engage the recipients in a rewarding way – something called gamification. Gamification can be even more rewarding if done in an employee’s mother tongue. Let’s show you how it works.

Gamification - but I’m not a gamer!

… you might think.

When we talk gamification, we’re not merely referring to gaming in the sense you might think of. Gamification is all about applying gaming mechanics and gaming dynamics to an e-learning experience or other non-gaming environments. This way you can engage with consumers and employees to inspire them. This is due to the gaming mechanics, consisting of immediate feedback on the progression of the audience in a work environment. They receive achievements and are guided towards the next business goal. This type of experience affects the way the audience feels during the process. It’s an emotional experience, you could say.

But what are these mechanics and dynamics then?

The gaming mechanics could be points, levels, missions, leader boards, badges, and achievements. It’s about the progress of the audience in the gamification experience. The examples from before are leading us to the dynamics. Leader boards, missions, or reaching a higher level workwise could make the audience feel joy or motivated and so on.

Competition can start occurring when you’re not holding first place on the leader board compared to other participants. This taps into your emotions and creates another behaviour. You try to be the best and fastest at completing missions. “Why is this a good thing?” you might start thinking now. Try imagining yourself being overtaken by a co-worker completing more missions than you at the office. “Wow he’s productive!” you might start to think, along with “I want to reclaim my position!”. And there you go! It just boosted the productivity level since you’re now doing everything to get better. Then imagine this effect expanding to the whole office.

What does gamification do for your audience?

Gamification influences and motivates the audience, which means gamification can encourage and reward behavior that’s beneficial for the company. In general, it can:

  • Increase the adoption and use of learning management tools.
  • Promote retention and results in employees.
  • Increase the knowledge sharing of the employees to improve service levels.
  • Boost call center employee performance and satisfaction. [Source]

Is gamification the only way to improve the e-learning experience?

Not really.

There are other aspects to improve it. Here, we’ll talk about the voice-over for e-learning in the corporate training of employees. A lingua franca is a widely accepted international language. Like English. It can be a good way for employees to collaborate across borders.

English isn’t always the solution

In an internal context of training employees, if you only use English in training, it can result in misinterpretations. Why? Because if some of the employees don’t speak the native language, or the lingua franca proficiently, understanding differences can lower productivity. Worst case scenario, a lack of correct understanding can result in injuries, and even loss of life, depending on the line of business.

Instead, try utilizing the narrative skills of multiple native speakers in your e-learning course, covering the majority of your workforce languages to boost engagement. It will bring them more comfort and improve in employees doing a lot more for the work environment and improve productivity.

Give your gamification a voice!

Another important aspect to mention is the use of voice-over together with gamification. Personalization is typically part of voice-over since voice-over creates a relation to the audience. Usually, the voice-over lies within the role of a narrator or other characters interacting with the people taking the e-learning course. This affects the script, since it’s of importance to educate people in their mother tongue, and there are some languages that assign gender to nouns in general. This could be Spanish or Portuguese! For instance, if the narrator asks the course-takers “Are you tired?” you would assign the gender to the adjective “tired” in Spanish, being “cansado” if it’s asked to a man and “cansada” if asked to a woman.

These are just a few of the things you must take into consideration, but in general voice-over compliments gamification systems well, because of the high level of interaction, it creates for the e-learning course-takers.

So, what do you have to remember when starting your e-learning project?

1. Prepare your script for voice-over

You must make sure that the voice actor and the production team has all the necessary information to make the project a success. How many languages do you need? Is the script timecoded? Or have you chosen the right terminology? These are some of the important aspects to consider.

At VoiceArchive we encourage our clients to start a briefing where we talk about the details of the script.

2. Get a project manager

A project manager will help you identify and describe all the details of the project. It can be very time-consuming to look through a voice actor pool several work samples. That’s why it would be a good idea to have this workload removed by having a project manager. A project manager will provide you with advice and guidance and guide you.

At VoiceArchive we understand what your project needs, and we can spare you a huge amount of time by helping you with your project.

3. Hire the right voice actor

Hire a real human voice actor. For e-learning projects, the voice actor must have stamina, flow, pronunciation, and the ability to adjust speed. It’s also important that the voice actor is a native speaker of the chosen language for the project. Then they know the cultural background of the target audience.

At VoiceArchive we know what to look for in a voice actor in every project. We can help you find the perfect voice!

4. Adjust different language lengths to the script

Some languages are typically spoken in longer sentences – like Spanish! So, you need to be aware of this when you translate the original language into another. Make sure the timing is right with the right timecoding.

VoiceArchive can help you with this. You’ll save a lot of time since it requires a lot of editing and expertise.

5. Make sure the audio quality is perfect across all devices

Audio mixing is a delicate process, and it requires expertise and a lot of work. Your audience can possibly listen to the e-learning course with headphones on or on other electronic devices. That’s why you should make sure you have the right team to have your back. Have your voice over done professionally.

At VoiceArchive we offer post-production to make sure your project will have the right script, voice, and audio quality for all devices.

6. If you’re producing regular e-learning content….use a smart ordering system

Ordering voices and project managers for a project can also be time-consuming. VoiceArchive’s offers a smart ordering that provides you with a personalized voice talent pool matching your language and price range requirements via a portal for you and your company. This saves you time with e-mail and phone call correspondence.

Let's make some voice over

Anna Sticken

Global Key Account Manager