On a daily basis, both employees and leaders need to develop expertise or learn new skills to ensure they make meaningful contributions to society. They can do this by asking each other questions about how to complete new tasks, or by researching the best approach. Whichever methods they use, lifelong learning is a human pursuit, and those who engage with learning regularly are proven to be happier.

When you are at work and you need to complete an unfamiliar activity, what do you do? While there are steps you can take independently, if your organisation has a developed learning culture and openness to ongoing training, you are far more likely to be confident with the learning process and understand how to get started.  

Over time, the 70:20:10 model for learning and development has become increasingly popular with organisations. As leaders started to recognise that the traditional, structured approach to learning no longer supported strategic goals, they started to seek out an alternative approach. The 70:20:10 model is simple, and recognises that the majority of learning opportunities occur outside of formal lessons. 

In this article, we are going to explain the model and share some advice on how to put theory into practice in workplace learning. 

The 70:20:10 model can be described in different ways, but is essentially a framework for workplace learning. It offers guidance as to which types of learning have most impact on employee development, and the balance learning and development professionals should aim to strike. The different types of learning referred to in the framework are:

This is learning through practice and experience, followed by reflection, critical analysis and application.

This involves learning through speaking and interacting with others.

This learning takes place on formalised courses, both face-to-face and online.

The model is also known as performance-oriented learning, which mostly happens as an employee goes about their work day. While traditional, formal modes of learning are undoubtedly useful when there are specific skills employees need to develop, the theory outlines that the majority of learning takes place through practical activities. 

However, the ratios are not fixed. They are suggested as a guide to ensure learning and development strategy remains balanced. How the ratio is implemented will depend on the organisation and skill types employees need to develop. Invariably though, the weighting towards each type of learning remains constant, with experiential learning being the most important. 

The application of the 70:20:10 model gives those responsible for learning and development a clear structure for both creating and reviewing strategy. The following points summarise the ways in which the theory can be put into practice: 

1. Build in opportunities for experiential learning

Experiential Learning methodology encourages critical thinking, problem solving and decision making, and this accelerates learning. It also creates stronger memories through employing multiple senses and emotional connections.

Learning in this way bridges the gap between theory and practice, and gives employees an opportunity first-hand to apply what has been taught. This improves retention of concepts and new ideas. 

While they are similar, experiential learning is not as simple as employees learning on the job by osmosis. Thinking critically is an important part of the process, as well as reflecting on how to improve upon current practice. This isn’t necessarily a focus during the average work day. 

In order to create opportunities for experiential learning, the process needs to be made explicit, either by providing employees with resources, or by training them in how to engage in experiential learning techniques. Once employees have been shown how to learn through experience, they can take ownership of the process. The only need for guidance would be for learning and development professionals to review the process, and look at how the learning aligns with an employee’s performance review.  

According to the 70:20:10 model, social interactions account for approximately 20% of learning in the workplace. Much of this learning will in fact happen organically, but leaders can facilitate it and ensure that it is learning focused at opportune times.  

A focus on learning through discussion can be achieved by setting up a formal opportunity to discuss learning throughout the week, perhaps as part of the agenda at team meetings. Sharing resources with staff can also help to generate discussion, and help to guide learning conversations.

Leaders can also model discussion about learning at appropriate times.  Perhaps somebody in leadership recently learnt something new. They could share that experience with staff when giving a presentation, or if they have questions, they could ask a relevant team member for help using learning-appropriate language. 

When approximately 10% of time for workplace learning should be allocated to formal learning, investing large sums of money in face-to-face training might not be the most effective use of a training budget. Online courses are a more cost-effective way to offer employees opportunities for formal learning. 

Online courses can serve as a foundation for both experiential and social learning opportunities. Those responsible for learning and development might set employees an additional experiential learning task based on the knowledge they acquire in an online course, or set up a reflective discussion relating to a course next time team members come together for a meeting. The content found in online courses can feed into other types of learning. 

4. Review with staff and ask for feedback

Most importantly, employees should take ownership of their learning and feel that it is a two-way process. If leaders invite employees to give feedback on the learning and development processes in their organisation, they will feel both invested and involved in the process. 

