Microlearning makes sense for training millennials and how! Read this blog to find out more on facilitating microlearning in corporate training.
The 3 favorite ‘M’s of the millennials – memes, mobiles (smartphones, especially), and music! But for corporate training, there’s another ‘M’ they are falling in love with – microlearning! Millennials are at home with technology, and they need quick solutions to training challenges, and microlearning fits the bill on both counts. Adding microlearning to their training will add the zing, spicing up their training and making it engaging!
So, how do you facilitate microlearning for your millennial workforce? Let’s find out, right here.
Microlearning for Millennials
4 Ways to Offer Microlearning
- Micro videos for personalized learning
- Gamified assessments for better engagement
- Microlearning assets for easy access
- Micro scenarios for decision making
Ways to Facilitate Microlearning for Millennials
1. Micro Videos for Personalized Learning
Millennials like their workplace to be fun!
Microlearning is short and focused on one learning objective, and because millennials have a short attention span and are always looking for immediate solutions to their problems, it is ideal to train millennials. Onboarding your newly hired millennial workforce becomes fun and simple when done through micro videos.
Download this eBook on leveraging eLearning to onboard millennials.
You can provide an overview of the organization and its values for your millennial employees through micro videos. Use it to give them a virtual tour of the organization even before they step into their workplace. Share the access mechanisms to restricted areas or the steps to login to use your HR portal.
There’s more you can do with micro videos for onboarding training and development! You can also offer them personalized learning. Tailoring their onboarding journey according to their job roles can increase employee retention. How can you do this?
- Send them a personalized welcome message.
- Allow them to speed through what they already know.
Sending your millennials personalized micro videos is surely a happy way of welcoming them to your organization. So, say “No” to dull PowerPoint Presentations and go for micro videos.
2. Gamified Assessments for Better Engagement
Millennials have a penchant for visuals and rich media, and look for instant feedback.
Visual aids, rich media, instant feedback, you get all these with gamified assessments! Gamify micro quizzes for your millennial workforce – they are not just fun, and not just learning, they are both (edutainment)! The generation that grew up playing video games on computers, laptops, TVs, and smartphones, will definitely be tempted by assessments if they’re in the form of a game.
Game elements such as scores, badges, and leaderboards make assessments competitive and therefore more fun. They help boost your learners’ confidence and provide an intrinsic motivation toward taking tests.
The instant feedback you can offer them adds to their learning and retention. There are other reasons your millennial workforce (especially) would prefer gamified micro assessments; because millennials:
- Are tech-savvy
- Are easily distracted
- Need recognition
- Are ambitious (and therefore, more competitive)
- Have a strong capacity for multi-tasking
Need I say more? Use micro assessments within eLearning courses to engage your learners and let them show off their scores or badges to their peers on social media platforms!
3. Microlearning Assets for Easy Access
Millennials like to learn, but don’t like to be told how to learn.
Millennials are not particularly fond of rules and guidelines either, but they love flexibility. So easy access to microlearning assets makes them more amenable to learning. When I say easy access, I mean offline access, on their preferred locations. They prefer to learn from digital microlearning assets such as infographics, digital flashcards, interactive PDFs, GIFs, and mobile apps. So, forcing them to sit through long classroom sessions or eLearning doesn’t make sense!
They also like to explore and learn, choosing their own learning path rather than being asked to follow a rigid learning path. And microlearning allows you to do just that, catering to a variety of learning styles! The colorful graphics, multimedia, and interactivity microlearning provides – all make learning much more appealing. Also, millennials do not like to be overloaded with information, so microlearning assets are best as they only provide need-to-know information.
On mobile devices (which millennials are never found without!), microlearning assets are much easier to provide than a full-length eLearning course. These short modules also help boost their retention. You can provide them immediate access to crucial information on a click. Millennials are also constantly looking for opportunities to learn and grow. With this on-demand learning, you not only give them control of learning but also more opportunities to learn when they are away from work.
4. Micro Scenarios for Decision Making
Millennials need to know what is expected of them, and they need a clear outcome.
A clear outcome is provided to your millennials when they make decisions in a risk-free zone without worrying about the consequences. This is why micro scenarios are the best training solution here! They provide a risk-free environment for practice and clear outcomes for the decisions made. When you present them micro scenarios for training, you place them in an imaginary work situation (that mimics real life) and ask them to make decisions out of the choices given. Making these decisions makes them learn through practice.
Micro scenarios make the process of learning engaging and avoid monotony, a big YES for your millennial workforce. Using them will immediately grab their attention because they know what they’ll be getting out of it – how their decisions can affect performance.
Wrapping it Up!
Your millennial workforce highly prefers these short, focused learning bytes. Microlearning:
- Offers employee-centric training
- Allows learning with technology
- Provides flexibility with learning
- Cuts down learners’ time in training
So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and implement microlearning in your corporate training!
Streaming entertainment on mobile devices is one of the fads with millennials now! You can use their love of mobiles to your advantage by going for mobile learning. To learn how to implement mobile learning in your organization, download this free eBook – Mobile Learning: How to Overcome Implementation Barriers. Click on the link below to download.
