Microlearning Enhances Corporate Training

5 Must-have Microlearning Assets that you may have undermined

What is Microlearning?

Microlearning is a bitesize learning strategy that provides a series of small snippets of information by breaking lengthy courses into micro-units, which are usually 3-5 minutes long. Each micro-unit deals with one key objective to ensure the learner accomplishes a specific performance outcome. It can provide timely and adequate learning information for employees. This helps distracted employees to focus in a time-pressed workplace and to activate effective training.

Offset challenges with microlearning 

Microlearning is more about developing a mindset, a habit, to drive continuous learning and beat the forgetting curve. A continuous learning approach is proven to benefit organizations in several ways. It can help your employees become more agile, i.e., the ability to cater to the urgent demand of the modern corporate landscape. This also helps firms to quickly and effectively adapt to the changes and developments. The dwindling attention span, however, stands between you and your business goals. Even though it is now easy to attract people with modern-day tactics, it has become harder to keep them engaged for even 10 seconds! It is not just about being advanced but also smart when it comes to corporate training. With microlearning, you can deliver training – designed with interactive components – that is short, precise, and easy to produce and consume, thus curbing the abovementioned challenges. 

In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus performed experiments on human memory and developed a hypothesis called the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. It states that people tend to forget 80% of what they learn in a matter of days, unless the knowledge is repeated and applied in some aspects. You can beat this challenge by leveraging microlearning to refresh your employees’ knowledge periodically. As employees are less likely to interact in the classroom regularly, microlearning can be used to provide follow-up and reinforcement activities, strengthening their cognitive ability and enabling continual learning.

Having seen digital platforms monetizing video content for years compels us to state that we have long undermined the power of microlearning. Micro content has been around us for the past many years – have you watched Instagram reels or quick news stories on your little supercomputer? But it is never too late to invest in it. You now have redeemed a chance to revamp your corporate L&D strategy and help your employees with skills and cognitive ability by leveraging this eLearning solution to attain your business goals and be ahead of competitors. Before heading towards the implementation part, let us have a quick view of its strength within the eLearning industry.

Strengths of Microlearning

Here are a few points – just six because anything more than that can be exhausting. Microlearning is good at the following: 

• Breaking complex topics into easy-to-absorb formats 
• Retaining knowledge within a shorter attention span 
• Making learning material easily discoverable 
• Changing habits toward learning
• Reinforcing learning
• Fostering continuous learning

5 must-have microlearning assets for corporate training

Micro video

Video-based learning is among the top eLearning trends as it is more visually appealing and dynamic and holds more potential to transfer learning effectively. It also facilitates the rapid dissemination of knowledge, helping to retain the employee’s attention longer. A recent study shows that video content will flood the Internet in 2022. It should not come as a surprise as we ourselves have experienced the impact of videos. It is easy for the trainer to break complex topics into a simple, understandable format, as well as easy for the employee to comprehend such in just a matter of minutes. You can also make microlearning videos a part of your longer learning path.

Examples:

• Brief videos (for new products/services) 
• How-to videos
• Demonstration videos 
• Explainer videos
• Sales training, product training, and software training

Quick games

Of all the stress busters, nothing can beat games, as they are fun and a source of excitement and positive emotions for any age group. That is the main motive of game-based learning. It helps the employee to learn in fun and interactive ways. The most intriguing, basic gameplay design includes a learner completing a task that is scored at the end, and that includes badges, awards, notoriety, or other incentives for achieving a high score. The combination of game levels, scores, and results is called gamification. Gamifying the training makes the learning enjoyable yet impactful. Any gamification support can favour enhancement in performance as it offers incentives for playing, which fuels interests and employee engagement. You can use this trendy approach to transform your branching scenarios into a series of quick serious games, which is highly likely to temporarily immerse your employees in the training and make it a memorable learning experience.

Examples:

• Quizzes
• Flashcards
• Questions & responses
• Answer recordings

Infographics

As you are already familiar with this term, infographics are a way to represent large data, information, and knowledge in an appealing graphical format. This helps the learner comprehend such large bites of information quickly. Infographics offer you a creative way to illustrate complicated data by creating a visual representation, which also helps learners to extract the key points of a topic. With the right authoring tool, you can make use of all interactive components such as graphs, images, charts, multimedia etc. to make the concepts clearer and learning immersive.

Examples:

Infographics can be used for showing the below:

• Do’s and don’ts 
• Quick tips
• Guidelines
• Principles

Interactive PDFs, a shortcut to lengthy documents

Yes, we know what you are thinking: Do PDFs really fit into the microlearning bandwagon? The answer is yes, as they have come a long way to become a necessary digital asset. Unlike conventional PDFs, interactive PDFs (or iPDFs) offer features such as cross-reference and hyperlinking to usher employees into deeper learning levels whenever they feel ready. You can also embed videos, animations, GIFs, and even audio clips, converting good ol’ PDFs into engaging and intriguing PDFs. [Tip: You can use these when employees demand more than the key takeaways from infographics.]

Examples:

Interactive PDFs can be used to provide comprehensive training on key topics such as the following:

• Processes
• Policies
• Products

Podcasts

Podcasts are digital audio files that offer a way to build strong connections and engagements with your employees. They can be accessed even when commuting to the office or travelling. They can be used to reinforce key information and lessons learned in the organization. With notification turned on, your employees can receive important updates as a quick reminder to listen to. Podcasts are the best way to roll regularly updating learning content in the form of small audio bytes.

