Interview with Dr. Lucia Weiger: How self-directed microlearning is shaping the future of your company

Reading time: 5 minutes

Can do more every day” - sparks is the Haufe Academy's microlearning tool that provides future skills on topics such as customer orientation, digital transformation, AI in business and hybrid work mediates. Dr. Lucia Weiger gives insights into the didactic principle and explains why companies should take action now.

Lucia, time is short, the new world of work requires new skills. But no one has time to learn these skills. How do employees and companies deal with this?

Many companies already offer numerous continuing education opportunities, but the number of learning opportunities alone can be overwhelming. Employees then withdraw because they lack orientation. Or they give up because they repeatedly encounter hurdles, for example when continuing education is not approved or time is not given for seminars. It can be frustrating.

What should continuing education in a company look like instead?

Above all, learning in companies must become more flexible and individual. The demands on the job market are becoming ever more complex. A single e-learning session on the subject of digitization won't bring about the big transformation. Instead, companies must rely on their employees' willingness to develop and provide them with offers that are really relevant to them and their field of work. Strong skill management that meets the individual needs of employees is crucial here. Because only when a concrete learning effect is noticeable in everyday working life was the continuing education or learning offer successful. We are also following this approach with sparks and use microlearning to work specifically on future skills.

What is behind sparks?

sparks is a mobile microlearning tool that specializes in short learning sessions. We see the “sparks” as small sparks that inspire in everyday life and help employees move forward. The great thing about it is that our users decide for themselves when, where, how and what they learn. For some, this is, for example, the five-minute expert video on the train on the way to the office. For others, the short quiz during the espresso break.

Doesn't this type of learning mix the line between professional and private? After all, it sounds as though employees should also invest their free time in continuing education.

We are aware of this challenge; we know the views of both employers and employees. While the former have concerns that work remains ahead of “so much continuing education,” employees are worried that continuing education must be carried out “on top.” However, current figures show us that most employees learn with sparks primarily during regular working hours. On average, they spend around 5 minutes a day in sparks. This is a time investment that does not stop at work, but which is extremely effective when it comes to further development.

How does sparks motivate learners?

In sparks, everyone will find content that's right for him or her. The variety of formats is huge and ranges from audio snippets to expert videos. In addition, all content is never longer than 7 minutes and is designed in such a way that users can take something with them directly — even at the moment of need, if necessary. Does a project group need ideas for a new product? In sparks, users find tips for developing new ideas in meetings. Should collaboration in hybrid teams be improved? Sparks also provides many ideas, suggestions and practical tasks for this, which can be used directly in everyday working life. We therefore see sparks as a kind of learning companion, a pocket-sized coach that employees pull out when they need him. In other words, they learn on their own, but we provide them with the necessary guidance.

Do you want to know more about this topic? In the free white paper You will get all the information about how the didactic principle behind sparks works.

‍

And this self-directed learning is the learning of the future?

To a certain extent, yes. Because our working world is becoming more complex — wanting to centrally manage continuing education as a company is simply too short-sighted. Because with the increasing complexity of the working world, the requirements are also becoming ever greater and at the same time more individual. When companies hand over some of the development responsibility to employees and provide an offer that adapts to the various needs, employees receive much more tailored development measures and can develop exactly the skills they really need for their job and their company. The right skill management, supported by microlearning, plays a central role here in effectively developing future skills.

How does that work exactly?

In sparks, we bring together various teaching and learning approaches. In our free white paper Find out everything about our didactic principle (AVAR principle) and how learning in sparks becomes a daily routine for your employees.

Does sparks also measure users' learning success?

Absolutely! When learning, it is also important to measure progress and make successes visible. It's like going on a trip. There are various stages and intermediate destinations that show how much distance I have already covered and where I am right now. This is important for orientation in your own continuing education. At sparks, we therefore focus on individual learning progress. To stick to the picture of the trip: Not everyone starts at the same point; instead, the destinations and also the stages are different. With sparks, learners choose their own goal and pace. But of course, all of this only works with the appropriate growth mindset.

At the same time, sparks provides a detailed dashboard, which is aimed at efficient skill management and gives you a comprehensive insight into your learning culture as a personnel development team. This allows you to quickly see which topics are relevant, where there is a need for further training and how engaged your teams are in learning.

What does that mean?

By a growth mindset, we understand the firm belief that you can continuously change and develop yourself and your own abilities. This mindset exists both at individual level and at company level, for example when a culture of learning is actively lived. Anyone with a growth mindset sees learning and continuing education as a continuous process that accompanies you professionally and privately throughout your life. With sparks, we want to help shape this process by creating an offer that provides small impulses every day to develop ourselves. And as employees develop, the entire company is also constantly evolving.

About person:

Dr. Lucia Weiger has been an Instructional Designer at sparks since 2022. As an educator, she is interested in providing employees with learning opportunities that really help them move forward. As part of New Work, she likes to think “out of the box” and always keeps an eye on the challenges of everyday working life — and even jumps in front of the SPARKS camera herself.

‍
The interview was conducted by Marnie Hensler.