Improve employee performance while keeping production movingHow to transform your operations—from your frontline

to your bottom line—with microlearning

So, you’ve embraced transformation and next-gen technologies, but what are you doing to bring your frontline employees into the future too?

In the highly competitive world of manufacturing, modernization is a must.

Everything from the products and services you deliver to the processes

and technologies you use to create them is evolving. And quickly. In today’s

market, it has to, because Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution,

digitalization—whatever you choose to call it—is here. And it’s accelerating

the pace of business and the pace of change.

Transformation can be a great way to streamline operations and speed up

production to get a leg up on the competition. But in the race to get ahead,

many manufacturers are (unintentionally, of course) leaving their frontline

employees behind.

And therein lies the challenge.

An organization is only as good as its employees. But what happens

when workers aren’t equipped to make the right decisions or exhibit the

wrong on-the-job behaviors? For starters, product quality and throughput

suffer, and safety incidents will undoubtedly occur. And those are mistakes

that your organization can’t afford to make.

Even the smallest change can dramatically disrupt daily routines, causing

a ripple effect that extends across the enterprise—right down to the shop

floor. And when frontline employees can’t keep up with the pace of your

organizations’ transformation efforts, they develop knowledge and skills

gaps that impede productivity and safety—and that hurts your bottom line.

Whether they cause injuries or bottlenecks, mistakes often occur when

employees are demonstrating the wrong behaviors. The good news is

that behavior can be corrected. When the right knowledge is ingrained or

accessible when and where your frontline employees need it, that leads

to improvements in on-the-job performance and safety and empowers

employees to make the right decisions in situations that matter most to

your business, which keeps production running smoothly.

So how do you close this knowledge gap and provide targeted information,

like hazard communications and operating instructions for new machinery,

to your frontline exactly when they need it? With science, of course!

When your frontline employees are confident in their knowledge, you can be confident that they’ll get the job done right, on time and without incident, all while maintaining the

highest level of quality.

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How frontline employees can brain hack

their way to excellence

Have you ever wondered why your

employees seem to forget so much

information—especially when the material

was covered in training? Well, there’s a

perfectly good explanation.

Traditional training—you know, the kind

that used to put you to sleep back in your

school days—is highly ineffective. In fact,

it’s scientifically proven not to work. That’s

because long, boring elearning modules,

multi-page manuals, classroom-style

lectures, and other outdated techniques

don’t support the needs of the modern

frontline employee. And they certainly don’t

support the needs of a multigenerational and

multilingual workforce. These methods fail to

motivate your people. Plus, when so much of

your workforce is deskless, working shifts on

the floor nowhere near a computer, it’s harder

to engage them, let alone schedule them to sit

through an hour-long module.

And even if you can schedule them for

training, chances are the volume of information

covered is too much for the brain to retain in

one shot. That’s because traditional training

methods don’t map to how the brain works

to remember information. And when the brain

can’t handle the volume, it goes in one ear and

out the other. Besides this, there’s something

called the forgetting curve that shows people

forget 90% of what they learn within 30 days if

it isn’t reinforced.

This means you waste thousands of dollars on

training that your employees never put into

practice and you never move the needle on

business results.

Close the knowledge gap with science

Get it right with modern training for modern frontline employees

Traditional

• Long & structured

• One size fits all

• Boring

• One shot

• Difficult to track

• Based on structure

Modern

• Bite-sized & short

• Adaptive

• Gamified

• Reinforced

• Tied to performance

• Based on science

3 popular brain science techniques

To keep critical information top of mind, scientists have come up with

proven methods of making information stick. These techniques help

people remember information better, firmly ingrain information in the

brain, and build confidence in knowledge to drive the right behaviors.

By combining these memory-boosting techniques with continuous

training that happens in short intervals, employees remember more

information long-term and are better able to apply it on the job.

And when frontline employees can remember, recall, and react with

confidence, they’re able to positively impact specific business results.

SPACED REPETITION:

Practicing a new topic repeatedly over

increased periods of time to deepen memory

CONFIDENCE-BASED ASSESSMENT:

Measuring an employee’s expressed confidence

in a topic

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE:

Using questions to strengthen memory by

forcing the brain to recall information

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But first, what exactly is microlearning?

