Microlearning Strategies That Your Business Can Employ

A recent study released by Microsoft suggests that the majority of people only have an eight second attention span (meaning that we’re lagging behind goldfish in this department). Our short attention spans make retaining an entire day’s worth of classroom training a difficult task. As a result, companies are adapting their training methodologies to better suit employee needs. Many companies are developing microlearning courses–bite-sized chunks of activities that can be consumed between tasks or in the flow of work.

To take advantage of microlearning strategies that can be consumed on any device, many companies are adapting one or more of the following initiatives–and seeing tremendous benefits.

1. Podcast Lessons

When used effectively, podcasts are a great way to produce content and build relationships with your employees. Employees can easily subscribe to a podcast feed that automatically downloads to any device.

Podcasts are inexpensive to produce, and employees can listen as they perform other tasks at work. As an executive, you can structure the podcast to broadcast helpful lessons to your employees on a wide variety of topics, or even create a weekly sales training podcast to keep them abreast of the latest marketing information and product updates.

2. Instructional Videos

Instructional videos thrive in many environments. Companies can create short instructional videos on YouTube or on a company server so that they’re easily accessible for remote employees. These videos could range from subjects like how to properly fill out certain mandatory forms, to tips for handling customer complaints, or even how-to’s focusing on performing specific tasks related to an employee’s job duties.

3. Discussion Boards

Discussion boards offer up a number of advantages to companies. From giving new employees fast clarification on a particular type of training material, to chatting about new issues in the industry with a large group of people. They even provide a space for doling out kudos to a particular employee for completing an important part of a training session.

Some companies are applying gamification to discussion boards, which is a methodology that uses game thinking in a non-game-like situation to drive employee learning. For example, employees may compete for a prize based on who interacts on the board most.

4. Simulations

Some employees learn how to do their job from reading materials. Others learn it in real time. A simulation can enable an employee to learn a particular skill set by first providing them with instructions on the proper workflow needed to complete a task, and then by asking them to go step-by-step and try the same task in real life or in a virtual setting.

5. Games

Developing games for training is another creative way to bring microlearning to your company. Games can be as simple as figuring out how a particular type of food is supposed to be presented to a customer if you work at a restaurant, or a fun assessment to check an employee’s progress in a certain area. You can drum up some competition between employees by instituting a leaderboard so employees can measure not only how well they are doing on training, but also how they stack up to their peers.

6. Virtual Reality 

One of the newest venues for microlearning is virtual reality. VR might not be necessary for those employees who work on more desk-based tasks, but can be highly effective for those who have more physical roles. Virtual reality is already used across multiple industries, including construction, medicine, and combat training. These employees can build up their skills in a safer environment before heading out into the real world.

If your business isn’t working to adopt microlearning strategies for training, then you are quickly falling behind.  Microlearning is not only a great way for employees to retain information, but also a tool to help with employee retention and job satisfaction in general. It’s a new workforce out there, and employees want to access training information whenever they want. How can your business adopt to create a more informed, knowledgeable workforce?