Their feedback will be the best guide as to whether learning and development strategy is in balance, as they are personally experiencing the learning. Assessing an individual’s learning experience without asking for their opinion is challenging for obvious reasons!

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

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The 70:20:10 model recognises that most learning opportunities occur outside of formal lessons. In this article, we explain the 70:20:10 model, including how to put theory into practice.

Optimising the 70:20:10 model for learning and development

As technology progresses, organisations are under increasing pressure to upskill their teams and equip staff with the necessary skills to thrive in the modern workplace.

Accordingly, building a robust learning and development program is a key challenge with which organisations must engage. Opportunities for workplace learning are crucial to engage employees and retain them long-term. 

Higher-order thinking skills, such as innovating, creating, and critical thinking, are now in high demand. We expect this trend to continue as the need to develop new products, ways of working, and technologies increases. 

Despite this, there is a significant gap between the skills students are leaving school with and the skills necessary to succeed in today’s workplace. According to Skillsoft’s Mind the Gap report, 48% of L&D employees believe their team is underskilled to deliver what their business need. 

The current structure, composition, and delivery of learning contributes to these skill gaps, particularly the types of skills students are encouraged to develop. These days, schools allocate little to focus on the creative, divergent thinking skills many organisations need to remain competitive.

We think it's about time that changed. So, in this article, we will explore the personal and professional advantages of higher-order thinking skills. We’ll start by asking, ‘what are higher-order thinking skills?’ before delving into five benefits of developing higher-order thinking skills.

Higher-order thinking skills are learning concepts such as analysis, synthesis, and metacognition that help learners consolidate knowledge and deepen their insights. In many ways, higher-order thinking skills are precisely what they sound like: skills that take your learning to a 'higher' level. 

Indeed defines higher-order thinking skills as: “​the thought processes that help you connect information in meaningful ways and use those connections to solve problems. Sometimes the word ‘innovation’ is used for higher-order thinking skills because it also refers to thinking that synthesises knowledge in new ways. Critical thinking is one example of higher-order thinking skills, as well as synthesis and metacognition.”

Similarly, Teachmint adds that "higher-order thinking refers to the ability and the skill to  think above the information which was gained. In simpler terms, to think  on a level that is above the memorisation and rote information. It is  basically using your cognitive ability and doing something with the information shared with you and not just memorising it."

In the context of an online course, learning designers might encourage higher-order thinking by asking learners to come up with a unique way to solve a problem specific to their field or industry.

For instance, in a workplace health and safety training course, learners might be presented with a potentially dangerous scenario and asked to explain what they would do to meet workplace health and safety requirements. The learners might then be encouraged to share their thoughts and use communication tools to discuss the similarities and differences between their responses. 

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a fantastic starting point to understanding the different thinking skills people draw upon for learning and work. In particular, Boom's Taxonomy is foundational to understanding higher-order thinking skills.   

Developed by Benjamin Bloom and his team in the 1950s, learning and development professionals continue to implement Bloom's research today, finding it as relevant now as it was then. 

According to Simply Psychology, "Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical model that categorises learning  objectives into varying levels of complexity, from basic knowledge and  comprehension to advanced evaluation and creation." 

In a recent article, we looked into how learning and development professionals can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to choose engaging learning content. The following diagram shows the ranking of different thinking skills in Bloom's Taxonomy, with higher-order thinking skills such as designing, building, constructing, producing, inventing, judging, and critiquing appearing at the top:

Now that we have defined higher-order thinking skills, let's look at some examples. Common higher-order thinking skills include:

5 benefits of developing higher-order thinking skills

For L&D professionals and organisational leaders alike, understanding which courses and activity types will help learners develop higher-order thinking skills is vital.

To emphasise this point, LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report identified the highest and lowest priority skills for L&D professionals, based on the percentage of surveyed L&D professionals focused on developing these skills. At the top of the list were leadership management (57%), creative problem solving and design thinking (42%), and communication (40%). Unsurprisingly, many of the highest-ranking responses were examples of higher-order thinking skills. 

