What is Microlearning?
Microlearning is a learning method that uses short, bite-sized lessons to teach employees. Microlearning has several benefits: it’s a fast and flexible way to train your staff, making it ideal for any type of employee onboarding or skill-building. Microlearning can also help you keep pace with the ever-changing skills needed in the workplace — it’s easier to update content regularly than to overhaul an entire course at once.
Why is microlearning effective?
Microlearning is an excellent way for learners to get quick and easy information. It’s a brief, focused learning experience that helps people retain essential knowledge or skills. Microlearning is effective because it:
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Keeps the employees’ attention
The world has changed, and so have our expectations from businesses. In fact, the average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds! That’s why microlearning matters: because when it comes down to it, people don’t have time for long-form learning anymore. And if they do have time, they’re going to look for something that’s short and sweet—and that’s exactly what microlearning provides.
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Helps retain learned information
It’s easier for your employees to retain information when it’s presented in smaller pieces than when it’s presented in one long, complex string of information. This is because the brain can process more information at once when it’s broken up into smaller chunks and because learners are able to get used to being engaged with the material in that way.
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More engaging than traditional employee training
Traditional employee training can often be cumbersome, and it can be difficult for employees to remember all that information. With microlearning, you’re able to deliver information in short bursts that will be easier for your employees to remember, engage with and apply. Plus, if you have a lot of content that needs covering, microlearning can help you stay organized.
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Accessible anytime, anywhere.
With microlearning, you can deliver content to employees who are on the go—whether they’re at home and need to brush up on an important skill before they start a new project or they’re on their way to work and want to review the day’s agenda. Microlearning is also great because it’s available to employees when they need it most: when they’re working on projects or performing tasks that require certain skills.
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Providing Equal Opportunities to All Kinds of Learners
Microlearning is the best way for organizations to provide equal opportunities for all learners, irrespective of their learning styles and learning disabilities. It caters to the different learning styles of every individual and provides them with a personalized learning experience.
Employees have their own learning differences, and may also have employees that have learning disabilities. In the United States alone, one out of five people has learning or attention issues such as dyslexia and ADHD. Microlearning helps fill in the gaps of these kinds of situations by providing bite-sized chunks of information that are easier for them to digest.
5 Reasons Why Microlearning Matters in your Business
Microlearning can be used for a variety of purposes: to train employees, to onboard new hires, or even to address issues that have come up during the course of doing business.
The beauty of microlearning is that it’s easy to use. More than that, your business can benefit from microlearning by improving these aspects:
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Helps Employees to Improve and Develop Employees Skills
By breaking down a skill into smaller parts and providing targeted feedback, microlearning helps employees to learn at their own pace, with the help of an expert. This can be done through videos, quizzes, or other self-paced learning methods.
Microlearning is also great for employees who are new to a company or industry as it enables them to learn as they go. It can also be used for refresher courses for employees who have been in the industry for some time but want to keep up-to-date with new developments.
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Lowers the Business’ Turnover Rate
It’s no secret that employees are more likely to stick around if they feel like they’re learning something new and valuable at work. Microlearning can help you create a culture of learning that makes your employees feel like they’re growing as professionals and contributing to something bigger than themselves.
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Bridging the Gap between Tenured and Newly Onboarded Employees
There is a long-standing problem in the field of company onboarding. It’s called the “knowledge gap” and it can be defined as: “the difference between what an employee knows and what they need to know.”
The knowledge gap can be frustrating for both newly onboarded employees and their managers because it means that new employees don’t have all of the skills they need. This leads to low productivity, high turnover rates, and a lot of time wasted on training.
Microlearning offers a solution to this problem by providing bite-sized chunks of information that are easy to digest and quick to consume. Microlearning solutions help bridge the knowledge gap by providing new employees with the information they need so they can get up to speed quickly.
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Helps to Standardize Your Business Operations
Standardizing your business operations is important to improve your business. It makes it easier for employees to know what’s expected of them, and it also helps them feel more confident in their ability to perform their jobs well.
Digital training, and specifically microlearning, can help with this because it gives you the opportunity to teach employees how they should be performing tasks when they’re not in front of you. It helps to ensure that all employees are using the same language and terminology, as well as having a shared understanding of how to do things. Microlearning allows more streamlined communication between departments.
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Provides Employees with More Flexible Learning Hours and Places
Traditional training programs require employees to be at a specific location during specified hours to learn new skills or gain knowledge. This can be inconvenient for many employees, especially if they have other demands on their time.
Microlearning allows learners to get the information they need when they need it, without having to worry about fitting in with a rigid schedule. As long as they have access to the internet and an active connection, they can learn what they need when they need it.
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Summary
In this day and age, it’s more important than ever to be able to train your employees in the flow of work. Microlearning allows you to share bite-sized information with your employees and benefit from engaging training and effective communication.
Bites is the best microlearning platform that helps you better structure and organize your training materials, measure how effective your training is, and allow for a more self-directed learning experience for employees.
Bites provide an engaging experience that syncs your workers’ learning pace with their mobile devices anytime, anywhere. Enhance the effectiveness of your training program by engaging your Gen Z and Millennial employees, increasing their motivation, reinforcing their learning, and tracking the key performance indicators which will help you fuel continuous improvement and better retention of employees.