Driving Productivity and Performance with Microlearning

Make sure that the content is short

Information needs to be communicated in a way that respects the schedule commitments of learners. If L&D is to be done on top of other work duties, there is only a finite amount of time that can be delegated to training. As such, information is best communicated in an efficient manner, with only key points necessary for performance optimisation being included. This allows for more time to be spent demonstrating the skills learnt from L&D content within a workflow and makes for far more energised staff, who are ready to make good use of your training content. 

Implement interactive content 

Learning is at its best when it’s directly engaging, microlearning L&D is no different. Such engagement-derived interaction can go hand-in-hand with the retention benefits of microlearning, allowing for more efficient L&D that is likelier to stay with your staff in the long term. Consider quizzes, interactive webpages, short zoom group exercises or if possible, perhaps VR or AI to give your microlearning the technology edge it needs for your staff to retain information taught to them in an engaging format. In this way, staff have the opportunity of fully immersing themselves in the learning process via direct interaction.    

Remember to make it bite-sized

Within a given day, staff are going to have a lot of things on their mind, ranging from everyday tasks to important client meetings to finalise a contract. As such, the expectation of staff successfully retaining vast quantities of information given to them all at once, is a somewhat unrealistic goal. Taking this into consideration, when planning L&D, the microlearning approach involves a content structure that breaks down complex topics into more manageable chunks of information. In practice, this leads to the L&D itself being more manageable within the working day and keeps the attention of learners for fresh content when starting their next mini-module. 

Do not forget the need for flexibility

Digital L&D content, on an LMS, allows for those that are working hybrid or otherwise out of office to stay up to date on training requirements. Through this, digital microlearning is not only more schedule-flexible but fully utilises your LMS to account for the variety of locations that a modern workforce functions in. This notion of flexibility by using digital content can also mean lower costs for your L&D department when not doing classroom learning, allowing for numerous employer and employee benefits from implementing flexible microlearning. 

Driving productivity and performance with microlearning on any device

What cannot be forgotten is the means by which staff consume training content. The content itself must be screen-flexible, technically designed and visually clear enough at communicating the same meaning across a wide variety of devices. Ultimately, this ensures that training material can be interacted with at any point throughout the business day, even while on the go or otherwise when access to a desktop is not feasible. Engaging microlearning content, ranging from animations to clearly labelled diagrams, can be flexible on a whole range of devices within your LMS. 

So, what are the key takeaways to consider?

Here are five key recommendations for you to put into action when driving productivity and performance with microlearning:

1. Keep content short: key points must be easily readable and flexible for employees during their normal working day.  
2. Consider interactive content: quizzes and webpages can be a direct way to engage staff.
3. Break the content down into modules: small bite-sized ‘courses,’ can make L&D easier to organise and satisfying to complete within a typical working day.
4. Make it flexible and digital: content that is accessible across different platforms can make the microlearning process easier. 
5. Make it visually engaging: walls of text are rarely easy to read, consider shifting such content formats to examples like mini-lectures and animations instead.