Published
September 12, 2019
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Now more than ever, microlearning is popping up in learning and development for every industry from healthcare to finance for effective personalized learning. Created to provide a comprehensive way of eLearning, microlearning is the breakdown of information into bite-sized chunks.
Read on as we consider microlearning and outline the top five benefits it brings to the hospitality industry.
Before diving in, let’s break down what microlearning consists of. Simply put, microlearning deals with relatively small learning units and short-term learning activities. It involves short-term-focused strategies specially designed for skill-based online learning and understanding. Now that we know what we’re dealing with, here are five reasons why microlearning and the hospitality industry go hand-in-hand.
1. Elearning is designed for higher knowledge retention rates
Officially making up the bulk of hospitality’s working population, millennials expect to be consistently challenged and stimulated. Since the average human brain has an eight-second attention span, microlearning could be the answer to adapt from constant digital stimuli (thank you smartphones) with its easily-digestible information in a short amount of time. By focusing on fewer topics, learned knowledge has a greater chance of transferring from short-term to long-term memory.
2. Elearning easily engage and align all of your workforce
Especially when it comes to the hospitality industry and its current skills shortage, businesses that give their employees ways to build upon an existing skill set and collaborate are those that are more likely to succeed. From your employees’ perspective, microlearning is convenient and flexible, giving them the space to complete lessons without being overwhelmed with too much information. Furthermore, using gamification encourages employee engagement and retention, presenting clear benefits to your workforce and ultimately your venue.
3. Verify product knowledge at your teams’ fingertips
Microlearning courseware can be simple to develop and personalise, enabling managers to easily create product knowledge and skills assessments using scorm tools. With microlearning, you can simply verify whether or not your team is comfortable with your wine list or new spring menu, for example. Since the majority of our population has a smartphone, microlearning can also be available anytime, anywhere, giving your employees the freedom and flexibility to complete their microlessons accordingly.
4. Ensure health and safety procedures
The minimum requirements for hospitality compliance include documenting procedures, like an occupational health and safety management manual, health and safety management policy, and
responsibility of key personnel. HR and management can easily address these necessary health and safety procedures to all staff with microlearning. Build and update safety procedures on a modern platform so that your employees, and ultimately your venue, is running legally.
5. Place continued value in your staff
High staff turnover rates are one of the biggest headaches that hospitality operators face. People often enter the hospitality industry without formal training, but encouraging upskilling programs is a proven way to show your employees that you are committed to their professional growth. Microlearning is a great way to encourage this growth by providing instant feedback and a sense of accomplishment as each employee completes any given lesson.
Ultimately, microlearning is great for any industry as it can drive eLearning course completion rates to soar from under 20% to well over 80%. For these five reasons and more, microlearning is a great learning tool for hospitality business owners to place value in their team with efficiency and easy, cultivating higher employee retention and slashing turnover rates.
If you’d like to know more about how SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s mobile learning platform can help your internal training practices, get in touch at enquiries@edapp.com. You can also try SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s Mobile LMS software and authoring tool for free by signing up here. Enroll your employees now!
Author
Daniel Brown is a senior technical editor and writer that has worked in the education and technology sectors for two decades. Their background experience includes curriculum development and course book creation.