'Nano - Chunk’ a training session into bite-size delights!

I’m not much into fast food but this is not to say that I don’t get lured into the sultry serving of a Goan Chorizo Slider occasionally. But I can tell you this, even the most committed food - lover will never try to gulp it all down in one go! And if you think I am about to use a reference to food as an analogy to get you thinking about what I am about to say next, you’re absolutely right! You see, the one thing we can all agree we love is, food and if we stand in consensus to the idea that it is also best enjoyed, and digested, in smaller portions, then most of what I am about to tell you will make sense to you!

Forgive me for my next move for what I am about to pit food against, is ‘Training’ aka ‘Learning & Development’. The not-so-excited-now expression on your face is quite telling of the effect the very mention of an 8 hour long training session, that may sometime continue for days at a stretch, has on people. “Clearly not something to be compared to food, Sahil!” I hear you! But here’s the thing, though it is a fact that Learning & Development is absolutely essential to the growth & output of both an employee & the organization, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a drag!

The other day, I heard a friend complaining that most popular social media platforms won’t run her video ad campaign unless it is only a minute long and I had to explain to her that this is because new research shows, we now officially, have the attention span worse than that of a goldfish! The average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but people nowadays generally lose concentration after eight seconds. Just the many effects of a digitized lifestyle! Well, she wasn’t very encouraged, and neither are our employees when they walk out of training classrooms.

Of course, a lot of employee-focused MNCs have taken note of this phenomena & have adopted a slightly altered version of ‘Micro-Teaching’ which involves a ‘self-learning’ style 10 minute tutorial program. But does this trainer free time on the systems, glued to a computer, going through a topic that doesn’t interest you that much, induce effectiveness in the learning process? As anyone who has ever skipped through these ‘interactive’ screens would tell you, no, it does not. What it does ensure, is skipped pages of important information that the employee misses out on due to lack of interest in a perfunctory task he was made to sit through!

What I propose instead, is something that we have tried and applied in our training sessions at RateGain and seen fantastic results. Instead of the usual ‘skipping through slides’ routine in the classroom, we frequently introduce ‘topic videos’ that we create as part of the learning curriculum, focusing on important topics, not stretching each video covering the topic for more than 3 - 5 minutes in duration & ensuring a lot of visual aid. I like to call it ‘Chunking’. It’s based on the Pareto Principle (20% of effort that results in 80% of results) and is especially effective to use as a tool during language training sessions. Coupled with quick knowledge checks & constructive feedback, this approach can take the strain out training! ‘Nano - Chunking’, in my experience, is the next level in L & D. Make notes now & thank us later!