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Companies increasingly turn to microlearning to streamline employee training as workplace demands evolve, making learning flexible, engaging, and impactful. This approach breaks complex concepts into manageable, bite-sized lessons, making learning accessible even within a packed schedule. For companies ready to leap microlearning, these seven expert tips can ensure your team gets the most out of every learning session.
1. Keep modules short and specific
Ensure that each microlearning session focuses on one clear topic, keeping lessons to just 5-10 minutes. Employees can process and retain information more easily without feeling overwhelmed. For example, rather than covering “Advanced Excel Techniques” in one session, create smaller, targeted lessons like “How to Create Pivot Tables” or “Formatting Cells for Professional Reports.” Such courses are provided by the Institute for Adult Learning, which gives training and adult educators and managers the expertise and resources to design meaningful, engaging learning experiences in concise, easy-to-digest formats.
By focusing on specific skills or concepts, microlearning aligns with attention spans and encourages frequent, manageable learning sessions that can fit easily into your staff’s busy schedules.
2. Choose diverse, engaging media
Using diverse formats like videos, infographics, quizzes, podcasts, and interactive simulations caters to different learning styles and keeps employees engaged. This variety ensures that content appeals to various preferences, making learning more accessible and enjoyable.
Research has shown that using multimedia technology can increase students’ learning potential by increasing interactivity with the learning materials. This makes it more likely for employees to retain the content, especially when the microlearning materials are presented online.
3. Optimise for mobile access
Microlearning’s flexibility hinges on accessibility. So, it is important to ensure employees can access training sessions on mobile devices to learn anytime, anywhere. Having a mobile-friendly approach allows employees to complete modules during short breaks or on commutes, making it easier to incorporate learning into their daily routines.
It is equally important to test your microlearning platform on smartphones and tablets to ensure that the layout and navigation are clear. Providing accessibility across different digital platforms boosts participation and ensures learning isn’t tied to an office setting.
4. Personalise learning paths
Personalising learning content can boost engagement and help your team retain knowledge since they’ll see how it directly benefits their work. Employees get access to content directly relevant to their roles, skills, and goals by creating personalised learning paths. Associate Professor May Lim from the Singapore Institute of Technology shares that students at the SIT have to complete a survey as they enter the university so that they can be provided with personalised materials to help grow their learning approaches for further studies.
It helps recommend the educational content to learn more effectively; students have a limited attention span and should use that to be spent focusing on key areas. These personalised earning paths based on performance reviews or individual assessments help offer a selection of modules that can fit each employee’s needs. For example, customer service representatives might be given more communication-focused lessons, while technical teams can explore modules on new software features.
5. Add gamification for motivation
Adding gamified elements like points, badges, and leaderboards can make microlearning more enjoyable and motivating for users. Gamification brings an element of fun to learning and introduces a friendly sense of competition, driving employees to engage with more modules and reinforce their progress. Coursemology, v2, a gamified learning platform created by Associate Professor Ben Leong from the National University of Singapore, addresses student procrastination with features like game elements such as points and leaderboards. This gamification improved assignment submission times and increased student motivation and engagement significantly.
Rewarding milestones, such as badges for completing a series of modules or a leaderboard for top scores on quizzes, fosters continued learning and a supportive learning environment. It also serves to motivate staff to keep on coming back to learn.
6. Integrate learning into daily tasks
Microlearning is most effective when employees can apply what they learn right away. So it helps to design modules that are aligned closely with daily tasks and can provide practical takeaways suited to their daily work. This approach lets employees reinforce their skills and see the immediate benefits of their training.
Using “just-in-time” learning, where short lessons are available exactly when needed, is highly effective. For instance, a sales team might access quick modules on negotiation tactics before meeting with clients, or a finance team could reference budgeting modules during planning sessions.
7. Regularly gather feedback and track success
Feedback and metrics are vital to improving microlearning content. After each module, having a tool that gathers employee feedback helps you understand the materials’ effectiveness and impact. An article from Reed Singapore mentions that annual appraisals are not as useful with rapidly changing companies as regular performance reviews.
You can also track data like completion rates, quiz scores, and improvements in job performance to ensure your microlearning strategy is achieving its goals.
Post-session surveys or brief check-ins can help gauge how employees feel about the material and how well it relates to their work. Analysing this data allows you to refine and improve future microlearning content, which can make it increasingly effective and relevant.
Microlearning is a powerful training approach that fits seamlessly into today’s fast-paced work environments. By following these seven steps, you can build an adaptable microlearning strategy that fosters continuous development, engagement, and real-world application for your employees.
