How To Use Microlearning To Maximize Remote Training In Challenging Times

The last two years have been immensely difficult for organizations operating across the globe. An outbreak of a pandemic hit every major industry and caused organizations all over the world to close their doors overnight. As the demand for most products and services dipped with professionals not going out of their houses, it made the normal functioning of organizations difficult – giving rise to the "new normal." 

Although the trend of remote working is a few years old, it skyrocketed after the COVID situation. The inability to venture out of one's house-made organizations function remotely. Companies across the board started implementing collaborative platforms to facilitate virtual operations. The adoption of collaborative platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and more increased significantly to help employees communicate and collaborate with their peers. 

This gave rise to new tools, platforms, and technologies invented to make business processes easier while working remotely. One such methodology is that of microlearning. 

What Is Microlearning?

Microlearning is an advanced form of learning that involves consuming limited and bite-sized content daily to get trained in specific skills. It prevents the learners from taking part in lengthy courses and consuming hours of training content to learn specific skills. It is a form of digital training that organizations can effectively use to train their employees. 

With microlearning, you can provide your employees with regular training resources every day and have them access the same while working remotely. This helps you overcome the need to enroll them in specific workshops or hire dedicated trainers to train your employees. Whether you are willing to train new hires or want your existing employees to learn new skills, microlearning helps you go ahead with the training sessions smoothly and systematically. 

In order to implement microlearning, all you need to do is have a centralized platform to add training materials and make your employees access the same according to their convenience. This remote training methodology is easy to implement and highly effective if you are unwilling to expose your employees to too long and tedious training sessions. 

Major Advantages Of Microlearning

Here are some of the major reasons why microlearning is an effective remote training tool for your employees during challenging times: 

1. Catering To The Limited Attention Span
   
   Over time, the attention span of individuals has decreased significantly. Employees today find it challenging to focus on a single training session for a more extended period. This often results in them not being able to retain the information consumed. Microlearning allows you to cater to the limited attention span of your employees.
   
   The training sessions do not take more than ten minutes of your employees' time, and they can get done with the sessions before they start forgetting the information consumed over time. This naturally makes them retain more knowledge, making the training sessions more successful.
   
   
2. Cost-effective Training
   
   Organizations often spend a fortune getting their employees trained by hiring trainers and organizing seminars/webinars. Microlearning helps you in saving a good amount of training cost by making the entire process digital. All you need to do is procure training materials and help your employees train themselves. This makes training sessions as good as consuming any content on a digital platform.
   
   
3. Increased Confidence And Morale
   
   Microlearning is a highly self-reliant way of getting your employees trained. As there is no trainer involved, your employees are not dependent on anyone for getting trained. By the end of their training sessions, the employees often feel highly motivated and confident due to a sense of achievement attached to the same. This increases the engagement and productivity of your employees as they work for your organization.
   
   
4. Immediate Application Of Lessons Learned
   
   One of the biggest advantages of remote learning is that your employees can apply the skills learned right away. As they are working and getting trained at the same location, it becomes more feasible for your employees to test the skills learned by applying them to their work immediately. This helps you and your team members assess the effectiveness of the training sessions.
   
   
5. A Highly Focused Approach
   
   There is no need to provide background information about the skills to be taught and other data that is not immediately relevant to the concerned training session with remote learning. If your employees are well-versed with the background information about the lessons, they need not spend time behind the same and can directly jump to what is extremely important. Such a focused approach helps you improve the efficiency of your training sessions by making them crisp and to the point.
   
   
6. Flexible Training Hours
   
   Unlike conventional training methods, microlearning allows your employees to get trained with higher flexibility. Here, the training sessions often do not clash with your employees' work hours, allowing them to learn at their own pace. Moreover, each training session's short duration prevents it from clashing with the tasks to be completed by your employees.
   
   
7. Keeping Your Employees' Skills Upgraded
   
   Microlearning is a fairly modern approach to digital learning and remote training. It allows your employees to stay in tune with the latest technological trends in the industry and keep their skills upgraded. With microlearning, you can get your employees trained in modern tools and technologies to improve their work efficiency and equip them with modern skills.
   
   

Using Microlearning To Maximise Remote Training

Here are some of the most important ways in which you can use microlearning to make the most of remote training during challenging times: 

1. Integration With A Collaborative Platform
   
   As mentioned earlier, collaborative platforms help employees communicate and collaborate with their peers. Modern AI-based employee service desks can be effectively integrated with a collaborative platform to leverage their microlearning features. When you integrate microlearning with your collaborative platform, your employees can get trained on the same platform for work.
   
   This further makes it easier for them to apply the skills learned via microlearning while learning. You can add all necessary training resources to the enterprise knowledge base within your collaborative platform and have your employees train themselves from their respective accounts. Moreover, using a modern employee service desk for microlearning allows your employees to resolve their issues simply by chatting with virtual assistants on their respective collaborative platforms. A centralized platform used for microlearning helps you reach out to all your employees from a single unified interface.
   
   
2. Letting Your Employees Share Training Content
   
   Your employees are best aware of their jobs and the skills required to perform them well. It is always advisable to let an experienced lot of your employees share training content for microlearning with their peers. This allows your employees to share their knowledge and expertise with their team members in the best way possible.
   
   Always make sure you ask your team leaders and senior employees to provide their peers with articles, videos, and all other relevant resources to help them get trained as they work remotely. This not only helps your employees get trained better but also promotes inclusive work culture within the organization.
   
   
3. Using Engaging Training Content
   
   If you are willing to increase the rate of information retention in your employees, it is always advisable to provide them with engaging content. Even if they do not spend more than 10 minutes for a training session, most employees would not prefer consuming plain text to learn new skills.
   
   It is, therefore, advisable to use images, videos, infographics, animation, and other forms of engaging content to make your employees retain more information and increase the overall effectiveness of your training sessions.
   
   
4. Go For Seamless Mobile Customization
   
   This is one of the most basic yet significant ways of leveraging microlearning for remote training. Always make sure that the training resources provided to your employees are compatible with mobile devices. While working remotely, it is common for professionals to use their mobile phones and gadgets instead of laptops and desktops. This increases the flexibility of your training sessions and allows your employees to get trained on the go.
   
   
5. Make The Most Of AI To Improve Training Sessions
   
   AI and machine learning allow organizations to make sense of their big data and derive valuable insights. It is always advisable to make optimum use of AI to improve the effectiveness of your training sessions. AI components allow the digital training platform to understand your employees' strengths, weaknesses, and preferences, personalizing the training experience for everyone.
   
   

The Final Word 

These were some of the most critical ways in which microlearning can maximize remote training during challenging times. Remember that the "new normal" is here to stay, and it is advisable for organizations operating in all industries to adapt to the same to leverage their productivity.