More than ever in the digital era, employees must use their knowledge to create, innovate, or design to add value. Learning to develop these skills via workplace training is especially valuable.

With this in mind, we'll explore the broader benefits organisational benefits of developing higher-order thinking skills:

1. Participants build skills for creativity and innovation

The ability to create and innovate are among the most critical skills that employees require today. As technology advances, organisations and employees need to adapt to rapidly changing environments to keep up with the pace of innovation. 

Thinking creatively and innovating comes naturally to some people. However, for others, these skills need to be developed. Unfortunately, as creative thinking is not currently a focus in schools, many new graduates enter the workforce without any chance to develop these vital skills. This lack of creative skills becomes an issue when graduates enter the fast-paced modern workplace and feel unprepared. 

According to research by Deloitte, fewer than four in 10 millennials (36%) and three in 10 Gen Z (29%) graduates believe they are fully prepared and have all the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the modern workplace. What's more, 32% of millennials expect to have fewer opportunities for a fulfilling career, compared to 46% of Baby Boomers.

Notably, millennials only credit school/university studies with 23% of the skills, knowledge, and experience they use at work. In contrast, on-the-job training from employers and continuous professional development contribute to 52% of what millennials use at work. In the future, approximately eight in 10 millennials say that on-the-job training, continual professional development, and formal employer-led training will be crucial to help them perform at their best.

Encouraging learners to engage with higher-order thinking skills requires far more attention and utilises more of their brain capacity. As a result, learning becomes more interesting, and learners are more invested in their professional development. Online learning courses that implement these activity types are often far more applicable in real-life scenarios.

Better engagement in workplace learning can also improve staff retention. Staff retention is a problem across organisations and directly impacts productivity.

When employees engage with learning tasks that give them the confidence to innovate, the potential for new ideas in an organisation skyrockets.  

As technology progresses more and more rapidly, innovation will become a key advantage for organisations to remain competitive. Already, those who can quickly adapt to market shifts are more likely to survive digital transformation. 

4. Learners build transferable skills for real-life scenarios

Learners who engage with higher-order thinking skills through online courses are more likely to apply this knowledge after the training concludes.

Learning tasks that encourage divergent thinking skills that apply to a broad range of situations (and are not bound by specific topics or job requirements) are ideal for building transferable skills and engaging learners.

5. More opportunities for collaborative learning 

Learning activities which encourage higher-order thinking skills are often more conducive to employee collaboration. While finding ways for learners to collaborate can be challenging with online learning, tools such as discussion boards and information sharing allow participants to share their ideas throughout the learning process. 

For more insights on developing higher-order thinking skills, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Organisations are under increasing pressure to equip staff with higher-order thinking strategies to thrive. Here's why they are essential.

Future proof your business with higher-order thinking - Go1

Organisations are under increasing pressure to equip staff with higher-order thinking strategies to thrive in the modern workplace. Here's why higher-order thinking strategies are essential to future-proof your organisation. 

Develop higher-order thinking skills to future-proof your organisation

While the range of content we have access to today is fantastic for broadening knowledge in almost any topic, sifting through the mass of information can be overwhelming. 

As Christoper Pappas, founder of the eLearning Industry Network explains, having too many choices can lead to a psychological phenomenon known as ‘analysis paralysis’ in which there are so many options to choose from, people are unable to make decisions as to which option would be best for them.  

With regard to workplace training, packaging content in a manageable, easy to access format is particularly important, as inundating learners with new information can quickly lead to disengagement and feelings of inadequacy. 

Carefully curating content relevant to your employees and using it to support the learning process is a great way to avoid information overload. In this article, we will be exploring content curation for workplace training, and the benefits it can bring to your organisation. 

Pappas explains that there are three main types of content curation: collaborative, semantic and social. Collaborative and social curation are linked, in that they both collate user opinions to rate the quality of content and filter out the best examples. Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Reddit and Pinterest all offer content suggestions based on this method. 

Semantic analysis uses keywords learners are interested in to make suggestions as to which content might be appropriate for them. Mix, formerly known as StumbleUpon uses this system. 

