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Hi, It’s Tom here from Excel Communications on the LGS pod.  

Today I want to talk to you all about training – but specifically about the importance of length when it comes to training sessions. 

As a leader, it can be tempting to want to cram your training sessions full of the knowledge you know your team will benefit from – but this can be detrimental to the overall goal. 

We know that shorter training sessions are better for knowledge retention; they also have some other great benefits, too. 

In this video, I‘m going to share with you some of the main positives of short training sessions, so you and your team can start to benefit from them right away. 

So recently, we’ve seen shorter training sessions – or ‘microlearning’ as it is sometimes referred to  – increasing in popularity, as more people are becoming aware of its many advantages. So let me share with you some of the main reasons this training works, starting with some science. 

Shorter training sessions are more effective – this is a scientifically proven fact 

If you go and have a Google, you will find plenty of organisations and professional bodies, giving examples of how shorter training sessions have benefitted them personally. 

But the data that I want to share with you today comes from a peer-reviewed scientific study, which was published in 2012 – and I’ll leave a link to the study in the transcript of this video.  

The researchers found unanimously that shorter training sessions were advantageous. And this is because the shorter time of the sessions allows the new information to ‘sink in’ between and after the training sessions – the study uses slightly more scientific language than I’ve used here but then again, I’m not a scientist! 

Anyway, the fact remains that we know short training sessions can be effective, and we’ve got science to back us up too, which is always nice. 

So next I want to talk about how short training sessions fit in with something we‘re all doing more of recently, and that‘s E-learning. 

2020 has been the year of virtual interactions. And judging by the success that many of us have enjoyed while collaborating on Skype and Zoom during lockdown, it will be one thing that we continue to do.   

As more of us than ever are using digital platforms for everything from connecting with friends, to our workloads, digital training has become a big part of this digital terrain. 

E-learning has become hugely popular over the last few months. At first, out of necessity, but now we are seeing both employees and employers realising the benefits of digital training. 

But it’s at the point where e-learning meets microlearning which is where the real benefit lies. When learning on an online platform, in small chunks – this is where training produces the best results.  

As I’ve mentioned, short training improves knowledge retention, and digital platforms are perfect for delivering these bite-sized chunks of knowledge.  

When your employees can learn at their own pace, they can stop and start the programme and repeat sections over, all thanks to digital learning platforms – and this is when you will see a real application and better results of your training. 

And finally, the last point I would like to talk about is the impactfulness of short training sessions. 

Another reason that short training sessions improve knowledge retention is that they are a concentrated form of learning.  

In the past, learning programmes have been delivered in a way that they might cover several different topics over a few hours or a day – the training day, which I’m sure many of you are familiar with. 

But delivering information over a long period of time in this way can dilute the message of the training.  

The simple fact of the time constraints you have with shorter sessions requires that the message of the training is concise and, altogether, more impactful because of this. Individuals can recall their training much easier when it hasn’t been presented in an overwhelming stream of information. Keep the message of your training succinct, and you will get faster results.  

So, there we have it – three of the main benefits of short training for knowledge retention. There‘s more information surrounding this topic which we have covered in a webinar – you can access the webinar by visiting the resources section of our website. Again, I’ll leave a link in the transcript of this video so you can head over there to continue exploring this fascinating and extremely relevant topic.