Training sessions in the corporate world can slowly, but surely become extremely redundant, boring, and cause the loss of interest for staff. Whether it’s a new training program or even a re-skilling one to remind them of corporate compliances, company values, or important certifications that need renewed yearly, staff know what to expect and can quickly tune the trainer or online modules out.
It’s important to find new ways to keep staff engaged through important training sessions that are required within their position, and gamifying microlearning can be a unique way to switch things up. Microlearning can help staff retain more information in short bursts without feeling overloaded and using games as a way to train them can keep their interest, leading to higher learning retention.
Training in the corporate world shouldn’t be mundane and boring–instead, add gamified learning as well as different ways to implement it in training modules!
How to Gamify Microlearning: Fun, Interactive Ways to Boost Retention in Corporate Learning
Microlearning is a known, effective method to train staff, and adding gaming features into it can make it more fun and engaging!
Gaming and microlearning can be paired together to help train corporate staff in important modules that easily keep their attention. Image courtesy of Pickcel.
Finding new and inventive ways to keep staff engaged throughout important training sessions can be quite tricky, but it beats the lectures through hours or days-long sessions. Microlearning is a great way to help retain learning better where it keeps staff productive on their normal, everyday tasks, while also helping them to learn or re-skill in important company policies, compliances, and other training sessions.
What is Microlearning?
First thing’s first–what is microlearning? This is an important concept to learn first before diving headfirst in gamifying learning sessions where their tactics alone can help to boost staff retention and engagement.
Microlearning is the process of delivering educational content in short, easily-digestible units that can take anywhere from a couple minutes to learn to upwards of ten-to-fifteen minutes maximum. With quick consumption in mind, microlearning can help split an important training module up into units or specific skills and implement digital learning formats–such as quizzes, videos, flashcards, or even games–to make them more engaging.
The Benefits to Microlearning
Microlearning offers a ton of unique benefits that can overall help to train staff better than long, drawn-out training modules. Here are some of the most effective benefits that managers have noticed making the switch to microlearning in the corporate world:
- Improves learning retention
- Higher employee engagement
- Faster and higher course completion rates
- “Just-in-time” learning where staff can learn on their own time
- Flexibility to learn on their own time and accessibility with mobile-friendly methods
- Gain new skills faster by focusing on one skill per session
- Increased productivity
- Allows staff to participate and learn useful information in training sessions without getting in the way of important daily job tasks and/or responsibilities
- Cost-effective by creating shorter forms of content for consumption
- Can create content in many digital formats to engage staff with
What is Gamified Microlearning? How Games Can Help Enhance and Boost Learning
Now that you’re a bit more familiar with microlearning, gamifying it makes it that much more fun for your corporate team! Gamified microlearning consists of adding game-like elements in training sessions or units to further engage with staff, help them pay attention to the unit more, and receive rewards in the end.
Some of the common gamifying features that are added into any microlearning unit can consist of having ranked leaderboards with everyone’s score listed to see how well staff retained the information provided to them, and even badges and points that are given to help staff receive rewards.
An example of gamified learning can be creating story-driven scenarios which provide an interactive experience to help retain the information given to them better, plus it keeps staff engaged compared to long, linear training sessions.
Examples of Gamifying Microlearning to Add to Your Training Modules in Corporate Learning
Corporate training sessions shouldn’t be boring, so add rewards by gamifying units to keep staff engaged!
Gamifying corporate training units can be a great way for staff to learn new or re-skill old training sessions without losing engagement. Image courtesy of Maxlearn.
Adding microlearning into corporate training is a great way to help train staff effectively, help them better retain the information, along with help to engage them through fun digital formats. Gamified microlearning is a great option for corporate training sessions that can also provide rewards, badges, or achievements based on how well they do, encouraging staff to pay attention to the material.
Here are some of the best ways to gamify microlearning in corporate training to effectively help your staff learn and remember important information better than ever before!
Gamified Quizzes or Polls
One of the most engaging ways for people to learn and remember information taught in important training sessions in the corporate world is through gamified quizzes or polls. There are many popular websites–such as Kahoot! and Trivie–where you can create your own quizzes for staff to easily connect through a unique link and play. These games also help to create friendly competition with one another and it also features a ranked leaderboard to allow everyone to put in their best effort and get the highest score.