Facilitators can also curate content by finding out what learners want to know more about. If learners are already engaged with a topic, is there an area they would like to cover in more detail? Do they need supplementary information to fully understand and apply new skills? Facilitators can use this information to do their own search and share materials with learners. 

Then there is curating learning content itself. Renowned industry analyser, Josh Bersin explains that e-Learning content curation is both the art and science of identifying the best learning content for an organisation, providing it with context and ordering it. 

Bersin also describes the concept ‘learning in the flow of work’, where learning content is curated to reflect the personalised learning needs of each employee. This is a fairly new technology and under development, so it will be some time before it is widely adopted across organisations. Yet if learning content can be selected based on an employee’s areas of strength and weakness, this is perhaps where curation has the greatest potential for workplace learning.

Benefits of content curation for employees

For deep learning to take place, it is important that content is within the range of an employee’s capabilities. Ideally, the content they engage with will allow them to confidently use skills they already possess, while challenging them to learn something new. At this point, they are more likely to become fully engaged in the process. Content curation of both general content and learning content is a great way to further personalise the learning process and increase engagement.

In today’s workforce, access to learning opportunities can significantly impact an applicant’s perception of an organisation. People now rate “the opportunity to learn” as among their top reasons for taking a job. Curating content can ensure the information you are sharing with employees is relevant, up-to-date, engaging and easy to access. 

Choosing an effective platform for content curation will also help to bring content together for your staff and support the learning process. It eliminates the need to trawl through intranets, web portals and discussion boards, and empowers learners to engage with content they think is necessary for their professional development. 

As content is carefully filtered, it will also be more personalised to your learners’ needs. Employees can then share content they have found useful and add value to others looking for similar information. 

Benefits of content curation for your organisation

No matter which industry your organisation belongs to, creating a culture of openness to learning is crucial for those wanting to streamline systems and maximise the potential of their employees. 

As content curation is embedded into training in your organisation, this will have a positive impact on the learning culture in your organisation. 

You will also be offering staff the opportunity to collaborate through an engaging and responsive platform, which will improve knowledge sharing and innovation across departments. Sharing content also helps to build strong working relationships between subject matter experts and learners.

Guiding learners to a single platform for content means they can store information and return to it as and when they need it. This saves employees time searching for answers to questions and sifting through irrelevant information. 

A one stop shop for all things training, Go1 makes it easy to compare the best training options available, and find the right resources for your professional development, compliance and business training needs. 

Why content curation is effective for workplace learning

A recent article published in the Australian Financial Review reported that senior members of parliament are pushing for businesses to focus on workplace training. 

Federal Minister for Employment, Michaelia Cash, urged businesses to invest in workforce training in an effort to boost workplace productivity.  

"The reality is that business investment in workplace training has been going in the wrong direction for some time," Senator Cash said.

"Business needs to play its part. Workforce planning is not simply a problem for government, and the solution will lie with industry as well.”

Despite the proven benefits of investment in learning, work-related training has dropped from 26.9 per cent in 2013 to 21.5 per cent in 2016-17.

"That’s stark evidence and a call for employers to invest more in the skills development of their employees to make their businesses more sustainable.  A trained workforce brings greater productivity returns and better wages," Senator Cash said.

Each state, along with the Commonwealth Government, acknowledges that investment in training is essential to ensure the economic benefits are spread across the whole country.

Prime Minister backs skills training focus

Scott Morrison also encouraged businesses to improve skills training programs, and stressed that he is not prepared to continue investing in failing programs. 

"We know the current system is not working and a lot of people come to us saying you need to invest more in skills – well I would be happy to invest more in skills but I am not going to invest in dud projects that aren't working." he said.

"There are lots of trainers who are happy. There is lots of money moving around. But the point is you need to get someone trained with a skill that someone else needs. 

"I am not going to pour more money into a bottomless pit that is not taking anyone anywhere and I think industry would have the same view."

Recently, the Office of the Chief Economist published data making a link between the amount of investment in skills training and the overall performance of a business.

Senator Cash said employers need to predict which skills their workforce will need in the future and to invest in the appropriate pathways. 

