The learning and development (L&D) industry has been rapidly changing to keep up the technological advances, current trends and recent events impacting the modern workplace. Businesses are working with their L&D departments to find learning solutions that will help solve common business challenges, such as low levels of employee engagement and high rates of turnover. Not all information represents valuable knowledge; we can receive conflicting information and find it hard to differentiate between useful and trivial content. Moreover, too much information can overload cognitive processes and renders the knowledge useless. This is because the brain has limited bandwidth for stocking new information. The same issue can appear in eLearning.

There’s a growing need for efficiently discerning between what to include in an employee training course, and what should be left out. If the learner receives a content load that is too heavy, learning capacity drops. Thus, it is important to present the learner with only the key concepts, the right amount of information, and in the right format.

Putting people first is a priority

No matter how big your budget is, or how much time you can dedicate to content and tools, it is important to remember that L&D is all about people. As trainers, educators, and coaches, the primary responsibility for L&D professionals is the development of people. This is sometimes overlooked, especially as employment has shifted from lifetime employment to a model where workers are retained only as long as they add value to the enterprise.

Simplify Content

Key concepts need explaining in simple language. Take away any convoluted phrases, nonessential information, and elaborate explanations, and what you should have left is highly relevant content that helps the learner’s working memory pass the data into the long-term memory. The learner will be able to activate their germane cognition processes and easily retain new information.

Prepare bite-sized information (chunking, microlearning)

Chunking and microlearning are the perfect knowledge delivery methods for long-term recall. Breaking heavy concepts down into a series of specific lessons will allow learners the memory space and time to process the new information, which leads to a deeper understanding of information that will effortlessly pass into long-term memory.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that memory has two components, and you’ll need to organize information efficiently and mix your content delivery styles. This way, you will maximize the amount of data that reaches long-term memory.

Make a note of these tips to avoid cognitive overload and research more information about designing eLearning to reduce cognitive overload. To discover the training options best for your employees, contact our team today!