As a result of the exponential growth and evolution of the pharmaceutical industry around the world, there is a sufficient need for qualified employees to meet the demands of the expanding industry. Millions of employees are employed by this expanding industry worldwide, and they are crucial to the success of businesses. When developing and implementing a wide range of pharmaceutical training courses in the workplace, L&D professionals face great pressure due to the variety of training required in the pharmaceutical sector. The rigorous restrictions and regulations in these domains require compliance in order to keep pharmaceutical employees up to date with new technology, processes, and procedures. Employees may experience skills gaps as a result of technological improvements and continuous changes in compliance. Because of the global workforce and hectic schedules of pharmaceutical professionals, traditional classroom training is no longer a viable choice for businesses to use for employee training.
Challenges Faced By L&D Professionals In Pharmaceutical Industry
The laboratory environment where new drugs are produced and tested is evolving in the pharmaceutical business as a result of technological advancements. The pharmaceutical industry frequently releases new medications, and there is a wealth of product knowledge that employees need to continuously understand. Medical representatives are constantly on the run, and asking them to attend regular classroom sessions gets difficult. Continuous changes in content lead to higher training costs.
Organizations that want to stay relevant and implement new procedures must constantly train and up-skill or re-skill their workforce. It’s critical to make sure the learners are provided with content that is relevant and meets their current performance needs. L&D professionals are required to meet a wide range of training needs. As L&D professionals, it is a challenge to design learning that does not occupy much time and allows flexibility.
Microlearning
The complex nature of the pharmaceutical industry means organizations must train their employees to remain competitive. Microlearning is an efficient technique to re-skill and up-skill employees without affecting productivity levels. Providing learners with short learning modules on new products and regulations may give them the knowledge they need to perform their jobs in a way that is interactive, interesting, and simple to understand. Small informational units let learners concentrate on a specific learning goal and keep them engaged throughout the entire learning module.
How Can Microlearning Help?
1. Quick & Easy Access
The pharmaceutical industry regularly introduces new drugs or updates existing ones. Because of the changes in medications, processes, and procedures, organizations need to constantly revise the training courses for pharmaceutical professionals to comply with rules in these domains. Training the workforce can be difficult, and in-lab training can be expensive and require excessive precaution to handle hazardous materials. Microlearning fits the bill, as it can be developed quickly and specifically tailored to learners’ needs.
Technology-driven learners prefer training courses that are device agonistic and short in duration and can be accessed from anywhere, making them ideal for employees out in the field too. Bite-sized learning nuggets and practical learning methods allow learners to quickly grasp and apply the knowledge in practice.
2. Facilitate Continuous Improvement
It is important for organizations to maximize learning in the flow of their daily operations in order to foster a culture of continuous learning. Organizations can leverage microlearning, as it is designed to be accessible on demand and configured into different bite-sized assets. It allows the learners to choose their preferred topic and also provides the flexibility of learning on the device of their choice, which makes it an ideal way to promote a continuous culture of learning and improvement. Microlearning provides learners with regular and immediate feedback as they progress through the course. As a result, learners understand their strengths and weaknesses in real-time and can focus on areas for improvement.
3. Increase Knowledge Retention
Studies have shown that people forget 50% of their new learning in the first 20 minutes after their training, unless it is put into practice. Pharmaceutical professionals need to adapt to unprecedented changes and must have knowledge about changing regulations. Because of these changes, pharmaceutical professionals have very less time to go through hour-long training courses. When employees complete their long training, it decreases work productivity and available work time without being able to guarantee that full knowledge is transferred.
Microlearning helps learners retain knowledge for a longer period of time by reintroducing the learning elements in smaller chunks so that they can comprehend a concept, as opposed to traditional learning methods. By breaking up lengthy learning units into manageable learning units, microlearning aids learners to acquire, retain, and apply knowledge. Thus, it improves knowledge retention and leads to better performance.
4. Cost-Effective
The pharmaceutical industry is constantly innovating, and thus industry professionals must have knowledge of newly released products, services, and procedures. This requires continuous employee training. The ongoing working culture necessitates changes to the training patterns and choose a viable option. Organisations can leverage microlearning, as it is considered a reasonably rapid and cost-effective method of creating training that maintains employees’ abilities across divisions. The goal of microlearning modules is to provide relevant information in a condensed amount of time that is focused and exact. Compared to many traditional training formats, it is more affordable and provides a higher return on investment. By utilising microlearning, organisations can save money because there is no longer a need to pay for instructors, travel, or classroom space, and the learning materials can be created and made available much more quickly than with conventional training methods. Additionally, it provides the pharmaceutical professional with the flexibility to complete the training whenever they want, wherever they are, without it interfering with their regular work.
5. Improves Engagement
Disengaged learners and boring content can make for an unsuccessful learning program. Pharmaceutical professionals usually do not prefer training content loaded with fancy designs to keep them engaged. The workforce demands information that is interesting, concise, and clear. A simple course with a clean, streamlined design helps pharma professionals engage more. As each microlearning training course is designed to cater to one specific learning objective, it attracts and engages learners to complete the entire training.
Conclusion
In the pharmaceutical industry, microlearning leads to significant and lasting changes. Microlearning helps to increase employee productivity and provide a secure workplace. It is a flexible and affordable technique that has the potential to achieve long-lasting changes in the pharmaceutical industry. It makes sure that every employee is adequately trained and has access to on-demand courses as needed.