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Learning never really stops, and it counts even if you are working at your dream job. With quickly changing times and growing demand for skills, many organizations have resorted to training their employees instead of constantly engaging in hiring new talent. Microlearning has emerged as a flagship solution to ensuring that employers are able to upskill their employees in a way that supports the growth of their organization. Furthermore, it also allows organizations to ensure that their employees are always aligned with the vision and mission that empowers the organization.
However, creating a practical and impactful microlearning strategy is crucial to ensuring all this. While many organizations seamlessly adapt to microlearning as a part of their company culture, certain common mistakes often go unnoticed, and they can hamper the quality of learning and overall learning experience. These mistakes can be hard to identify, but by looking closely, you can ensure that your microlearning modules are delivering top-notch content and learning experiences.
7 Mistakes That Could Be Making Your Microlearning Strategy Less Effective
Not identifying performance gaps during training:
Amongst the various reasons for training your employees with microlearning, the main purpose is to enhance their performance, efficiency, and ability to meet up with current (and future) market demands.
Understanding how their performance is improving by analyzing the gaps between previous and current records can make it easier to determine the effectiveness of the courses.
This gap can be easily covered by making sure that every module response is analyzed thoroughly by both the system and manually by a human for accuracy.
By incorporating this practice, you can be sure that the responses submitted for every module are being used to improve the quality of learning and upskilling.
Relying solely on microlearning:
The reason microlearning is becoming so popular in the corporate world is the complexity it can solve without losing out on the crux of the information and practices. However, there are still limitations to this type of learning.
For instance, microlearning can be used to upskill and teach important skills, including leadership, time management, customer service, and even product-related training.
However, it shouldn’t be heavily relied upon for conducting complete training of core technical aspects as they are usually complex and have a specific way of understanding.
Trying to teach these topics through microlearning can cause discrepancies and might make it challenging for learners to keep up with what’s being taught.
Moreover, as microlearning breaks down lengthy topics into manageable, bite-size content pieces, there’s always the risk of information being lost in between or getting communicated incorrectly.
Understanding the scope and limitations of microlearning can be the cue to ensuring a more effective learning experience.
Not developing an effective implementation plan:
Training will be effective only if your employees actively engage in the modules and know the benefits of participating and completing the course.
Without prior excitement and transparency in providing information about the course, your employees will likely feel uncertain. This will further prevent them from seeing the plethora of opportunities and potential they can unlock.
It is highly recommended to create a campaign highlighting the benefits of doing the course, the career progress trajectory one can pave through, and how it will help them meet current market demands.
The campaign doesn’t have to be loud. You can drop an email two to three weeks before the course starts to share a short video of what the course is about, what it covers, and the new skills learners will have.
You can also consider having a team meeting to discuss and address any potential doubts or concerns regarding the course. Awareness about the course will help interest people faster and for longer.
Using content only one way:
Microlearning modules that are developed to be used only in a specific way can limit the possibilities that can be unlocked.
Instead, consider reusing them in more than one format to ensure you are able to make the most out of your investment. Consider using them to create quizzes, quantitative analysis assignments, study material, and even cheat sheets.
By doing so, you are maximizing the potential of your microlearning content significantly and making important content available in different formats that are also easy to access.
Creating desktop-only content:
It is estimated that nearly 496.7 million people use a smartphone, and this number is constantly increasing. This makes it pivotal for microlearning industries to curate content that seamlessly fits the mobile device without compromising quality, speed, and learning experience.
By strictly making your course content accessible on desktop devices, you are limiting accessibility and freedom to pursue the course at your own convenience. On the other hand, when you create microlearning content that is easily accessible on mobile phones, people are more likely to engage with it as they do not have to prepare a particular desktop-friendly setup, saving time and effort.
Furthermore, it will also enable them to fit the course and learning process into their schedule without making any major changes.
Not creating enough room for practice and reinforcement:
The human brain is wired to store information worth millions of books. However, it can become incredibly challenging to retain everything you have learned without routine practice and reinforcement.
This will limit your ability to utilize your learnings during everyday tasks or when faced with a challenge. Notably, these practice sessions do not have to be exclusive. It can involve conducting quizzes once in a while to brush up on knowledge and retention.
Not using training data to improve your course module:
As much as collecting data after the training has been completed is important, it is more important to understand the data. Why? To improve the quality of training your course is offering.
By carefully understanding how your employees have been performing in the course, their learning path, and if their interests in the field are being catered to.
Without analyzing data, producing more microlearning content will become the process of churning out excessive content that doesn’t meet the drawbacks shown by the data.
Parting words
Creating a microlearning strategy can be thrilling and exciting. It is all about generating new avenues for people to learn from and make significant progress in the industry.
However, not being thoughtful and mindful of how the course is being curated, implemented, and analyzed can severely limit your employees’ potential. It is important that your courses effectively frame the foundation for future growth and progress.
By avoiding these mistakes, your course becomes highly effective and a favorite amongst employees.
