TITLE: ​Attention!​ Training Revolution Ahead! Part 2: Micro Learning

Last week’s post reported findings from studies on how social media and general internet usage is affecting the way we live our personal lives and how that in turn can affect our working habits. Statistics from ​The Pew Research Center​ have offered the following insights into why many workers are using social media during their working day: ■

34% use social media to take a mental break from their job

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27% to connect with friends and family while at work

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24% to make or support professional connections

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20% to get information that helps them solve problems at work

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17% to build or strengthen personal relationships with coworkers

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17% to learn about someone they work with

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12% to ask work-related questions of people o ​ utside​ their organization

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12% to ask such questions of people ​inside​ their organization

This leads to the conclusion that social media is now being actively used as a tool for work-related research and training as well as networking. Meanwhile a study by ​Microsoft Canada​ has found that the human attention span has decreased rapidly since 2000. It is now down from 12 seconds to just 8 seconds. This suggests that by consuming so much information via the internet we are unknowingly developing the ability to scan, assimilate and discard irrelevant information quicker than ever before. Our brains are being rewired to process information using higher levels of attention for shorter bursts than they ever have previously. What is boils down to: Attention spans are generally shorter but they are more intense. The question now is: How can this be made into an advantage in the workplace?

An ideal workplace to manage would have: ● ● ● ●

All workers working in the same way Abilities and knowledge equal to their tasks Good knowledge leading to good decisions High attention to all aspects of the working day leading to few mistakes

Ideally. Fortunately humans are not worker bees. We represent a wide spectrum of influences and personality traits that have a bearing on how we work and how we take in information. Think back to your school days. There were always some kids in class who would be bored, seemingly unable to sit quietly for 10 minutes while the teacher explained something. Perhaps they acted out. It was easy to label them as troublemakers who were unable to pay attention in a classroom setting. In short, not everyone is suited to sitting still in a classroom to take in large amounts of information. Perhaps those kids just had short attention spans. Neuro readings do show that higher bursts of attention levels are the result of high social media consumption. Well it seems the rest of us may be catching up with them. The way we take in information is changing. As CEOs, managers and HR managers looking at employee training we need to find the right approach that can harness the positive results shown up by these studies. Social media is not a fad that will fade away and return the thought processes to the state it was in pre-social media and pre-internet. This is the new reality that we have to work with. We can do one of two things: 1. ​We continue with the same work and training techniques and hope that they are effective. Or: 2. ​We begin to plan for the future by changing our training methods now and take advantage of our newly developed ability to sort information more swiftly. Will the chunky course manual that goes into dry detail on all relevant and many irrelevant industry rules, regulations, facts and figures really continue to be an efficient training tool? Will the hired trainer with the projected slides talking ​at ​a room of employees itching to get back to the internet really offer the kind of challenge that workers really want?

Will traditional training methods continue to prove cost-effective in a rapidly changing world that increasingly relies on modern technology to get things done at a fraction of the previous cost? Are training methods keeping pace with the rapidly changing technology landscape in a way that can be implemented by businesses big, small and micro? There are at least two topics that need to be covered in order to address these questions: 1. Micro Learning 2. Our relation to Technology First of all: What is Micro Learning? While training methods have not been slow to keep pace with the latest elearning technology, and use the best of it to great effect, there are more changes afoot with changes to the way we process information. Micro Learning may be the key to taking advantage of these changes. Micro Learning is a method of learning by assimilating and digesting relatively small chunks of training information through short-term learning sessions. How does Micro Learning work? Some examples of Micro Learning are things like: ● ● ●

Group quizzes where training information is communicated in quick, short bursts Scheduled hints and tips sent to a worker via their computer Training content issued via computer to a worker with educational reminders

Why should I care about Micro Learning anyway? Micro Learning is all about taking the workplace training out of a classroom, or boardroom, setting and making it more engaging and less onerous. The purpose of this is to make it so both employers and employees can schedule training to take place with less formality. In this way it: ● ● ● ● ● ●

Takes less time Can fit more easily around existing schedules Removes the need for a classroom setting Removes some of the dread some employees may feel about group training The trainee feels respected as an adult rather than a child in a classroom Training is more engaging with a variety of training media that can be used

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Updates to existing knowledge can easily be communicated to employees Lets the trainee know they are trusted to get on with their training according to their own schedule If you want to know the training has been absorbed you can always issue a short and fun quiz to gauge how successful the training has been. Hey, things haven’t changed that much. Have they? Many of the fundamentals to the way we work have changed so dramatically over the last twenty years with the internet, and modern computing technology, being at the core of a large part of these changes. There are many different channels an employee can use to seek work-related information. A lot of these channels can be just as distracting as they are informative. Take LinkedIn for example. No sooner have you begun seeking information on a company than you end up reading an interesting blog post on Micro Learning. Working environments filled with distractions combined with masses of information that need to be skimmed through to find what is relevant leaves our employees feeling overwhelmed and impatient. Yes, even those workplace tools and applications, that are supposed to make work more efficient, end up distracting most workers every 5 minutes notifications and other demands upon their attention. With all that is going on in the working lives of employees most of them feel that only 1% of their working week can be devoted to training and development. That is less than half an hour from a 40-hour working week. With figures like this Micro Learning is the only real, workable training option for a lot of businesses and employees. Why else should I turn to Micro Learning? Quite apart from the efficiency that Micro Learning can offer, in terms of time management and resource allocation, there is still the evidence that it will be more effective for today’s employees. It is worth bearing in mind the evidence from a study by ​Microsoft Canada​ finding that the human attention span has decreased from 12 seconds to just 8 seconds since 2000. Basically employees are generally less able to spend long concentrating but, in the short time that they are paying attention, their concentration level is at a high level of intensity. This makes Micro Learning perfect for today’s employees who generally offer high attention levels for short bursts rather than lower attention for longer. Using our platform HR staff or managers can upload questions and answers from a database to engage the user via his or her smartphone through quizzes and games. The

system pushes questions to the trainee via their smartphone at stipulated times or intervals. This means the trainees get regular shots of training at convenient times that do not depend upon the presence of a trainer. Find out more about how we can help you organization by clicking here. Our Next Post: In our next post we shall look a little more closely into how Micro Learning can be implemented into businesses big and small. We shall also discuss the second item mentioned above, ​Our Relation to Technology​. If you enjoyed this and want to see more see our blog at: