Can Microlearning Offer a Better Way to Train Our Workforce?
Aug 5, 2019
What is microlearning and can it offer a better way to train our workforce?
Some companies are still conducting themselves as leaders by adhering to an old model. Are you still ushering your employees into a large hall and droning on and on with a PowerPoint presentation? Snooze.
Rather than dumping a huge quantity of information on your employees in one sitting, microlearning offers the ability to present content on a regular interval, oftendaily, and using the following three neuroscience techniques:
- Spaced Repetition:Practicing a new topic repeatedly over increased periods of time to deepen memory.
- Retrieval Practice:Using questions to strengthen memory by forcing the brain to recall information.
- Confidence-based Assessment:Measuring an employee'sexpressedconfidencein a topic to improve memory and self-awareness.
One company, Merck, has used advanced microlearning to improve its safety culture. Wanting to ingrain safety best practices and behaviors they used the Axonify's microlearning systems across 52 global manufacturing sites, with 24,000 employees. With an 80% voluntary participation, the company sawa decrease in the recordable incident rate (RIR) within a year. They also experienced a decrease in lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR). Other companies have found opportunities for microlearning in downtime. For example, while waiting for a machine to power up, an employee can use that time to learn and receive certifications in safety and other topics.
There is a skills gap in the construction, oil and gas industries. Microlearning aims to fill those gaps, in short, efficient bursts of time. Do you want to improve your safety culture? microlearning provides an excellent opportunity to do so as well. Employees, also, feel a sense of freedom with the neuroscience of microlearning that they otherwise would not experience in a more traditional "info dump" session. Microlearning creates a nimbleness of safety leadership and positive safety culture.
Microlearning utilizes technology to close any knowledge or skills gap an employee might experience. This is increasingly important to keep up with the times and to stay competitive in a shifting landscape. If a more traditional company wishes to be more transformational, microlearning can help. If someone has not mastered a certain lesson or doesn't feel confident about their grasp of the knowledge, the program repeats that lesson. So, the learning is really controlled by the individual and their measurement of how comfortable they feel with the information. It's a much better way to learn and master job duties.
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Adrienne M. Selko | Aug 05, 2019 - The days of piling into a large auditorium of a company and sitting for hours, watching PowerPoint presentations might just be over.
It turns out, that way of teaching information isn’t very effective since it’s hard for people to absorb so much information at one time.
In fact, a learning curve study shows that if you don’t reinforce what you learn, you forget 90% of it within 30 days.