Scenario-Based Simulations
One of the best ways for any staff to gain the experience or knowledge to put their skills to the test in the real world is thorough scenario-based simulations. These types of simulations allow for staff to put themselves in a particular situation and see if what they choose to do is the best option, but in a risk-free environment. Even if a staff member makes the wrong decision, they will be able to learn from it and know what is the appropriate choice when applying it to their daily job responsibilities or in intense situations outside of training. These simulations can also be super quick for microlearning purposes and only take a few minutes to complete to keep staff engaged and tuned into the content of the unit.
Give Out Badges or Certificates Upon Completion
Microlearning can come in a wide variety of forms, even if you just want to have short sessions with staff of traditional lectures. Taking some time out (in microlearning standards can be anywhere from three-to-fifteen minutes) to teach staff about a particular unit in the module you’re working is more than enough for staff to learn and retain important information.
Once your staff have completed a particular section, you can award them with virtual badges or achievements like they would if they finish a task in a video game and even hand out certificates upon completion to show that they are proficient in the topic. They also act as a form of verifiable and portable credits that they can take with them to other jobs as well.
Create Levels for Staff to Complete
Just like any different types of video games, you have to complete levels in order to unlock other ones and advance–the same can be said for gamified microlearning in corporate training as well. If you want to make microlearning in training sessions fun for staff, gamify them with levels that staff need to complete in order to go to the next topic.
Gamifying important modules for corporate staff is a great way to keep them engaged and focused on one topic at a time. Mastering the current topic that they are on is essential to move onto the next one and you can place short quizzes or videos in between levels to keep the interest of staff and help them to learn important topics.
Virtual Scavenger Hunts
There are a ton of different ways to gamify microlearning training modules in a corporate setting to make it more interesting for staff. If you’re going over company values, policies, and compliances, a great way to make learning about these topics more fun is to have a virtual scavenger hunt for your staff to complete.
Many answers to important training modules can easily be found on the company website or through PowerPoint presentations about it. A virtual scavenger hunt is a great option to help staff go out and find the answers to important questions as it can help them to explore corporate systems or internal websites and get more familiar with them.
Flashcards for Soft Skills in the Corporate World
One of the best ways of studying and learning new topics, definitions, and concepts is through flashcards. Flashcards help with memory retention through active recall, and they also can be used to gamify microlearning topics in the corporate world.
Staff can be learning more about company policies, compliances, or topics pertaining to the company that they work for, and flashcards are a great way to study these important terms. By creating flashcards to go over certain topics with staff, it can help to show what skills staff collectively need more practice with, those that they understand, and help them to better retain the information that they are going over.
Digital Signage in Gamified Microlearning: How Flashy Content Can Make Learning More Fun
Pairing digital signage with gamified microlearning can help make presenting units and fun methods of training better for staff!
Digital signage can be a great way to help bring gamified microlearning to life with the help of QR codes, links, videos, and presentations.
Gamified microlearning can come in more formats than simply being something that staff work on when it’s flexible for them. If you still want to get your team together for useful and productive microlearning sessions with gamified features, digital signage can be one of the best ways to bring it to life–along with a content management system (CMS) to create unique content to make learning more immersive.
How Digital Signage can Bring Gamified Microlearning to Life
When we think of games, most often we think of video games that are brought to life through a computer or console and projected onto a monitor to play and get immersed in. For training purposes in the corporate world, gamified microlearning can be brought to life through digital signage where an LED/LCD screen can present content that you create through a CMS platform.
CMS platforms allow staff to be creative with how they make content to present through digital signage in high-traffic areas around the corporate office. Whether you want to get together in a meeting room with staff or have them do it on their own time, you can create QR codes that have links to quizzes, virtual scavenger hunts, simulations, or polls for staff to get involved in their training and retain more information with fun, interactive ways of doing so.
Bring Your Content to Life Through Shift
For many corporate offices, it’s difficult to find the right CMS platform that perfectly fits your company values and for all of the staff that are employed through your company. Shift is an incredible CMS platform that allows full creativity to make content that will bring your staff closer together through employee spotlights and recognition.
While deepening staff relationships is Shift’s main goal, it can also be a way to gamify microlearning through the use of QR codes, or it can be a way to show videos, infographics, photos, and even have staff interact with quizzes and hold short discussions about what they learned.
Gamify Corporate Learning: Make Learning Interactive With Achievements and Rewards
Mundane training sessions can be difficult to get through in the corporate setting. Whether it’s a repeat of a training that needs to be updated, or new policies and compliances that need to be addressed, making it more fun to learn or re-skill topics through gamified microlearning is a great way to keep staff focused, remember the information, and boost engagement.
Consider implementing Shift and its unique features into your gamified microlearning units in corporate training today!