Online learning is an efficient and cost-effective way to deliver workplace training, and there is a proven return on investment. 

42 percent of companies in America believe that by utilising eLearning initiatives, they’ve been able to increase their revenue.

Opportunities for ongoing learning and growth are also important for employees to feel invested in the organisation they work for.  

Senator Cash highlighted that replacing a team member costs employers an average of $28,000, and that one of the main reasons workers moved on was to seek more opportunities to develop skills. 

With Go1 Premium, you’ll have unlimited access to a growing library containing thousands of learning resources, from top training providers around the world - all in one easy subscription. 

Canberra pushes organisations to invest in workplace training 

Unfortunately, for many employees, workplace learning ends up being another task tagged on the end of an ever-growing to-do list. 

Yet, Deloitte’s 2017 ‘Global Human Capital Trends’ report found 42 per cent of millennials are likely to leave their organisations because they’re not learning fast enough. 

The data also reveals that among millennials, the “ability to learn and progress” is now a key element in their perception of a company’s brand.

While opportunities for workplace learning are highly valued, time is a significantly limiting factor.  

When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, it is crucial to understand how to maximise that time and ensure that learning is useful.

In this article, we will be exploring how participants can make the most of their online learning experience in the time available. 

The following five tips are our suggestions for maximising the time you allocate to online learning.  Whether you are a participant or learning and development professional, they may be useful to share with your colleagues and help to develop the learning culture in your organisation: 

1. Understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie

If you know exactly which aspects of your role you are good at and which need some work, you can use the limited time you have for learning in a targeted way.  

For example, if you know you need to develop your communication skills, but you are confident in the hard skills required for your role, communication should be the focus of your learning time.

Avoid completing tasks and lessons you already understand for the sake of it, and communicate this to those responsible for learning and development in your organisation.

Sometimes flexibility in workplace training is limited, and every staff member has to take the same course.  If this is the case, when you are given the opportunity to provide feedback, you can explain that it would be better if the learning was personalised.

2. Develop a growth mindset for learning 

The term “growth mindset” was coined by Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, Carol Dweck.

She argues that an individual’s views of their ability can be placed on a continuum, from those with a “fixed mindset” to those with a “growth mindset”.  

In an interview in 2012, she describes the difference between the two states of mind in the following way: 

“In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

Being able to learn independently is a crucial skill for any employee (or adult!) to have, but it isn’t always easy.  Sometimes we expect those in positions of responsibility to have all the answers, when we could easily do a little extra research and find out for ourselves. This will save time emailing back and forth or waiting for answers to questions you could easily Google.

On the flipside of this, there will be situations when a new concept just isn’t clicking for you, and you need to ask somebody for help.  

A great prompt used in schools to encourage independent thought is ‘brain, book, buddy, boss’ when students are looking for answers to a question.

If you have exhausted all the other options available to you, asking a colleague, a facilitator or your boss is a perfectly viable next step.  More often than not, you will find the answer before needing to ask your boss and you can both happily continue getting on with the other tasks you have planned for the day. 

You can either work on learning goals by yourself, with a line manager or in collaboration with a colleague responsible for learning and development in your organisation.

When thinking about what your learning goals are, your most recent performance review is a good place to start.  Learning and development goals may already be included in your review, but, if not, think about which specific areas of your role you really need to pay more attention to. 

This information, as well as understanding your general strengths and weaknesses, will help you to form a clear picture of the direction your learning needs to take.

Five ways to make the most of an online learning course

Picture this situation.  You decide to enrol in a new course and feel excited to be learning about a topic you have been interested in for a while. 

You arrive at the first hour-long session, and the teacher begins by talking for thirty minutes.  The other half hour is divided into reading and answering questions independently. 

While the teacher is highly knowledgeable and experienced in her field, she isn’t well acquainted with pedagogy - the method and practice of teaching as an academic subject. 

The lesson she taught was perfectly acceptable as an introductory class to a new course, yet you would have left the room having very limited new knowledge or understanding.

With online learning, the structure, composition and delivery of sessions is equally important.  So, in what ways can online learning be structured to be both more effective and engaging? 

