Marie Creasey
Digital Customer Experience Manager
Cranfield Online
Do you struggle to engage the unmotivated staff in your organisation with the importance of employee development? If so, then online micro-credentials could be the solution.
Employee development, their way
When it comes to professional development, some of your employees may be keener than others. A love of learning, a desire for promotion, or an ambition to make a sideways move into a new area of specialism may all be good reasons to undertake additional learning in a new subject or at a higher level.
But what about those who aren’t so keen, who don’t put themselves forwards and seem content to stay as they are and where they are right now? Is it a case of won’t learn – or can’t learn?
Not everyone has the time, money or mental capacity to commit to undertaking a two-year, part-time qualification on top of their day job. In fact, there may be very few people in your organisation that can.
For many people, short, sharp, lower-cost study and training that can be completed at a pace, location and time that suits them is the only way for them to keep up with their colleagues and peers. Anything else is just a no-go.
Enter the online micro-credential…
What are micro-credentials in employee development?
Combining the terms ‘micro’ (meaning ‘small’) and ‘credential’ (meaning ‘qualification’), a micro-credential is a mini qualification that aims to help someone learn new skills, progress in their career, or change career entirely.
Often more targeted to a particular topic, they are cheaper than broader or deeper undergraduate or postgraduate degrees and completed in a shorter time frame.
Designed to be fast, accessible and specialised, they often take the form of on-demand online courses that may be completed flexibly around someone’s career, family life or other commitments. With some providers, the micro-credentials can be combined over time to make a more comprehensive qualification in a particular subject area.
Micro-credentials in employee development: The benefits
Although micro-credentials are growing in popularity worldwide, they are relatively new innovations in business education and their strategic use by organisations in employee development initiatives so far remains somewhat limited, despite their obvious potential.
Some of the many benefits of incorporating micro-learning into your employee development offering include:
- Engage unmotivated staff. A lower time commitment makes micro-credentials more attractive to those with caring or other responsibilities that may struggle to undertake full, multi-year programmes, as well as workers with lower confidence in their study abilities that want to ‘dip their toe’ into adult learning to test the waters.
- One size need not fit all. With the right platform and learning provider, you can provide your employees with everything they need to develop themselves as much or as little as they like according to their needs and desires. Learning can be tailored to individual personal development plans as well as aligned with current and future business needs.
- Spend your training budget wisely. All your employees work to their own timescale, accessing their learning when, where and how they want to. Those that want to can ‘stack’ units of learning together to achieve recognisable qualifications, while others exit at a lower level, having reached their goal. Those without a degree on their CV can work towards adding one, if they so wish. All benefit from learning targeted to their individual needs, giving you confidence that your money is being well spent.
- Improve recruitment and retention. Learning that meets the needs of the individual, that is convenient and flexible in design and delivery, will make for happier employees who feel that their professional development is valued by your business. Prospective hires will also be attracted by the potential they see to grow their capabilities at your organisation.
- Respond quickly to changing business needs. Unlock the agility to respond rapidly to changes in your industry, market or business environment – without the high financial cost. The scalable nature of micro-credentials and their relatively low cost makes it easy to re-train, re-skill and redeploy your team as necessary to pivot quickly in response to emerging skills needs.
Employee development: The future is micro-credentials
Commenting on predicted developments in higher education over the coming decade, Graham Bell, Director of Digital Education at Cranfield School of Management, said: “As people live and work for longer, and as skills needs change and develop in society, we’re going to see increased emphasis on lifelong learning, whereby people return to education more regularly throughout their lives to upskill or reskill.
“Flexible, affordable and accessible, online micro-credentials enable greater personalisation of the individual learning and development journey, without penalising people that cannot commit to a long-term programme.”
Indeed, it seems the appetite for alternative forms of education is already growing.
A 2022 report from the Lifelong Education Commission highlighted the important role of more agile, flexible forms of learning and called on the UK Government to do more to encourage organisations and individual learners to make use of micro-credentials, including advocating for tax incentives and enhanced qualification for funding via the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE).
So, watch this space…
…and while you’re there, why not browse our online course portfolio and see how our range of stackable micro-credentials could support employee development in your organisation, including leading to a Master’s degree qualification. To find out more about Cranfield’s micro-credentials, you can chat to a specialist.
