This year, the discussion of learning in the workplace exploded in the digital sphere, invoked by a huge need for change. The evidence is overwhelming: the biggest barrier to learning in the workplace is time.

Employees feel they don’t have enough time in the workplace to evolve and develop new skills. It seems that while organizations have identified this need, and many have pledged to prioritize the growth and professional development of their employees – finding the time for learning in the course of a day’s work is still a huge challenge.      

From LinkedIn Learning 2019 Workplace Learning Report (PDF download)

It will take some time for the learning culture in the workplace to take shape and solidify. Part of the paradigm shift is new forms of learning and tools that have been rapidly changing the face of corporate education. These tools are designed to solve issues related to limited time and concentration by providing employees with easy access to learning materials.

Microlearning – Guidance Exactly When and Where You Need It

Microlearning is one of these new content delivery methods that has been making huge strides in the digital learning landscape. Its main advantage as a learning tool is being available at the exact time and place to help the user. Microlearning lessons are short, accurate, and tell you only what you need to know about a specific object.

This mode of learning correlates with how we have come to think of searching for information. When answers to almost any question became a Google search away, our expectations as users shifted. As search engine algorithms evolved to accommodate users’ simple language and asking patterns, learning technologies adapted to deliver the same experience.  

Today, cutting edge content delivery methods like microlearning are available within Oracle’s Guided Learning solution, allowing users to:

• Search (within the application they are working on)
• Get an actionable answer
• Learn
• Act on what they have learned

…all in the space of a few keyboard strikes.  

As microlearning evolves, expect to see more sophisticated capabilities added such as deep personalization, complex content discovery capabilities, AI, and predictive analytics. These capabilities are designed to tailor the experience to the user’s needs to make learning more beneficial, with less effort.

Microlearning in the Race for Productivity

One of the most important skills to have in the workforce today is attention management. A close relative of ‘time management,’ attention management is the ability to block out distractions in favor of deep work. In other words, it is the demon we struggle with to not check our phone, hop on to that open Facebook tab, check emails obsessively, remember a grocery item you need, and then stop everything to go update the grocery shopping list.

We’ve seen how interruptions impact the working brain. Recent researches determine that it takes over 23 minutes for a person to recover from interruption and return to work.

Here, too, microlearning has made an enormous technological breakthrough: instead of employees struggling to implement impossible work routines, or undergoing agonizing Instagram detox, microlearning lessons alleviate the attention disorder. Lessons are delivered in context and so is part of the concentration flow the user is already in.

Another advantage is the accurate portion of information, which makes it possible to avoid the cognitive overload so often brought on by multiple channels of media and information.

Summary

Enterprise organizations everywhere are faced with the challenge of needing to learn more in less and less time. Microlearning can be the smart and quick solution to help the corporate workforce meet the growing masses of information employees need to consume on a daily basis.

   Noa Dror

Noa joined the Oracle University marketing team when Oracle acquired Iridize. With a strong background in digital marketing, UX planning, and customer strategies, Noa heads the Guided Learning content team in educating Oracle readers on digital adoption and learning in the workplace.

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