How to Develop a Microlearning Strategy for Effective Employee Training

It happens to the best of us, you know.

We often jump into microlearning without knowing how and where to incorporate it in our overall training strategy. And that’s when we don’t get the desired results from the training. It is important to be clear about the learning objectives and outcomes of the training before thinking of the strategy.

Microlearning can be used to address a wide variety of training needs across the employee’s learning journey – from creating awareness about the scheduled training to offering practice opportunities and refresher bytes.

But it’s important to remember that microlearning may not be the best solution for all your training challenges. For example, you shouldn’t opt for microlearning to train on complex topics or content which requires detailed explanations.

Once you are clear on the learning outcomes of the training and have elected to go with microlearning based on the type of content, you will need a strategy to help you design the microlearning initiatives!

How do we achieve this? Let’s get started!

Microlearning Strategy: The Basics

To arrive at a microlearning strategy, you first need to do a thorough training needs analysis. Plus, you need to identify the topics that need to be a part of the microlearning agenda.

Must-haves for a sound microlearning strategy include:

Clarifying the of goals or outcomes of your learning initiatives
Identifying specific performance indicators for the microlearning lesson(s)
Keeping each microlearning initiative small: 1 outcome, 1 to 3 objectives
Mapping your learners’ profiles
Building the use case for microlearning

Building a use case for microlearning requires you to know what your microlearning initiative is intended to do. Will it be used to:

Supplement current training efforts?
Reinforce previous learning?
Augment current training? OR
Remediate or correct current performance/behavior?

Always remember to keep your focus on the learner for a successful training initiative. Your microlearning strategy will be a hit once you have mapped the outcomes and motivated your learners to achieve them. Never forget to map it to the outcome we expect from the learner. For instance, interesting videos that only impress and excite, but fail to deliver the learning are no good!

Using an adaptive microlearning platform to deliver it makes this easier. The delivery method of the microlearning lessons must fit into learners’ daily workflow. Learners should be able to access the lesson on their mobiles phone, POS machines, or other hardware they use. Content and design are next. The short burst of each 5-6-minute microlearning content must be motivating and engaging.

Here’s an example to show how it all works.

Example of a Health, Safety, and Environment Microlearning Strategy

ABC is an established multinational FMCG company operating in over 100 countries, with over 100,000 employees. They have numerous policies, products, and processes that keep evolving.

Their challenge is to upskill and reskill their workforce by presenting existing as well as new information.

Their first challenge is to develop a strategy to support learning opportunities related to health, safety, and environment (HSE). Every year, new HSE regulations come into force. Plus, existing regulations that are still valid need to be reiterated to the employees without hampering their core activities.

With the help of Subject Matter Experts, a microlearning approach can be created to deliver the various mandatory and relevant topics related to health, safety, and environment.

The microlearning initiative may look like this:

12 mini sessions (5 to 6 minutes each), recorded by Subject Matter Experts on different topics on a microlearning app that can be used on smartphones, laptops, and tablets
Animated videos, games, and infographics used along with the SME recordings
The sessions spaced out to take advantage of the Spacing Effect (1 mini session per week)
Quizzes and confidence-assessment questions used to evoke recall

The week-wise microlearning schedule:

Week 1	Introduction to Health and Safety Law
Week 2	Risk-assessment to Meet Compliance Obligations
Week 3	Environmental Health Law to Protect Health of Community
Week 4	Environmental Management, Protection and Sustainability
Week 5	….and so on till week 12

The program is very well-received by the employees who are thrilled to hear from SMEs explaining dull and heavy topics with the help of animated videos, games, and infographics. The quiz spaced out over a time helps build strong recall and memory retention.

To conclude, the micro in microlearning is neither easy nor rapid. It calls for strategy that involves setting goals and priorities, determining actions to achieve them, and mobilizing resources to execute those actions.

To Know more about “Using Microlearning to Teach Business Sustainability.” Click here!

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