One methodology widely accepted as making a learning experience more worthwhile is Bloom's Taxonomy.

In this article, we are going to explore the thinking behind the methodology and look into how you can apply this in your role as a learning and development professional or participant in workplace learning. 

Bloom's Taxonomy is a concept that has been in favour in pedagogical research since the 1950s, and it is as relevant today as it was then.  The theory is used in classrooms and online learning courses across the world. 

Developed by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom and his team, the taxonomy was a significant contribution to the classification of learning objectives and to the theory of mastery learning. 

Essentially, the taxonomy can be best described as a learning ladder.  In order for a learner to reach the higher-order thinking skills, they need to take the steps on the ladder in the correct order.  

A well-designed lesson will include tasks starting with lower-order thinking skills to build knowledge, and move gradually towards the higher-order thinking skills.

The following diagram shows the ranking of different thinking skills in the taxonomy, with remembering being a lower-order thinking skill and creating a higher-order thinking skill.  In order to create something new, you need to have completed some or all of the other learning steps first to get there:

How knowledge of Bloom's Taxonomy can help you

Whether you are a learning and development professional or employee engaging in online learning, knowing which course types or activities to focus on to make the most out of learning time is hugely important.

It is also helpful to remember that learning tasks in the upper sections of Bloom's Taxonomy will be far more engaging because participants will be required to use a broader range of thinking skills, meaning more brainpower and focus is required.

In a work context, employees will often have to use their knowledge to create, analyse or evaluate to add value.  If they are trained in how to develop these skills in workplace courses, the learning will be all the more applicable in the real world. 

The following tips will help you to navigate choosing an online course, or set of courses, that encourage learners to engage in deeper thinking:

Before selecting a course, review the activity types

When you explore the Go1 library, each course comes with a detailed description of the types of activity learners can expect to engage with when they begin. 

Whether a course includes reading, watching instructional videos or project-based activities, you will know before you enrol.  You can also enquire before you sign up to find out more from the helpful Go1 team.

Activities associated with higher-order thinking include: designing, building, constructing, producing, inventing, judging and critiquing.

Practical stories help to put learning in context, and are particularly important for workplace training.  One of the main goals of staff training is for participants to be able to apply their knowledge in a practical context.  Acknowledging this during the learning process makes the transition from online to real-life scenarios much easier.  

If you know that a course includes practical scenarios, the course content will be more likely to engage learners in higher-order thinking.  For example, learners might need to evaluate or analyse when considering how to respond or react in a given scenario.

Stories also give learners a familiar context to work with.  They form a great basis for gaining new knowledge and information, as learners can make connections between new information and situations they already understand. 

With Go1 Premium, you’ll have unlimited access to a growing library containing thousands of learning resources, from top training providers around the world - all in one easy subscription.  

Using Bloom's Taxonomy to choose engaging content

When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, there is an increasing demand for courses to be delivered in manageable, easy to access formats.

As part of this, course assessment is being redefined with micro-credentials - the alternative to traditional qualifications such as degrees or diplomas. 

Deakin University defines micro-credentials as mini-qualifications that demonstrate skills, knowledge and/or experience in a given subject area or capability.  

They are already in use across the education sector, including online learning, universities, and vocational colleges, and are set to be the future of upskilling in the workplace. 

Micro-credentials tend to be less detailed than traditional degrees or diplomas, although they are flexible and can include a wider breadth of learning material. 

A key difference is that they are used to accredit learning for both hard and soft skills.  For example, you could have a micro-credential in a broad topic such as ‘data science’, or in a specific soft skill like ‘effective workplace communication’. 

Globally renowned industry analyser and research analyst, Josh Bersin, describes a new paradigm emerging in corporate training. He labels this, ‘learning in the flow of work’, which means presenting employees with opportunities to learn through platforms they are already using.

The advent of micro-credentials is paving the way for such advances, as they enable organisations to incentivise workplace learning.  People are often naturally motivated to learn, but the promise of recognition beyond their current role makes participating all the more worthwhile. 					      								

