Whether in the sales business for 20 years or two, professionals can benefit from training to improve their skills and expand their knowledge. But finding time for training sessions can prove difficult, so managers have turned to microlearning.
According to the Journal of Applied Psychology, absorbing information in bite-sized portions versus long training sessions makes learning 17% more efficient. Microlearning contains short and to-the-point presentations that are easy to understand and remember. Short videos or training modules that offer fast, teachable moments are often used.
Sales teams not only experience more efficiency with microlearning but better retention and performance, too.
Microlearning is beneficial whether you’re working from home or in the office. Let’s dive deeper into the benefits of microlearning and ways to implement it into your team’s strategy.
Read More: 3 Best Practices For Managing Remote Employees Long Term
Benefits of Microlearning
The most important benefit of microlearning is using minimal time for training while gradually developing skills, which will help improve job performance. Microlearning is also relevant for a wide range of topics and team sizes, whether done virtually, in person or through a mixture of both.
Sometimes maintaining the attention of employees is difficult, so managers use microlearning to shorten training meetings to 30-minute intervals. No one likes wasting time in unnecessarily long, unproductive meetings, and more than time can be wasted. According to HPPY, 50% of employee time is wasted in extensive meetings, and among the 11 billion meetings held daily, $37 billion worth of time is wasted.
On top of that, the more meetings employees have to attend, the more worn out they will feel when trying to complete their everyday tasks.
The Development of Microlearning
The first step in adding microlearning to your organization is by taking a look at your current training schedule to see how you can break it down into smaller, more digestible sections. Most training materials can easily convert into shorter presentations that are easier for employees to retain.
Videos three minutes long or less are ideal for microlearning. Managers are encouraged to distribute videos ahead of time to inform employees about the meeting’s purpose and keep the sessions short. Videos can be helpful in microlearning because an employee’s brain can take a bit of a break while absorbing new information.
Managers should keep meetings consistent and tailored to team needs. For sales teams specifically, managers should use short, interactive challenges throughout their training content, which allows sales reps to learn on their own.
Read More: How Retailers Create The Ultimate Customer Experience With Audio-Out-Of-Home
The Uses of Microlearning
Microlearning is useful in a number of ways:
- Reminding reps of specific job functions.
- Demonstrating how to use a type of tool or software.
- Practicing underused skills.
- Supporting performance goals and opportunities for growth.
Although microlearning serves many purposes, it isn’t ideal for every workplace training. Microlearning isn’t best for onboarding or training a new employee because that requires learning a large amount of information in a short amount of time. Once employees are comfortable as members of the team, they can use microlearning to support what they learned during onboarding. This type of microlearning will allow those employees to effectively do their job and continue their growth.
Is your team trying to avoid being complacent? Have you felt professionally “stuck” while working remotely? To avoid regressing in production and worsening performance numbers, sales teams have tried whatever they can to find success. Microlearning might extend over a lengthy period of time, but dividing training sessions into smaller sections increases productivity when compared to holding a smaller number of prolonged meetings.
In any type of working environment, microlearning allows the organizations and employees who use it to stay at the top of their game in the most efficient way possible.