On The Job

In 2015, millennials surpassed Gen Xers as the largest generation in the workforce. By 2025, they will make up 75 percent of the workforce. That means that in the next 10 to 15 years, we will see the greatest transfer of knowledge that has ever taken place“ (Blackburn, 2017).

With the transfer of knowledge comes a transfer in learning behavior. Companies are and will continue to transfer over their databases and curriculum to an electronic platform. Electronic training and content systems are created to allow employees to develop new skills and stay up to date on the ever-changing work environment. Companies are working to tailor their programs to assist employees and to help all parties involved work better and smarter. These solutions can provide a means of both tracking performance goals and planning the correct career ladder for each employee. Employees can intentionally work on skills they lack efficiently with the help of microlearning.

Research shows that twenty-first century employers prefer to recruit employees who have confirmed mastery of competencies in their related fields and who are ready to perform the skills and tasks necessary in the workplace (Camacho & Legare, 2016). Human resources can help close the gap on any skills employees and new hires have by implementing short and logically structured microlearning lessons.

With the development of new digital tools, microlearning is becoming an extraordinary area of technology-enhanced learning. Microlearning, as a different form of knowledge attainment, is becoming an important aspect of learner motivation and learning outcomes.

To remain relevant to twenty-first century business, corporate learning is adjusting its previous methods and guides. Professionals are working to shift its focus from learning for learning’s sake, to learning to work better.

Today’s methods of staff training and development need to adapt. Traditional methods include:

• In-Class Sessions
  • Typically range from a couple of hours to all day training
  • Takes time out of an employee's day
  • Loss of employee productivity
  • Inability for flexibility
• Webinars
  • Scheduled with certain windows of availability
  • Typically an hour or two
  • Must have certain technological platform available

With future staff training methods, employees and their managers can construct individualized programs based on career plans and performance goals. Microlearning tasks can then be individualized to allow the employee to effectively and quickly close identified knowledge gaps.

Personalization and Independence

• When a strong emphasis is placed on the creation of these microlearning sessions, learners can easily find what they need to complete real world and job-related tasks. This type of learning environment promotes learner self-sufficiency, creating a genuine learner interest and drive. Learners are able to customize their training experience and seek out future training opportunities.

Learning wherever, whenever

• Microlearning supports employees’ abilities to access information and training when they need it the most. Because these sessions are smaller and less time consuming, learners will have the time needed to use newly learned information in an on-the-job framework. By design, this type of learning can be access anywhere and at any time. Microlearning makes it possible for learners to gain new knowledge just in time to meet their immediate corporate needs.

Effective and Varied Learning

• Because microlearning resources are compact and focused on specific objectives, they can be easily matched to the modality (games, videos, infographics, eLearning) best matched to the content. Using the best mode for content delivery creates more effective training. This effectiveness and the assortment of the training experiences increase learner commitment.

Employees can quickly forget their gained knowledge in traditional learning sessions. These classes are not designed to suit individualized learning preferences, but rather a group as a whole. This can be a missed opportunity for many organizations

Technology adoption growing amongst organizations will continue to change the landscape of how training and development is implemented. Informal learning truly benefits employees (Jomah, Masoud, Kishore, & Aurelia, 2016) as they receive the small bits of new information at a time when they need it most. Employers benefit as they are able to provide flexible training without interrupting an employee’s work. Thus, this allows employees to learn and complete work-related tasks efficiently.

When microlearning is delivered in a steady and ongoing manner, organizations have the option to drive continuous learning, building up knowledge over time, and create long-term positive behavior change. These are the kinds of changes that allow for better communication, participation, and innovation. Organizations that recognize the importance of cultivating continuous learning are the ones that will have a much better chance of outlasting their competition and becoming a place where talented, committed people come to work.

Even with all the benefits, organizations still mainly focus on the traditional formal training methods. Organizations do not always have the resources or knowledge on how to convert to this style of learning.

Microlearning is the right path for organizations to take. Microlearning is easy to design, develop, and deliver. Since they are short, there is no need for complex animations or graphics, which means faster development at reduced cost. This eliminates the cost of creating course manuals for a traditional training session and having to update that material, reprint and distribute the materials to a team.

This method is on-demand learning, fitting with today's "on-the-go" learner. They will finally have the option to refresh and learn a topic before they need to use that skill. Content for microlearning can be available at any time and on any device, so employees no longer need to dedicate themselves to a particular workspace or time to complete required trainings.