How Micro-learning will Enhance Your Employee Training

Micro-learning is a practical tool to include in your employee training program. In this article, discover the advantage for employees, employers, and HR, and learn how to implement it.

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Just over eight minutes per day.

That’s how much the average employee spends in formal training in a 50-week year, according to the Association of Talent Development’s 2020 State of the Industry report. 

As an HR leader, you don’t need more pressure, but this statistic reminds you of the enormity of your challenge: Your training has to stick, be relevant to the employee’s job, and deliver results your business can measure. 

All in a few minutes per day.

So, given this time constraint, what can you do? 

Here’s where micro-learning can make an outsized impact on the efficacy of employee training and the benefits to your business. 

 

What is micro-learning?

In micro-learning, a brief training module (generally, two to seven minutes) focuses on one specific area of knowledge to help an employee learn, practice, or apply a concept on the job.

Micro-learning modules can help a learner retain or refresh their training. Any form of media may be used to transfer this knowledge.

These modules can be integrated into your training programs as the following: 

• Stand-alone modules that teach a specific topic with a focus on an action-oriented next step
• Part of a series of modules in learning paths. 

 

Employees like micro-learning

Several factors make micro-learning appealing to employees.

1. Brevity. The targeted, concise content makes micro-learning very convenient and helpful for employees in the flow of work or on the go. 
2. Easy, flexible access. With just a few clicks, cloud-based micro-learning enables your employees to progress in their jobs or training from any Internet-connected device, when they are most receptive to learning. 
3. Personalization. Job descriptions and employee learning styles vary. Because micro-learning makes it easier to customize content to these specific situations, you enhance employee engagement with training.  

Why employers like micro-learning

Employers benefit from micro-learning in the following ways:

1. Job performance. In the workplace, micro-learning is often tied to action-oriented outcomes. Take for example an employee stuck on a task. To get unstuck, he or she may need to remember certain formulas, shortcuts, facts, or procedures. He or she can instantly retrieve the right micro-learning module and, after a few minutes, move the stalled project forward.

2. Just-in-time learning. Traditional training sometimes takes office workers away from their desks for extended periods. This short-term loss of productivity contrasts with the in-the-flow-of-work applications of micro-learning, which eliminate this sort of work interruption.
3. Affordability. Because micro-learning modules are short and have narrow objectives, they are relatively easier and faster to create. As a result, you generally reduce training development costs.

Why your HR team will like micro-learning

For HR and L&D professionals, micro-learning modules offer numerous benefits, such as the following.

1. They’re more frequently completed
   Employees complete micro-learning modules with a higher frequency than longer modules. They also help counteract the “forgetting curve” that follows any training that is not appropriately reinforced.
2. They have a higher retention rate. Research in the Journal of Applied Psychology shows that “learning in bite-sized pieces makes the transfer of learning from the classroom to the desk 17% more efficient.”
3. They’re repeatable. Sometimes employees have to absorb an overwhelming amount of training. Think of onboarding or learning a new job. Cognitive overload can lead to disengagement and discontent. In such situations, micro-learning allows employees to repeat modules at their own pace. Furthermore, they can test their knowledge in incremental ways with a series of micro-assessments offering feedback.
4. They target specific skills. The tight focus of micro-learning enables your employees to address specific knowledge or skill gaps. For example, in a tight talent market, you may want to expand the skill set of current employees to counter a staff shortage. Or, you may wish to efficiently upskill new employees who are missing certain qualifications.

The high relevance of micro-learning supports higher engagement and ensures that employees are investing their training time in impactful ways.

 

How to effectively implement your micro-learning program 

With the right learning management system (LMS), you can efficiently create, manage, and distribute your micro-learning to take advantage of all the benefits discussed above. 

What’s more, the LMS helps you track and understand the progress of your employees by enabling you to do the following:

Test employees efficiently

No learning experience is complete without testing how well the information has been retained. Using micro-assessments on your LMS, you can easily and quickly test your employees as often as needed. 

You can create quizzes with different types of questions that are automatically corrected on the platform. You can even manually assign a grade for open-ended questions within the software.

Monitor employee progress at a glance

How are your teams learning?

Your LMS can group employees into segments based on your criteria. Since every LMS interaction instantly creates real-time data, that information can be reviewed at a high level through a dashboard, or at a granular level in a report.

Through analytics features, you can extract hidden patterns and correlations in the behavior of learners by tracking test results, course completion rates, and so on. 

By viewing this data based on the segments you’ve defined, you can make any training adjustments necessary. 

What’s more, that data can then be exported for further analysis.

 

Personalize learning paths

With the gathered insights of your reporting and analytics tools, you can personalize the training path of each employee. 

Basing your course design on the insights gained, your team can create a more personalized learning journey. This personalization elevates the relevance of the course content and increases your employee’s engagement. 

 

Your employees want to grow in their careers and yet their training time is limited. Micro-learning’s bite-sized, high-impact personalized content, available on-demand, can be just the engagement boost you need to take your business the next step forward.