During a flash session Monday on the expo floor at Safety 2019, Don Leonard of the MARCOM Group discussed microlearning and how it can be used for training, using mobile devices, how it can improve productivity and how to involve employees in content creation.

Microlearning can be described at three- to five-minute online courses that are video-based with a test and are aimed at smartphone users.

It’s now being used for all safety training, Leonard said, and gets training to employees where they are and done when they can fit it into their schedule, which is ideal. It increases information retention, he said, because the smaller the piece of information, the easier it is to remember. It also recaptures lost productivity because employees can take courses “on-the-job” when they can find a few minutes of time that doesn’t impact their work.

Leonard said that a good microlearning course should be “self-contained,” which means it shouldn’t rely on any other courses for background information. These small courses can fulfill training requirements that require more than three to five minutes of information by organizing multiple courses into a single curriculum, in which employees can meet their entire training requirements.

“Microlearning is coming, and it’s coming fast,” Leonard said. “It will transform the way that employees get their training and the potential to recover millions of dollars of lost productivity for the companies that embrace it.”