Organizations rise, stagnate, or fall depending on a lot of factors – but the collective skills of its workforce and the actions its leaders take to ensure these abilities keep improving play a significant role.

While building capabilities is a top-ten priority for 90% of organizations, only 25% of them believe their programs are effective at improving performance.

To establish continuous skill-building, organizations have to rethink their employee training methods, and even call on science to understand how human beings learn and retain the information they learn.

Microlearning employs facts about human memory to make learning more effective. So, how can microlearning help companies establish continuous skill building? 

What is Micro-Learning?

Microlearning is an approach to learning where people learn information in bits at a time. A microlearning session is typically less than 10 minutes long and can take only 60 seconds to complete.

This concept was derived from Hermann Ebbinghaus’s studies on human memory. The German Psychologist discovered that we retain large amounts of information for a certain period after learning it but if that information isn’t considered critical to the task at hand, it deteriorates over time.

Actually, we forget 80% of the information we learn within a month according to Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve. Microlearning helps to reduce this loss of information by changing how we learn.

Benefits of Micro-Learning

Microlearning is a game-changer for modern trainers in the workplace. Here are specific benefits that it offers:

1. Takes Less Time

For a generation that is time-starved and with continuously shrinking attention spans, attending a class for under ten minutes is likely to receive a better reception than hour-long or longer sessions.

In any case, employees always have other duties to attend to. Microlearning allows them to have time to boost their skills and still have time to complete their duties.

2. Better Engagement

The level of engagement declines as sessions take more time and it’s easy for the mind to wander off . Micro-learning solves this problem by fitting a learning objective into a ten–minute or smaller window.

Also, it targets one objective at a time, eliminating the likelihood that concentration will be lost by having to sit through a long course or learning too many things at once.

3. Increased Retention

Microlearning uses spaced repetition, a method proven by science to improve information retention by breaking large amounts of information into bite-sized chunks. It works by accessing the memory bank, making it an effective mode for trainers to teach complex information over time.

It also takes advantage of more memorable learning material such as animation and video to improve attention and retention.

4. Improves the Ability to Apply it in their Work

One of the principles of microlearning at work is that the lesson is directly applied to daily duties. Better retention translates into better application and with it better performance.

Should the learners become instructors and trainers, it’s easier for them to pass on the information.

5. Learners Can Learn on-the-go and on-demand

Small lessons are easier to avail on a wide range of mobile devices making it easy to access the lesson as the need arises.

The combination of small learning steps, with bite-sized pieces of information, also makes it easier to take in information updates-trends, new statistics, etc.

It’s easy too for the learner to pull out the information as many times as they’d like to refresh their memory.

6. Enables Learners to Learn at Individual Paces

People have different learning styles and paces. With smaller lessons available on different devices, a learner who needs to go over a lesson more than once to grasp it can do so without affecting the rest of the learners.

The different material also supports different types of learners – for example, visual versus reading learners, etc.

How a Learning Management System (LMS) Provides Microlearning Moments

LMS is software designed to create and provide virtual training to trainees – ranging from executives, partners, to employees. It makes it possible to offer training regardless of time and location. An LMS is also where you keep and track your training content.

Every LMS has two parts:

• The admin interface: supports back-end tasks such as creating training content, enrollment, report generation, and feedback.
• The user interface: supports learners’ needs such as accessing content, reviewing it, and completing assigned tasks.

An LMS supports microlearning by availing a platform that is accessible anywhere, anytime, supporting the modern learner who often multitasks and needs uninhibited access.

Also, trainers can create short courses designed to align with the microlearning timeframe of 10 minutes or less.

It also gives them options to include varied content, such as video, animation, text, and infographics –everything that makes the information short, easy to digest, and retain.

LMS is mobile-friendly. Beyond the on-the-go and the on-demand success that this provides, it factors in 59.9% of smartphone users, a demographic that prefers the vertical orientation unique to smartphones when learning rather than horizontal screens.

Even with microlearning, you need to implement and track remote training, gather information, and store it in a central location. LMS software meets these needs while enhancing accessibility.

For the learner, they not only have 24/7/365 accessibility, but they can also take notes for revision. It supports every learner’s pace and offers an interactive UI regardless of the device they use.

Plus, LMS meets the primary needs of running a microlearning program without spending a fortune.

The Bottom Line

Learning never stops and this truth is vital for organizations determined to maintain a steady growth curve.

To successfully establish continuous skill-building, you need to break away from the textbook rigid structure of learning to incorporate the modern learner.  

That means making information easily accessible, easy to understand, and above all, covered in small easy to complete steps.

As an HR professional or executive concerned with proper employee training management, your best bet is to offer microlearning through LMS. By choosing isolved from the Platinum Group, you choose zero paperwork and a flawless process when performing major HR functions.

ABOUT PLATINUM GROUP

Platinum Group is a human capital management resource with solutions to help you streamline operations so you’ll have time to manage your business. No matter which division you work with: Payroll/HR or Accounting, our team is built upon a foundation of support, service, camaraderie and collaboration that we share both in-house and with our wonderful clients. For more information about Platinum Group, or to schedule a demo of isolved, please visit our website.