The 21st-century American worker is inundated with daily distractions—emails, texts, social media feeds, the ability for meetings to take place anytime and anywhere. It’s no wonder the average human attention span has decreased from 12.5 seconds in 2000 to 8.25 seconds today.
To put that into context, the goldfish has a 9-second attention span. (Now do we have your attention?)
The onslaught of information can make even the most productive employees feel overwhelmed—giving pause to many companies about adding to that with additional workplace skills training.
Given our collective inability to dedicate significant mental space to anything more involved than a TikTok video, companies are turning to the concept of microlearning—which breaks down training into brief, easily digestible segments. The training can come in myriad ways: emails, graphics, app notifications, even games. But the one thing it has to be? Brief.
5 ways microlearning can impact an organization
- Improves productivity: Studies show microlearning enhances employees’ ability to retain information by 18% over traditional learning methods
- Improves employee retention: Workers often leave companies when professional development opportunities are absent
- Improves employee experience: An employees experience at work directly correlates to superior client experience
- Future proofs a company: An upskilled employee is a better employee
- Shapes learning culture: Easy, regular learning at work builds upon itself like compound interest
8 great ways to microlearn!
- Digital flashcards—store them on your phone. It worked in school, right?
- Micro videos—just keep it short, 3 to 7 minutes max
- Question of the Day—send via email; helps to re-enforce important topics
- Spot the mistake—send an image or something written and ask staff to identify something problematic
- True/false—send out true or false questions, make some of them tricky
- Fast facts—quick reminders can underscore important information
- Do’s and don’ts—short lists highlighting aspects of, for instance, how to respond to customer complaints
- Checklists—helps breakdown tasks in to all-important steps
