Chat-Based Training For Busy Professionals
Old-fashioned days of once-a-year training are long gone. While gaudy weekend outings with daylong workshops that end with a party to decompress may seem like a great fringe benefit, many Learning and Development (L&D) departments have started to doubt the efficiency of that kind of training. While team activities are extremely important for kindling team spirit and allowing the space for networking, such intense but solitary learning sessions don’t seem to offer enough support for the challenges of the day-to-day work.
Rapid Change, Rapid Learning
Rapid changes, frequent new regulations, and constant improvement in collaboration and communication between the departments all call for a new form of continuous training. One that’s efficient, quick to deploy, easy to digest, and doesn’t cost a fortune. Conversational microlearning, aka chat-based microlearning, might be just the solution.
Changing The Training Model
Human memory is famously imperfect. Research shows that within 2 days we are likely to forget over 60% of what we learned. Additionally, learning is hard. It requires extra energy and motivation which employees, already invested in meeting the business goals, often can’t spare. Daylong training is more likely to bore and tire them than to leave them inspired and equipped with new knowledge. Carving out extra time ever so often, dedicated just to learning, might seem too much of a burden. On the other hand, businesses do not have time to produce learning materials fast enough. Learning is hard, but getting knowledge across is by no means easier, and companies often struggle to secure budgets just for learning. That’s why traditional training sees diminishing returns.
The question remains: how to make learning engaging and efficient, while sticking to the budget and keeping up with the pace? The answer seems to be simple: use technology and tap into already existing everyday habits, such as texting.
Meet The Learner Right Where They Are
The rule for efficient learning seems simple–tie the new knowledge to the existing, make the message short and sweet, and repeat it a few times. Voila, now you know something new. Microlearning follows all these rules, and has become known for its efficiency as a training method. Microlearning divides knowledge into concise and digestible nuggets, presented attractively. It can be a quiz or a puzzle, it can be a diagram, it can be a picture, and the possibilities are endless.
Thanks to its efficiency, microlearning has become a crucial part of corporate training among the biggest players in the global market. Many Learning and Development departments swear by it when introducing new subjects, as well as when they want to refresh some key issues such as safety and security. The microlearning method is also efficient as it often comes as a feature in white-label LMS systems. Courses offered in LMS libraries or created by employers are easy to deploy to the team and track within the system. Microlearning seems to be the solution. There’s, however, one problem: many LMSs are still not tailored to be used on mobile devices. In addition, LMS are often a silo that employees are not inclined to visit as a part of their day-to-day duties.
Mobile Learning
In today’s world everything happens via a smartphone: shopping, banking, working, commuting, entertainment, and education. If there’s no app for it, we’re not interested! Our everyday habits are tightly connected with checking notifications, swiping, typing, searching, and texting on a small screen held in our palms. We no longer open laptops to send emails, we dictate them on the phone.
Mobile solutions are personalized, deeply user-centered, and agile, and it is in this area of our everyday activity that we need to search for solutions for continuous training. Conversational microlearning solutions tap into the mundane activity of texting to encourage learning. Its state-of-the-art training method can be tailored to any industry and subject that meets the learners right where they are: with a smartphone in their pocket.
Learning By Chatting
Chat-based microlearning or text-based microlearning is a new player in the microlearning market that’s winning more and more attention. Its main strength, in fact, is that it doesn’t require installing any extra apps or programs, and it’s delivered directly to the smart device via a preferred messaging app or as a web-based solution. Conversational microlearning might just be a solution for continuous learning in areas requiring frequent updates such as customer experience, compliance, or widely understood safety. Cybersecurity awareness training might be a prime example of chat-based microlearning and its beneficial impact on raising online safety awareness.
Participation Makes It Stick
Learning is the most efficient when it’s participatory. Practice allows for multisensory learning: through touch, look, or smell, our bodies memorize movements and create sturdy neural connections. It’s also true for online learning. By definition participation requires active involvement: answering questions, coming up with solutions, making mistakes, and finding the right paths. Conversational microlearning encourages involvement and is fundamentally personalized with the help of AI–tailored to every learner and their learning pace. Starting from the one-on-one nature of the chat to the informal language (“Do you know what is the most common password in the world?”) to the responsive script that skips unnecessary parts of the lessons, chat-based microlearning imitates individual tutoring, or even a chat with a more experienced colleague.
…So Does Personalization
The chat-based learning solution is intuitive and efficient. It simply makes the knowledge stick thanks to its brief, concise, and to-the-point messages. No lengthy definitions and exhausting memorizations required. The scripted and AI-enhanced lesson is usually based on one topic only, for instance, password security, and takes one to two minutes to complete. It can start with assessing the learner’s knowledge and reacting accordingly, so that those who are building from scratch are given a bit more background, and those who know more are directly led to the new knowledge. Additionally, AI can provide tutor-like feedback based on a company's custom knowledge. Repetition is key–microlearning uses a spaced repetition model which ensures the new information sticks. Since the lesson is so short, it’s not a problem to repeat it every so often.
Minimum Work With Maximum Effect
Let’s not forget that chat-based microlearning has benefits for both sides, the employee and the employer. Chat-based solutions do not consume as many resources as conventional training methods. First, they are fundamentally agile and adaptive and fit for any industry and any subject. Second, creating the lesson is simple and intuitive. The app provides a general frame and cues which help to build a fun and efficient learning experience. Third, it’s quick and allows you to produce content regularly without investing much time. With the power of AI new chat-based tutorials or quizzes based on own resources are generated in moments.
Intuitive, Secure, And Engaging Conversational Microlearning
Staying on top of your training game should be fun and easy. You can create smart, easy, and engaging training solutions that keep the memory fresh and– when it comes to security awareness training–your online presence secure. Thanks to the smart use of spaced repetition microlearning boosts knowledge retention in long-term memory. Users can employ quizzes to keep the learners’ attention and offer personalized AI-powered feedback on the lessons to help improve. It finds people right where they are: at their smartphones, using apps they already have, such as Microsoft Teams or their preferred browsers. Conversational microlearning might be the next “it” thing as it builds on our most human feature: conversations.
