Skills-Based Microlearning: What is it and how does it work

Employee learning can be tough to get right, but a wealth of recent research has suggested that there are a few quick wins that can be used to really nail it. Two of these are skills-based learning, and microlearning. In fact, the two of these go very well together!

We’ll be exploring how these twin strategies are already being rolled out at the largest and most successful corporations in the world - Warner Bros. Discovery, Publicis Media and Google to name a few. 

There are two key aspects that unite all of these findings: a skills-based approach, and the use of microlearning.

Specific, Problem-Focused, Skills-Based

Warner Bros. Discovery’s director of learning Stacey Young Rivers conducted a controlled study on her teams’ learning methods. Employees were put through three different training programs - self-directed learning, collaborative learning and problem-based learning. 

By observing how employees behaved over three different kinds of learning, Stacey hoped to establish what the common behaviours were, regardless of the learning environment. 

Her findings? Regardless of the style of learning that the employees were pursuing, they always wanted to learn to solve a specific problem or business challenge. 

In other words - they were much more likely to engage with a course on something like ‘How to Lead a Sales Conversation’, than a course on ‘Sales Conversations Level 1’.

The findings of this study suggest that specific, problem-focused skills-based learning - specific, problem-solving lessons - leads to higher engagement and retention among workplace learners.

Using Microlearning for Building Skills

So we’ve established that skills-based learning sees the best results. But what’s the best method for implementing a skill-based program in your workplace? The answer is microlearning.

The experiment mentioned above at Warner Bros. Discovery also found that keeping the learning content short was both more engaging and better-adapted to the specificity that most learners value.

Another business that has seen huge success through short-form learning is Publicis Media Group. With over 20,000 employees worldwide, Publicis had major problems implementing a learning system that really made a difference for people.

Publicis needed a skills-based system that was also highly adaptable. A major use case for their training was for bringing employees up to speed when taking on clients from over 200 industries.

They built their own in-house system called Publicis Media IQ Academy. This focused on keeping things short-form, using interactive lessons lasting 3-5 minutes. These were also and customisable. Users could create custom goals and personalised pathways.

The course completion rate on the platform is more than 85%, and 86% of the users claimed the platform was highly effective in giving them the knowledge they needed. By opting for short-form, modularised learning, employees were able to cut to the chase and piece together the skill training that they specifically needed, without the fluff.

Cutting content into smaller chunks allows learners to piece together the curriculum that is exactly relevant to them. No-one knows better than the learners themselves what skills they need to learn. Cutting content into short-form chunks helps users address these specific skills, without any extra input from the course providers.

Want to try short-form, modular learning for your business? Well - you can! Head over to 5Mins to see what our platform can do for you.