In the face of COVID19, organizations faced a sudden change, that too an unpleasant one. With work from home becoming the new normal, they were left to figure out ways to adjust and survive the pandemic.
Thankfully, there’s always a silver lining no matter how challenging the situation is. During the COVID19 crisis, e-learning proved to be a ray of hope! It has given businesses the agility to modify their approach to learning while keeping up with the changing times.
Topics we will cover:
- What is Microlearning?
- How Does Microlearning Work?
- What Are the Benefits of Microlearning?
- Industries and Departments Where Microlearning Works Wonders
- Who Can Create a Microlearning Journey?
- Can You Create a Microlearning Journey?
- Will Microlearning Be Effective for Your Organization?
Exciting e-learning trends, particularly microlearning, has allowed companies to refresh valuable concepts and teach new lessons to position their employees for success and equip them to hit the ground running when they go back to the office.
If you’re finding it overwhelming to deliver valuable corporate training due to the impact of COVID19, the answers to all your questions lie in microlearning!
Microlearning is a bite-sized approach that will be a game-changer for you in terms of employee engagement, training efficiency, and knowledge retention.
You’d be surprised to hear that 58% of employees reported that they’d be more likely to enjoy learning if the content was broken into multiple shorter lessons. Shorter units allow them to focus and engage better, resulting in better knowledge retention.
Let’s discuss microlearning in detail.
What is Microlearning?
Before we jump into the discussion of microlearning, let’s make sure you understand what e-learning is.
E-learning is a unique learning system that incorporates electronic resources into formalized teaching. In the modern world where computers and internet dominate, this type of learning has become increasingly popular among businesses for training their employees. While it helps reap several benefits, it can be a little time-consuming and expensive.
Microlearning is especially beneficial for corporate training where you want the audience to understand and retain the information you deliver in the long run with better engagement rates.
Microlearning is all about breaking huge chunks of information into smaller learning units that employees find easy-to-digest. Contrary to the traditional training approach that relies on delivering comprehensive content that covers all aspects of a concept in one go over a long period, microlearning allows you to offer bite-sized training material for particular needs.
The reason why microlearning is all the rage now is that it complements the short attention span of the modern-day people leading a fast-paced lifestyle.
Research demonstrates that the average attention span of humans in 2000 was 12 seconds. After two decades, it has dropped to just 8 seconds, which by the way is a point lower than the ill-focused goldfish!
How Does Microlearning Work?
One of the reasons for our declining attention span is that the content we consume on a daily basis is increasing in volume. On top of that, our curiosity and thirst for novel information make us switch between topics more frequently. The internet is physically affecting our brains and exhausting our attention spans.
This is where microlearning comes in!
It works on the principle that little and often is a better learning solution. In a world where people are always busy, all they need is small chunks of information that cuts straight to the point. This is the best way to increase long-term comprehension rates.
We can better understand microlearning by shedding light on the theory of spaced learning. This concept was best explained by Hermann Ebbinghaus’ research. The German researcher found that progressive feeding of new information into the brain take little time to decay.
Keeping this in mind, he suggested that information should be spread out over periods instead of consuming everything at the same time. He implied that learning could be done better with repeated practice, as people would retain more knowledge with each repetition. For instance, if you have a one-hour training course for your employees, you should consider breaking it down into four 15-minute parts for effective learning.
Learning over time proves more fruitful, as all information goes into the long-term memory where it stays for extended periods. On the other hand, traditional learning methods target the sensory or short-term memory, where information doesn’t last for long.
You must have heard the story of the hare and the tortoise. Microlearning can be your ‘slow and steady’ tortoise that will help you win big at corporate training. If you want your employees to enjoy the training sessions and learn from them, you must incorporate microlearning into your training strategy. It can be a powerful tool for making a cultural shift from being an organization where people dread training to one where continuous learning is actively encouraged.
What Are the Benefits of Microlearning?
Below are the top benefits of microlearning:
1. Less Time-Consuming
Microlearning shortens the course delivery time and hence, doesn’t feel like a time stealer. As an employer, you have little to do, as there are fewer things to write or prepare. Thanks to the fast delivery, you can create a training course with several units in an hour. Moreover, you’re able to address ever-changing business goals and training demands efficiently.
2. More Flexibility
With microlearning, you get to enjoy greater flexibility with learning concepts. There’s no subject that you can’t cover with microlearning courses. You can easily include everything that regular e-learning courses offer but in a bite-sized way. Whether you want to touch upon a complex topic or give an overview of a broad subject, microlearning is the way to go.
3. Boosts Employee Engagement
The best thing about microlearning courses is that the learners find them engaging and exciting. This training delivery method offers a unique experience similar to scrolling through an interesting social media app on the smartphone. When applied to corporate training, microlearning doesn’t give the feeling of ‘serious studying’. Employees don’t find it boring. In fact, they may actually look forward to the next training session!
4. More Affordable
Since microlearning courses are short, they require fewer resources and instructors. You don’t even need any special tools for conducting corporate training. You can opt for a specialized platform, like Code of Talent, to take things to the next level. All in all, microlearning offers a more affordable solution as compared to regular training methods.
