Training and employee quizzes in the digital era

These days the employee experience (EX) receives a great deal of attention. Companies spend billions of dollars on training staff, which is why there’s so much fuss around organization quizzes amongst other learning considerations. We’ve come a long way since the industrial revolution, to the point that forward-looking business managers understand that EX is indeed a long chain of touchpoints. Each one represents an employee interaction doing company business alone, or with customers and other employees. There are scores of them every day. A lot, of course, may be repetitive, but then the digital era continuously invents unique ones. A highly productive employee is one that passes through these touchpoints smoothly without obstacles, getting the job done efficiently in the fastest time. Generally, this happens when the company has done everything it can to engage and motivate employees. 

In many cases, the people we are training are already competent professionals. They’re experts in technology, sales enablement, performance management, and other specialized fields. So the question arises – “Isn’t it likely that the respondents feel that organization quizzes are nothing more than juvenile throwbacks to high school?” The answer to this is – quite possibly. The next logical question is, “Even if so, does a company quiz with some multiple-choice options help to get employees further up the competency ladder?” Yes, absolutely. 

Employee quizzes, indeed, are emerging as the next big thing in company training programs. The potential benefits are that they:

1. Monitor memory retention
2. Motivate the participants to achieve bigger things
3. Teach new concepts
4. Create confidence
5. Identify learning gaps that still exist

What can go wrong with the quizzing system?

The key to success lies in the following aspects of the employee quiz:

• Design
• Administration
• Interpretation
• Follow-up 
• Attaching an employee Job Satisfaction Survey

Before getting into the bright side of any respectable organizational behavior quiz, we must first address all the things that can go wrong. And there’s a lot that can take things down the wrong road. Employees, when asked about the employee quiz experience, frequently highlight issues that do more harm than good. These are as follows:

1. Boring, mundane, predictable, lacking variety – the fun has left the stage, making it a challenge to keep employees focused.  
2. It suppresses self-expression because most answers are multiple-choice or merely true or false. What about other thoughts not in the subject range? Don’t exclude these because they warrant a lot of thought.
3. Far too individualized, sometimes in sharp contrast to the company’s emphasis on teamwork for the rest of the touchpoint process. It’s a glaring lapse in quiz design when it fails to allow collaboration with others.
4. What happened to resource access in organization quizzes? In the work environment, employees can seek help in finding solutions – a privilege removed in the quiz scenario most of the time.
5. Too black and white, right or wrong. No guidance or support when there’s confusion with some of the questions.
6. Often unrealistic, bypassing the actual workplace challenges. Employee quizzes, to be meaningful, should reflect the job complexities and simulate realistic employee engagement.

Making better organization quizzes

Well, the sensible way to a better company quiz is to erase all the wrong things, but this is easier said than done. Here’s how I see it:

1. The quiz designer has an awesome responsibility to construct questions that are always relevant to what’s going on in the business. The employees, consciously or subconsciously, will try to connect the quiz questions to their work situation. The more they can do so, the more enthusiastic their engagement will be. If the quiz misses the crucial job concepts, the employee is likely to see it as a waste of time. 
2. Employee Job Satisfaction Surveys tell us that quizzes present an ideal opportunity to let staff express themselves. It’s a great way to be heard on any number of critical work issues. Multiple choice, the typical go-to quizzing method, works against this to an extent. 
3. Quiz designers, traditionally, have loved multiple-choice because it gives them the power to steer employee responses in ways they think best. However, organization quizzes are not there to bolster designer egos and “cleverness.” Just the opposite, in fact. Employees allowed to respond more freely, feel that their ideas and opinions count for something, especially if they see them adopted shortly afterward. Open-ended responses take into account that there are numerous solutions to identified problems. They also provide recognition – a primary driver of staff motivation. 
4. Try the group organizational behavior quiz as a way to get the team involved. If teamwork is important, why not get everyone connected to the job to participate in the quiz? Because this is a far more complicated challenge, companies seldom use it. However, with some creative thinking, it can be structured to simulate the group interaction. Moreover, solving a puzzle together will probably serve to knit the team tighter, especially if presented as a fun or gaming experience. Group testing adds to employee engagement, reduces anxiety, and creates more enthusiasm.
5. Mix things up by throwing in multiple-choice with free expression. By all means use sequencing to probe employees’ understanding of processes but don’t create predictability by overdoing it. The employee shouldn’t formulate early ideas as to the quiz theme, because that may invite unwanted bias. 
6. Degrees of difficulty in organization quizzes as the quiz process advances are fine, as long as it doesn’t take it to a level where the employee feels discouraged, over-anxious, or overwhelmed. The quiz designer must pace things out and think through the rationale of gradual progression. The employee should believe that going from one test to the next leads to somewhere rewarding. In other words, there has to be a bigger purpose to the exercise. Designers must rise to the challenge of maintaining employee engagement, and constructing regular employee job satisfaction surveys to keep the common thread intact. Take heed when employees tell you they “can’t see the point” of going through employee quizzes. 
7. We recommend providing clues and hints with the questions as a way to offer guidance and remove a feeling of isolation from the quiz room. The employees should go into a quiz with the understanding that the company wants them to excel, not fail, and has expended every effort to remove frustrating ambiguity.

How Sogolytics can help you structure organization quizzes that contribute to your performance management in a big way

Sogolytics can save you time and aggravation in structuring the well-crafted questions for your online employee quizzes. Its professional team knows how to connect your quiz strategy to EX compellingly and with encouraging results. We’ll also assist you with an employee job satisfaction survey to make sure you stay with the plot. You’ll find that the Sogolytics quiz methodologies are affordable to enterprises of all sizes. Their experts give you quiz templates and customization that ranks with the best, always with ROI in mind. The Sogolytics team is ready to make your experience seamless, educational, and above all, profitable.