Organizational culture is key to employee engagement and productivity levels. With enhanced employee engagement comes a better workflow, which leads to improved customer service. All of these elements go hand in hand with one another to form an overall employee experience.

As a manager or employer, a top priority is to provide a positive employee experience for your workers. One such way to do this is through microlearning.

What Is Microlearning? 

Microlearning is commonly known as “bite-size learning.” Essentially, you teach your workers using “nuggets” of information. Some employers use microlearning in formal settings, but for the most part, it is implemented in informal learning with a heavy focus on performance improvement. 

Most times, microlearning is delivered to an audience via rich media formats and is accessible on multiple types of devices, like smartphones, tablets, PCs, laptops, etc. With the right Digital Adoption Solution (DAS) in place, it becomes possible to deliver microlearning material in real time to meet the needs of your audience.

How Does Microlearning Improve the Employee Experience?

Microlearning gives you a way to provide precise employee training. It can help you overcome training budget barriers as well as result in a positive ROI on training. And with dwindling attention spans, microlearning gives you a way to grab the attention of your workers while avoiding information overload.

When creating microlearning content, you will have several different types of media to choose from. You will, of course, want to choose the media formats based on the needs of your workers. Some of the more popular media formats used in microlearning include:

• Explainer videos
• HTML packages
• Electronic flipbooks
• Interactive infographics
• Interactive videos

When employees work for you, most of them have a desire to fulfil their job roles to the best of their ability. In doing so, they know that you will see how big of a contribution they are to your company, which often leads to pay raises, bonuses, and perks. 

In order to fulfill their job role to a satisfactory level, they need precise training. More so, they need it in a timely manner. Microlearning allows you to provide in-depth training in a way that appeals to your workers. Instead of sitting through training sessions that result in information overload, microlearning engages the workers with bursts of rich content that resonates with their immediate need. 

Here’s an example of a microlearning program that works.

You createl five short videos (1 to 2 minutes a piece). Each video covers a key aspect of an employee’s role within the company. These videos include expert tips along with motion graphic animations to bring the content to life. At the end of each video, there is a 5-question quiz that tests the employee on what he or she has learned.

Here’s another example of a microlearning program:

Your organization has recently added a new piece of software to the accounting department. In an attempt to bring all accounting workers up to date on the software, you adopt a digital adoption solution that delivers short interactive simulations. Workers can engage with the simulations to learn how to use the new software program. These simulations are delivered to workers at the exact moment they need assistance – while they are performing a task, in their flow of work. That is why this is also sometimes referred to as “workflow learning.” The productivity acceleration platform allows you to build step-by-step documentation regarding all aspects of the software. With this type of microlearning, delivered at the point of work, you can even assess end-user adoption of your software and improve software ROI.

Why Does Microlearning Improve the Employee Experience?

Microlearning has a specific goal in mind – to teach workers a specific skill. Microlearning works well for this because it gets straight to the point, and does so in digestible chunks. With this contextually-relevant learning/teaching approach, you gain the ability to increase end user proficiency. Most importantly, you can provide in-the-moment training where it is most needed. Your workers no longer have to sit through minimally-effective training sessions, and they gain a sense of confidence in knowing they are learning exactly what they need to learn to fulfil their job role.

Final Thoughts

Once you put your design-thinking hat, you will quickly notice that microlearning is a way to connect with your workers on an empathetic level regarding their training. Although microlearning is not a shiny new tool that just entered the learning environment, it is agile and supports learning in the flow of work, which gives workers the ability to apply what they learn in real time. When your goal is to improve the employee experience, you should definitely consider what microlearning can bring to your organization.