5. Gives Freedom to the Learners
Going through text-heavy training materials feels no less than a tedious task for employees, especially when they have so much to do at work. It might tire them and even disrupt their work-life balance. On the other hand, microlearning allows learners to acquire information in short stints. This means they can enjoy learning whenever they have some extra time on their hands.
Microlearning offers a seamless way of incorporating learning into the regular workflow, allowing companies to promote a culture of learning and enjoy increased productivity. An added benefit is that microlearning courses can be downloaded and studied on the go!
6. Improves Knowledge Retention
Microlearning allows repeated practice, meaning the learners can revisit the course when they’re close to forgetting it. Thus, knowledge retention is much better. The straightforward information presented in small units is easy to return to and is likely to be remembered by the learners for long periods.
Another survey revealed that 58% of the employees were more likely to use the company’s online learning tools if the information was broken down into multiple shorter pieces.
Additionally, 71% of people who participated in a research study reported that microlearning videos played a key role in in-depth learning.
Industries and Departments Where Microlearning Works Wonders
Microlearning has been empowering organizations across industries for years now. It helps boost employee engagement and productivity through bite-sized, skill-focused learning. The global microlearning market size was USD 1.5 billion in 2019. It is expected to grow up to USD 2.7 billion by 2024!
As more and more companies are embracing new technologies and inclining towards digitization and automation of training for increased business growth, the microlearning market continues to climb the ladder of global market growth.
Typically, any industry or department that wants to provide skill-based learning to their employees can benefit from microlearning. Companies in retail, manufacturing, logistics, IT, telecom, and healthcare sectors are especially yielding amazing results from this training approach.
Who Can Create a Microlearning Journey?
Anyone can create a microlearning journey, as it’s fairly simple. You just need to buy and set up a responsive e-learning authoring tool so that the employees can access all the courses on a variety of electronic devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
The authoring tool is essential to your microlearning journey because it gives your employees the freedom to learn wherever and whenever they want. You can import your training materials into those templates and voila, your very own microlesson is ready! The best thing about creating a microlearning journey is that it takes no more than a few minutes.
That being said, professional assistance and support always helps, especially when you’re jumping on the microlearning bandwagon and striving to take your organization’s training game to the next level. Code of Talent is a one-stop platform that aims to help you turn learning into doing and make the learning experience intuitive and engaging for your employees. The best thing is that you can customize the entire learning experience with our specialized tools. You can delve into a variety of interactions and stay on top of the microlearning journey with real-time reporting and analytics.
Can You Create a Microlearning Journey?
Given that you have chosen Code of Talent, you can surely create a unique microlearning journey for your employees. However, if you’ve never done it before, you may feel confused and somewhat overwhelmed with all the content you have.
Don’t worry; that’s what we’re here for!
Just so we’re on the same page, breaking loads of training material into bite-sized chunks doesn’t guarantee that your employees will enjoy the session. Creating an engaging microlearning journey is more than just dividing content into smaller units. The goal is to deliver a training session that inspires people and drives behavior change.
Here’s a helpful microlearning template that you can follow:
Step 1:
You must choose the title and description carefully to highlight the objectives of your training module. The goal of your training session should be clear. Learners should have an idea of what your training is about before they even go through the course.
Step 2:
Make sure your training material grabs the attention of the learners immediately. As soon as they open the course, they should know why it is so important.
Step 3:
You can have the learners take a quick quiz or gauge their understanding of the subject through a quick story, proof, or point of view session before moving on to the training.
Step 4:
Deliver the training. Ideally, it should take you two minutes. However, you can extend it to five minutes but not more than that.
Step 5:
Discuss a scenario and encourage the learners to apply their knowledge.
Step 6:
Use gamification techniques to boost engagement.
With this microlearning template, you can deliver high-impact training sessions and take your organization’s learning and development game to the next level!
So, what are you waiting for?
It’s time to turn learning into doing with Code of Talent.
Will Microlearning Be Effective for Your Organization?
Whether you’re a startup or an established organization, you can enjoy the great benefits of microlearning by joining hands with Code of Talent. No matter which industry you belong to, you must understand that microlearning is the future of e-learning.
If you want your organization to stand out from the crowd and thrive in the competitive stratosphere, and especially if you have millennial workers, this customized, bite-sized training approach is the way to go.
Here are a few tips to ensure you make the most of microlearning:
- Understand your employees
- Identify a clear learning objective
- Apply the ‘turn learning into doing’mantra
- Use real-world examples
- Encourage your employees to create their own scenarios
- Leverage the power of videos, demos, and infographics
- Use a conversational tone and speak in the active voice
- Focus on the most important information first
Final Words
Microlearning isn’t just a unique e-learning approach but it is how the future generations will consume information. If you want to cultivate a learning culture in your organization and stay ahead of the competition, you need to jump on the microlearning bandwagon.
With us, get ready to build microlearning journeys that your employees will love and engage fully in!
If you’re still confused, you can take a poll and ask your employees whether they’d prefer one 50-minute training session or ten 5-minute sessions.
We know what the results will say but go, find out for yourself!
