You'll never stop learning
Microlearning for Employees Build up Practical
Knowledge and helpful
Soft Skills in Tiny Portions
Knowledge
Soft Skills
Who can easily motivate themselves to sit down 🪑 at their desk and study for several hours at a time? Especially alongside all the obligations of everyday life? Probably not many people. The trend is therefore towards microlearning. 🎓 What exactly does this mean? What benefits does the concept have for employees and companies? And what does it have to do with eating at a sushi restaurant? 🍣
Professional and Personal Development in Tiny Portions
Paula has been working in sales at CRONUS AG for two years. She works from her home office four days a week. On Thursdays, she drives to the office by car and likes to use the journey times for further education, preferably with the “Blinkist” app. She likes to listen to a 15-minute summary of a book, such as “Storytelling” by Edgar von Cossart.
During her lunch break, Paula regularly takes time for personal development and her favorites include short summaries of books or podcasts on time management and efficiency, such as “Concentrated Work” by Cal Newport. This helps her to develop strategies to increase her productivity. The principle Paula uses to learn is called microlearning. 🎓
Taking Small Steps to gain more Knowledge and Soft Skills independently
Microlearning is a form of learning that is used in some companies for the individual further training of employees. The principle: employees build up knowledge by completing condensed learning units on their own responsibility, which often take around 15 to 30 minutes. The modules can have different formats - for example, there are short learning videos, summaries of podcasts, infographics or presentations. At the end of each unit, there is ideally a success experience to consolidate the learning content - for example by completing quizzes.
This form of learning is very suitable for upskilling employees, as it enables them to improve specific skills in a very targeted way. How do I optimize my stress management? How can I deal with challenges or conflicts more confidently?
Popular Microlearning Formats
Short Texts
Podcasts
Infographics
Games, riddles and quizzes
Educational Videos
Presentations
Integrating Microlearning into Everyday Life
Microlearning gives employees the opportunity to consume the modules during a train or car journey, e.g. on the way to work. This allows them to use “idle times” for their own training. Microlearning is not tied to specific times or places (similar to the principle of asynchronous working).
Further training using microlearning can therefore be integrated into everyday life in various ways. There is no rule as to when and how to learn. Three popular variants:
- Morning routine: Start the day with a 15-minute summary of a book
- During the lunch break: Combine a walk during the lunch break with a learning unit
- After work: Use the quiet time without distractions for further training
The Advantages of Microlearning - for Employees
Compared to traditional learning formats, microlearning offers the following advantages for employees.
Employees easily gain a boost for personal development through compact learning units.
The topics that are of interest to the respective employees can be filtered out.
Studies have shown that small, focused learning units promote retention in long-term memory.
As the learning content is divided into small, easily digestible units, it can be consumed within a short time. This is particularly beneficial for employees who only have a few minutes a day to learn.
Learners have the opportunity to decide completely for themselves when and where they learn and can therefore easily integrate further training into their everyday lives.
Microlearning makes it easier to focus thanks to its compact and often entertaining learning units.
Microlearning via apps promotes self-responsibility and self-directed learning, as employees can usually decide for themselves when, how and what they learn.
The Advantages of Microlearning - for Companies
And companies have these advantages when employees use microlearning.
Short learning units with a direct sense of achievement help to keep employees motivated.
Employees can acquire knowledge in shorter learning times.
Microlearning offers the opportunity to acquire knowledge exactly when it is needed, which is particularly helpful for solving problems or preparing for specific tasks and projects.
When companies purchase subscriptions for their employees with microlearning providers, the content can be “distributed” to a large number of employees in parallel.
Criteria for the Success of Microlearning
What should be in place for microlearning to work optimally for the learners (in this case the employees)?
- Appealing and interactive design: this can be achieved, for example, through videos, quizzes or gamification elements.
- Relevance of content and contextualization: it is important to put the learning content in a context that is relevant to the learners. This helps to recognize the practical benefits of what has been learned and to better integrate it into professional practice or everyday life.
- Personalization: if possible, learning content should be tailored to the individual needs and learning styles of learners. Personalized learning paths and adaptive learning technologies can support this.
- Integration into everyday life: the learning units should be compressed in such a way that learners can easily integrate them into their everyday lives without perceiving the whole thing as stressful.
- Repeatability: the learning units should be designed in such a way that learners can repeat the content if necessary. Regular refreshers help to anchor what has been learned in long-term memory.
- Accessibility and usability: the platform or app used for microlearning should be easily accessible and user-friendly. Intuitive navigation and fast loading times are crucial to avoid frustration.
When companies take these factors into account, they ensure that microlearning is not only fun, but also effective and sustainable.
Microlearning is an Effective, Popular and Excellent Learning Method
All in all, microlearning is an effective method for acquiring knowledge in small, easily digestible units (“learning bites”). This is very compatible with the often hectic daily routine and offers both employees and companies a number of advantages. Companies can give their employees access to microlearning platforms such as Blinkist by taking out subscriptions for them.
Microlearning with apps represents a modern, technology-supported method of learning and is therefore an integral part of digital transformation in the education sector.
Microlearning has now proven itself as a learning method in fast-paced everyday life: more than 26 million people worldwide use Blinkist, for example. Back in 2016, the app was awarded the “World Summit Award” in the “Education” category by the United Nations.
As the learning units in microlearning are small and therefore “easily digestible”, the whole thing is reminiscent of eating at a sushi restaurant. 🍣 In addition, learners can select and combine the microlearning units according to their own needs and interests, just like a sushi platter. Thanks to the portioning of knowledge, it is also very easy to ensure that you don’t “overload” yourself with knowledge. Have you already gained experience with learning in small portions in your company?
