In Part 1, I shared how I went from less than 10% engagement on the existing system to 70-80% sustained monthly engagement with Kruze U – a knowledge ecosystem that became the single source of truth for company information, not just training.
Now let’s talk about what actually drives that kind of engagement – and why most companies are solving the wrong problem.
What Actually Drives Engagement
You have to make your LMS the place people go when they need to find something.
This means:
Curate first, create second – Why recreate content when great resources already exist? Link to existing resources (YouTube, software help sites, etc.) instead of rebuilding everything from scratch.
Single source of truth – When someone needs company information, there should be one place they know to look. Not scattered across multiple systems.
Integration with daily workflow – Connect your LMS to tools people already use. We integrated with Slack and Google Calendar, and other external content/websites. When something new dropped, people got notified where they already were.
Just-in-time resources – People don’t always need another course. They may just need the answer to “How do I do this specific thing right now?”
The Architecture Matters as Much as the Content
I’ve seen companies invest heavily in creating beautiful custom eLearning courses, then wonder why engagement is still 20%.
The problem isn’t necessarily the quality of your courses. It’s that your LMS only has courses.
❓Think about it: Would you visit a website 200 times a year if the only thing there was training you’ve already completed? 🤔
No. You visit it when it has what you need, when you need it. That’s the difference between a training platform and a knowledge hub.
What This Actually Looks Like
New hire experience at Kruze:
- Hour two: You’re in Kruze U
- Week one: You’re using it daily for onboarding
- Week two: 70%+ of staff have already logged in
- Result: You know where to find things because you’ve been using it from day one
Ongoing experience:
- Need the Slack guide? Kruze U
- Looking for an SOP? Kruze U
- Want to learn something new? Kruze U
- Need company policy? Kruze U
It became the default answer to “Where do I find…?”
Looking for something?
It’s In Kruze U!
The Real Metric
Most companies measure course completion rates. I measured how often people actually used the platform.
Because here’s the thing: 100% completion on a required course doesn’t tell you if your LMS is valuable. It tells you people will do what’s required.
What tells you it’s valuable: People coming back 200 times a year when they don’t have to.
Conclusion
Your LMS engagement problem probably isn’t necessarily a training content problem. It’s may be an architecture problem.
If your LMS is only where people go for required training, don’t be surprised when they only show up for required training.
But if you build it as the place people go when they need to find something – when they need to learn how to do something right now, when they need company information, when they need resources – that’s when you see 70%+ engagement.
The difference between 20% and 70%?
- Architecture
- Integration
- Curation
- Making it the single source of truth
And maybe most importantly: understanding that people don’t just want more training. They want to find what they need when they need it.
That’s not revolutionary. That’s just understanding what people actually need and building for that instead of what you think an LMS should be.