In today’s times, running a business has become more demanding than ever. With multiple, complex prociesses to handle and little-to-no time to incorporate additional learning to upskill oneself, microlearning presents itself as a much-needed solution for employees.
Gone are the days when you would have the appropriate time and resources to enroll in a formal training program to learn an added skill or supplement your existing knowledge. Thanks to the boom in technology, we can now access a world of information in the comfort of our homes. Through accessing the internet and discovering a range of reading, auditory, and visual materials, you can learn about anything you want—that too without the intervention of another person.
This article will shed light on microlearning and how it can help companies leverage its strength and grow their business across different industries.
Microlearning: What is it?
Microlearning strategies use bite-sized pieces of information and digital content to deliver the right knowledge and skills at the right time using various multimedia channels. The primary goal of this approach is to equip learners with the knowledge they seek without requiring them to invest a lot of time and effort. This trending concept is a real game-changer for both professional and personal learning.
Microlearning is beneficial for training employees in new skills or updating their workplace knowledge. It enables managers to quickly and efficiently enhance their team’s capabilities and overall productivity. Since microlearning involves delivering short-term learning in small segments, it doesn’t interfere with the daily operations the team works on. Microlearning content can be prepared in various formats, but the intent should be to enable learners to access information quickly through mediums that are most suited to them.
Is Microlearning Effective?
It is. Since microlearning allows people to learn at their own time and pace, integrating programs into busy work schedules can pay huge dividends for the long-term success of your organization. Below you will find some practical tips for implementing microlearning for your organization.
Use Different Micro Content Formats
As mentioned before, many different types of content are available to improve e-learning strategies used by your organization. These include videos, images, infographics, slideshows, informative documents, and interactive content like quizzes and emailers. These are all effective mediums to encourage your employees to squeeze microlearning into their busy days. These mediums will help them pick their preferred method to learn more about a topic and hold their otherwise scarce attention.
Here’s a pro tip for retaining information on textual documents – Hyperlink as many supplemental learning materials as possible to offer added resources, especially for topics that may be vast and complex.
Offer a Learning Window
Due to crunched deadlines and other commitments, some people may not take the e-training courses or read the information you share. One way to tackle this is by highlighting the content learners need to focus on the most. Using color coding to prioritize learning material can enhance learning and retention.
Additionally, factor in some free time for your employees when scheduling deliverables for the day. This task is best managed by team leads who clearly understand teams’ targets. When your employees can afford some pockets of time to integrate small learnings, you can ensure the delivered content is consumed promptly and adequately.
Hosting Webinars
Webinars are a great way to increase employee engagement. For learning and development purposes, these are especially useful. Teams and management can come together in a virtual room and talk about different aspects of the businesses, bouncing ideas off one another and, most importantly, learning from each other. Hearing valuable insights from C-suite executives and asking them questions about important processes fosters an open company culture.
While live webinars offer a forum for employees to share ideas and learn from each other, recorded webinars allow teams to watch the content in their own time. Either way, they’re learning something new.
Employ Gamification Techniques
You can easily step up employee engagement by rolling out interactive content for your teams through short quizzes and points-based leaderboards for learning programs. Gamification uses points, badges, and leaderboards to motivate teams to participate in quizzes, games like spin-the-wheel challenges, etc. Upon completion, they’re rewarded with points and certificates; those who win might take away a small prize. In the long run, this helps with knowledge retention and developing a positive relationship with learning.
Including gamification elements in your microlearning strategies can boost employees’ understanding of a complex subject. Knowing that a reward is on the way for learning something new will put them on their mettle.
Avoid Information Overload
Every employee must be able to retain information easily. This means the content you share with them should be presented straightforwardly and not require multiple readings. Wordy paragraphs can make it difficult for people to ingest information and turn your content pieces into a series of head-scratchers.
Keep the content short and simple, and always have a clear learning objective in mind while designing your learning and development resources. Researching and organizing information may be a lot of work, but it’s worth every effort.
Why is Microlearning the Way Forward for Businesses?
Microlearning has a promising future in the workplace. The freedom to learn as and when employees want to, the amount of information they’re willing to imbibe, and the medium they choose render micro lessons a force to reckon with. This learning method is highly valued in fast-paced professional environments. Even though your work may never stop, you can still count on microlearning resources to train your staff in new skills and promote their professional growth and development.