The benefits of micro-credentials for businesses and employees

With micro-credentials already being used across the education sector, there is no doubt that they will continue to shape the future of learning.

The following points explain why micro-credentials are making such an impact, and how they could help to upskill your workforce more effectively:

Personalising learning is the difference between content being engaging or boring.  Content needs to address an individual’s learning needs as accurately as possible, and advancing technology is helping to simplify this process.

As micro-credentials are often less detailed, it becomes easier to tailor learning to an individual employee’s needs.

Learning content that was once part of a longer course can be made available separately, meaning participants can engage with the material they need.

This avoids the issue of employees wasting time completing learning material which is either irrelevant to them or unnecessarily time consuming, while still gaining recognition for their efforts. 

As microcredentials are often more succinct than their traditional counterparts, there is greater flexibility in the content. 

Learners can develop hard skills specific to their roles and level of experience, and gain recognition for individual modules without having to complete a lengthy course. 

They can also be recognised for developing soft skills, which are not acknowledged separately in many traditional courses. 

Deloitte’s 2017 ‘Soft Skills for Business Success’ report predicted that two out of three jobs would be soft skill intensive by 2030.

The report goes on to explain that a workforce with a mix of skills is crucial for business success and prosperity.

With this in mind, a focus on soft skills is all the more important, and micro-credentials are a great way to upskill a workforce in this area.

Micro-credentials also create flexibility in the structure and delivery of workplace learning.

Course content can be designed from scratch and tailor-made for an organisation.  Learning can also be delivered incrementally for employees to engage with at their own pace. 

By offering micro-credentials, organisations are able to design and deliver bespoke learning experiences for their team members. 

Opportunities for ongoing learning and growth are important for employees to feel invested in the organisation they work for.  Ultimately, human beings function best in environments which allow them to grow. 

The simplified structure of micro-credentials makes workplace learning all the more accessible to employees, as they can complete a course in less time, while still gaining recognition for their efforts. 

With the rapid pace of change in the digital age, there is a widening gap between the skills required in the workplace and the readiness of employees to perform their desired roles. 

Micro-credentials are helping to address this as employees or job seekers can quickly learn the skills necessary for a current or prospective position, and gain long-term recognition for participating. 

At Go1, we offer workplace learning in partnership with a range of organisations, along with micro-credentials and recognition for completion of courses. 

Go1 portal administrators can also create awards, within which they can specify which courses, or sets of courses, can be completed to obtain certification in a particular area.  

Micro-credentials: the major disruptive force in workplace learning

For many of us, learning is an activity we associate with sitting in a classroom listening to an adult or expert imparting knowledge.

Yet, our brains are wired for learning and growth, no matter where we are or what we are doing.  From an evolutionary perspective, our ability to learn has shaped us as a species and continues to do so. 

Newborn babies learn through their developing senses and interactions with the world, and this process becomes increasingly complex as we progress through life. 

As our thoughts become more layered, it can be challenging to remain open to the idea of continuous learning.  Other priorities take over, and it can be difficult to take on new concepts.

In order to do this, we have to be in the right place psychologically, and this is why developing a growth mindset can be useful. 

With this research in mind, a growth mindset is a psychological state anybody can develop with the right attitude, making them all the more receptive to new ideas and concepts.

But how might you go about doing this? What changes to thought patterns or behaviours might you need to make? The tips below should help you to get started: 

1. Admit that you don’t know everything

Admitting when you don’t understand a concept or how to solve a problem can be challenging, particularly in a professional context.  You want your boss to think you’ve got everything under control and that you’re doing an amazing job 100% of the time, but this is humanly impossible! It’s much better to ask for help when you need it or to clarify with a question.  This means you’ll be able to learn something new and avoid the stress of not understanding how to progress with a task.

Every conversation you have is an opportunity to learn something new. Whether you’re the CEO or an intern, our experiences are all different and we can learn a lot from what a colleague or team member has to say.  You can do this by asking more questions when you talk to people and mine for new information.  You might be surprised who teaches you something new. 

Our brains are wired for growth. In order to do this, we have to be in the right place psychologically, and this is why developing a growth mindset can be useful. 

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