Examples:

You can use them to deliver work-related

• updates;
• tips;
• Q&A sessions of webinars;
• expert talks; and
• anecdotes or lessons.

Best practice for microlearning

The list of microlearning examples includes paragraphs, scrolls, PPTs, eBooks and more. Microlearning is indeed helpful for organizations, and in order to be fully utilized in corporate training, you need to follow the best practices as follows:

• WIIFM label: Always begin your course with “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM). It helps to create a sense of curiosity about the topic for the employee.
• Achieve one objective per micro unit: Microlearning addresses a key performance-based objective, thus keep the training content targeted and focused. This helps reduce cognitive overload and fight the forgetting curve.
• Minimalist design: Refrain from using HD graphics or high-quality multimedia in your microlearning content to reduce the load time.
• Use microlearning at each level: Make use of microlearning assets in pre-training, training and post-training events. Mix and match your learning content to deliver effective training.
• Mobile-friendly: Make the mobile your first, second and third priority when designing microlearning content, so learners may access and pursue training at their own pace and on any preferred device, from anywhere.
• Intuitive access: Microlearning modules are easier to discover and access when on the LMS or mobile app as compared to lengthy eLearning modules.
• Leverage existing content: Look into the wealth of content you already have in your LMS, such as lengthy content and pre-recorded lectures or events.
• Align with a full-fledged training program: Check if you can design a micro unit that can be a part of a larger training program. 
• On-the-job support: When stuck, we always look for solutions – YouTube or Google, right? Access to a two-minute tutorial is the best to help the employee in need during the job.
• Social learning plugins: Social learning is best used to create a buzz around the training, as well as to enable employees to share their own microlearning links on social media platforms for the benefit of peers.

Besides, there are some more factors to consider to prevent blunders: 

What is NOT microlearning?

• It is not about shortening your lengthy course content to make mini courses. 
• It is not limited to content and videos. 
• It cannot be replaced with traditional complex modules that can’t be fragmented.  
• It is not the same as nanolearning: All nanolearning is microlearning, but all microlearning is not nanolearning. 

These are the best practices most eLearning industries follow for an effective microlearning strategy. However, they may change with time and need. Amongst all, ‘accessibility’ is the key characteristic your strategy should involve. Why? Learn below: 

Microlearning ≈ Mobile learning

In today’s world, in order for learning resources to be easily accessible, they must be mobile-friendly (or, have a so-called mobile-first design feature). According to a recent study , about 67 percent of learners are already using their smartphones to complete their coursework. This includes interacting with the respective learning management systems (LMS) or microlearning app, watching a live online session, accessing course materials, researching topics, and completing assignments or tasks.

Another study suggests that 70 percent of learners are more motivated to learn when they use mobile devices; 64 percent of learners favour learning through mobile devices; and that mobile learning can increase engagement by 72 percent. Undoubtedly, this creates an urgent need for trainers to adapt to mobile learning as well. Here are some top tips to help you make this happen. 

Mobile learning tips for L&D experts:

• Present learning on the go, irrespective of the locations of your employees.
• Provide cross-device support, so that your employees can enjoy learning from any device.
• Ensure you make graphics simple.
• Ensure your layout design is responsive.
• Ensure websites, LMS systems, and learning are mobile-friendly.
• Or, you can have a downloadable app.

What makes microlearning so popular?

Let’s be honest; up until a few years ago most training content was pretty dreadful and very long. It was no surprise that people began to push back. In addition, when the world started to witness the popularity of mobile content a few years back, it prompted big players of all places to launch new strategies to adjust the focus of employees towards learning by enabling them to consume information on their phone, on the go.

With microlearning, organizations are now able to stand up to the modern-day challenge of dwindling human attention span and increased screen time. It enables organizations to produce consumable bites of learning information that would not take much of their employees’ time and concentration span but still help successfully transfer knowledge. This strategy gives you an open choice to either build micro units from scratch or transform your existing plain PDFs into easily digestible pieces of content and make them engaging yet playful with any creativity of your choice – animations, audios, graphics, etc. 

Employee performance determines the stature of organizations. In order to establish a high stature, organizations need to create ideal learning and performance ecosystems. As the current workplace model requires employees to be agile, employees need to learn how to apply complex tactics at the right time on their own. Ultimately, the concept of microlearning can help them to achieve such tasks. 

In cases where an employee is stuck, all they need is a quick recall of the exact information that can be easily and freely accessible on their mobile phones. It boils down to the ‘just-in-time’ microlearning approach, through which learners can immediately access content at the time of need:

• Infographics showing dos and don’ts, tips, rules, guidelines, or principles
• How-to/step-by-step video guides that demonstrate the execution of any task/machinery operation/program
• Interactive PDFs that show the steps of a process
• A download and save option to micro assets

Final thoughts

It seems microlearning was the pivotal piece to complete the training puzzle. With it, you can run your L&D programs cost-effectively. Also, you can unlock strategies in lieu of free hits and trials. Including microlearning in your corporate training brings several advantages. To state a few, it can help you provide personalized, focused training experience to your employees; bridge the gaps in knowledge transfer; negate the effects of the forgetting curve; and promote a learning culture.

MPS will help you bring a learning order not only for business benefits but also for the employees, which can have a large impact on the corporate industry. You can build, update, and deliver microlearning modules easily, effectively, and continuously, but also effortlessly. We shall ensure that you design your microlearning training content in exactly the way you visualize. Using our eLearning solution will make your corporate training impactful. To explore more possibilities or get expert tips, contact us today!