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Mobile technology is becoming ubiquitous in today’s society, and it is not just the Millennial generation that is driving the use of mobile devices. While more than nine in ten Millennials now own smartphones (92 percent), roughly two-thirds of Baby Boomers also own a smartphone today (67 percent), up from just 25 percent of Boomers in 2011. Not surprisingly, as more people adopt smartphones and other mobile devices, they are spending more time online. Three out of four Americans (77 percent) report going online daily, with 26 percent claiming to be online “almost constantly.” (Pew Research Center, 2018)
With more and more people becoming accustomed to using mobile devices, it is not only transforming the way we live, but also how we work. Companies are incorporating mobile devices to job-related functions, and in the process are seeing increased worker productivity and improving workflow efficiency. Industries such as electric utilities, mining & metals, and oil & gas that have a large number of workers located at remote job sites are using mobile technology to make communication and sharing of valuable information between sites faster and easier.
But there is a consequence to an increasingly online workforce. Employees are now increasingly distracted while on the job. According to Udemy Research’s “2018 Workplace Distraction Report,” roughly three out of every four workers (70 percent) say they feel distracted on the job, with social media being cited by 56 percent of respondents as a top cause for distraction. Younger workers appear to have the most difficulty balancing work and personal activities on their mobile devices. Seventy-eight percent of Millennials/Generation Z claim using mobile technology for personal activities is more distracting than work-related tools including email. The flip side of increased use of mobile technology in the workplace is a bombardment of notifications and alerts that place a near constant demand on employees’ attention spans.
This presents a challenge for a company’s learning and development efforts. Ongoing employee learning and development is a necessity for most organizations, particularly those in typically high-risk industries. For these companies, safety and compliance training can be a requisite to their ability to operate as a business. Such training must be provided to existing workers to comply with current regulations, on an ad hoc basis should there be unexpected changes to existing safety regulations, and at regular intervals to continuously reinforce safe operations. How can companies capture and maintain the attention of increasingly distracted workers to deliver this important training?
Focus on “Affective” Learning
To capture someone’s attention and motivate them to action, it is better to speak to their heart than to their head. Rules and procedures are important, of course, but workers need reasons to follow and implement those rules and to pay attention while learning them in the first place. That is why effective learning is essential. Affective learning opportunities speak to workers on an emotional level. This holds their attention during the learning opportunity and gives them a reason to implement it, making retention of the learned skill that much more effective.
Utilize Microlearning to Grab Attention
At a time when bite-sized content is available at a moment’s notice on mobile devices, the days of sitting through a lengthy PowerPoint-based lecture are no longer sufficient for effective learning and development. Instead, impactful learning opportunities should be based upon the content that grabs attention and concisely communicates necessary information in less time. These “microlearning” opportunities provide information in short yet compelling two-to three-minute bursts via a mobile device. Such brief, video-rich content tells workers what they need to know, when they need to know it, and where they need to know it. In other words, training is provided “just in time, just in place, and just enough.”
Provide Scenario-Driven Learning Opportunities
Scenario-driven learning improves employee engagement by enabling workers to learn skills or information that solve problems or obstacles they are likely to face in real-life situations. Providing learning opportunities in this way enables workers to see directly how what is learned benefits them on the job. By presenting scenarios in which workers already possess key skills and give them the opportunity to utilize and expand upon them, they are further motivated to participate in and complete the training. Scenario-driven learning also improves recall by causing skills or information presented to be committed to long-term memory.
Deliver Competency-Based Learning Options
Competency-based learning is a personalized experience designed to introduce new skills based on those previously learned in a way that enables workers to complete course modules at their own pace. Learning at their own pace gives workers a sense of empowerment and control, and enables them to learn skills at their convenience. It gives leaders the peace of mind that workers cannot advance to subsequent learning modules until they have attained the skills being taught in the current level.
Conclusion
To provide effective safety and compliance training to employees in today’s increasingly distracted work environment, companies need to compete for the attention of their workers. Eliminating mobile devices as an opportunity to train and educate workers is equivalent to ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater.’ Instead, organizations should leverage innovation such as microlearning that makes training opportunities more compelling, relevant and convenient with the ability for employees to receive learning any time of day at nearly any location. This will enable companies to cut through the daily distractions and reach employees with engaging learning experiences.
DuPont Sustainable Solutions, a business unit of DowDuPont Specialty Products division, is a leading provider of world-class operations consulting services to help organizations transform and optimize their processes, technologies, and capabilities. DuPont Sustainable Solutions is committed to improving the safety, productivity, and sustainability of organizations around the world. Additional information is available at: www.sustainablesolutions.dupont.com.
