In an article recently published by Forbes, Stephen Baer said it best:
"Investing in internal training and development is necessary to remain competitive in today’s market. Ad spends and campaigns cannot rival the revenue that can be generated from well-trained and motivated employees. The growth and development of your company heavily depend on your employees' abilities to gain skills, acquire positive behaviors, retain knowledge and feel empowered to perform their jobs."
He goes on to talk about the four elements of effective employee training, which he calls the "4Ms" - a slight modification from Michael Allen's version in his book Designing Successful e-Learning.
Baer states that by combining these 4Ms, companies can make a positive impact on their employees’ learning experience and improve their business outcomes.
Below is his explanation for the 4Ms:
Micro
Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve shows the memory decline of what people learn within 30 days of learning it when there's no effort to retain it. Microlearning helps combat this issue. By reinforcing small, short and specialized learning modules, companies can train their employees more effectively and drive greater retention.
Mobile
The second ingredient needed to achieve great training is device-agnostic content. By delivering your content via mobile, tablet and desktop, companies ensure that their employees can engage with it whenever and wherever is most convenient.
Memorable
By marrying smart instructional design and addictive game mechanics, companies can draw employees in and keep them focused on the content.
Measurable
For nearly two decades, the training industry has tracked a limited amount of employee performance data using a standard system called SCORM, which stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. Individual- and group-level data allows companies to evaluate learning behaviors, gaps and successes. However, the data collected via SCORM only tells part of the story.
To read the full article on Forbes, click here.