What Is Microlearning And How Can It Benefit Your Business?

Microlearning, which involves consuming educational material in short, focused bursts, may be the solution to boring training sessions that your business has been looking for.

Tell us if you’ve been in this situation before: you’re asked to go to an all-day training for your company. The trainers sit at the front of the room and drone on and on about topics that at first you were interested in hearing about, but by the end, you’re sleepy and can’t exactly remember what was talked about in the morning. Maybe you aren’t even sure what the trainer discussed an hour ago.

This is the problem that trainers face when dealing with today’s workforce, especially millennials. These workers are accustomed to finding information quickly at the moment they need it, which often makes them impatient when it comes to all-day training events. On top of that, modern workers in general are frequently interrupted by a variety of online work applications and collaboration tools that leave them little time to focus on training and development.

Knowing this, and understanding that two thirds of American workers complain that they do not have enough time to do their jobs, companies need to find new ways to educate their employees to ensure continuous learning and development. But how can they do that with a new mobile workforce that values flexibility?

Microlearning: The New Way To Train Your Employees

The new workforce isn’t consuming learning materials in 50-page employee manuals anymore. Not only that, but many new employees operate from a remote location, making in-office training nearly impossible due to budgetary constraints. So what is a company to do to educate their employees?

Enter microlearning. As we stated above, the modern learner is one that is easily distracted, constantly on-the-go, and is always searching for knowledge. With microlearning, companies and their training staffs can better connect with this new workforce by delivering information in short, digestible chunks.

The stats don’t lie: 94 percent of millennial workers desire a customized, bite-sized approach to their learning that is informal in nature. Let’s face it: who wouldn’t favor ten 5-minute lessons over one long 50-minute lesson?

The Benefits of Using Microlearning In Your Company

Microlearning isn’t just the latest fad in e-learning; it’s how future generations of workers will consume information as well. A company that implements microlearning in their training strategy will end up experiencing several benefits.

Employee Buy-In

The first, and most important benefit, is employee buy-in. A Software Advice study on employee engagement found that 58 percent of employees said they would be more likely to use their company’s online learning tools if they were broken up into shorter lessons.

Knowledge Retention

Another benefit to implementing microlearning is that your employees will retain more information from these short trainings. The human brain isn’t wired to maintain focus for long periods of time– we are constantly performing short and quick tasks that average less than five minutes.

Microlearning allows employees to learn in a similar manner to which they perform tasks, which explains why employees retain 20 percent more information through microlearning than traditional corporate training methods.

Mobile-Friendliness

The best microlearning software platforms are also mobile-friendly. Why does this matter for a company? Because your employees can access learning modules from everywhere, whether they’re sitting and waiting for a doctor’s appointment or working out before the workday starts. This can also help your employees when they have a job-oriented questions, enabling them to find quick answers by accessing microlearning modules. Not only that, but your employees will be spending less time training at work, and more time working, leading to increased productivity in the office.

Cost Savings

Finally, microlearning courses are easier to create and much less expensive than traditional education methods. Think about it: when you train in a classroom (or an office), you’re possibly having to rent space and spend money on class materials and equipment. Also, if you have employees leading the training, you’re taking away their working hours as well.

The digital nature of microlearning makes it easy to update information whenever a company needs to, while also allowing employees to conduct the training only once – by filming themselves giving the lesson.

We live in society that values rapid-fire, on-the-go access to bite-size information. That’s lot of buzzwords rolled into one sentence, but it underscores the importance that companies need to place on a microlearning solution for their employees. Look to a knowledge management solution that supports microlearning, allowing your employees to access information when they need it.