We’re glad you asked!

Microlearning is an approach to training

that delivers content in short, focused bites.

To be effective, microlearning must fit

naturally into the employee’s daily workflow,

engage voluntary participation, be based

on brain science principles (how people

actually learn), adapt continuously to ingrain

the knowledge employees need to be

successful, and ultimately drive behaviors

that impact specific business results.

So, how does microlearning actually do

all of this? Well, let’s look at those serious

gaps in knowledge that are preventing your

frontline from reaching their full potential.

One employee may require training on a

new piece of equipment, while another

may fail to consistently follow safe work

practices (despite receiving compliance

training). Instead of subjecting both

employees to the exact same training,

microlearning delivers personalized

information tailored to address each

individual’s knowledge gaps. So the first

employee may receive instructional videos

related to the new piece of equipment, and

the second may receive content designed

to change unsafe behavior. But instead

of doing a single information dump on

anything and everything the employee

needs to know, microlearning delivers this

information in bite-sized pieces over time.

As the knowledge gap shrinks and your

frontline employees become more confident

in their roles, they will excel at their jobs.

And when employees are engaged and

armed with the latest policies, procedures

and practices, they can’t help but perform

better! All of which positively impact your

bottom line.

Over time, this allows you to increase

productivity and decrease

downtime—bringing you one step

closer to manufacturing excellence.

See? Microlearning works! But we don’t

expect you to just take our word for it.

Read on to see how industry leaders like

Merck are using microlearning to empower

their frontline employees and impact

business results.

How microlearning drives results in manufacturing

5 advantages of microlearning

Keeps manufacturers agile by targeting critical objectives and solving specific problems

Boosts frontline employee engagement by delivering only the training content they need

Decreases information overload and increases memory with short bites of content that keep employees focused and alert

Empowers workers to make meaningful contributions with personalized training that builds the knowledge needed for success

Drives business results with training that aligns to manufacturer’s organizational goals

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Merck reduces safety incidents by building a culture of safety awareness

The Merck Manufacturing Division of Merck & Co., Inc. (known as MSD outside of the

U.S. and Canada) formulates, packages and distributes Merck products to more than

140 markets around the world.

THE CHALLENGE:

Build a strong culture around safety to ensure safety best practices were not only top

of mind, but ingrained in the attitudes and behaviors of all employees.

THE SOLUTION:

Launched Safe by Choice™ program through several tactics, including implementing

the Axonify Microlearning Platform to deliver microlearning on safety topics across 52

global manufacturing sites, with approximately 24,000 full- and part-time employees

and contractors, in more than 10 languages.

THE RESULTS:

• Merck’s global safety message is consistent across all manufacturing sites, creating a

“common language” that’s embedding safety practices into the company’s culture

• 80%+ voluntary participation has increased knowledge growth across all safety topics

• Decrease in Recordable Incident Rate (RIR)

• Decrease in Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR)

“We have seen significant value with the Axonify platform. There’s been a lot of energy around it with people logging on more than once a week and challenging each other.”

- Barbara Grofic, Program Manager of Safe by Choice

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Proof microlearning works

Still not convinced? See what other industry leaders are saying about microlearning…

axonify.com/customer-stories

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Setting your frontline employees, and your company, up for success

You have a lot riding on your frontline employees. In fact, your

business will succeed or fail based on the choices they make every

day. That’s why it’s so important that they know and do the right

things on the job. When your employees make the right decisions, the

overall business thrives.

So how does the Axonify Microlearning Platform work? How does it

actually ingrain the knowledge frontline employees need to perform

on the job? Our approach is based in brain science and combines a

number of proven tactics (refer back to those brain hacks we talked

about earlier) to make microlearning successful. But the real secret

to our success is that we make learning fun and engaging, which

drives high volumes of voluntary participation. That means frontline

employees (who are often on the floor or working shifts) are actually

choosing to learn—up to 3 times a week!

The Axonify Microlearning Platform enables you to actually build knowledge

(instead of just blast your workforce with upfront training that they’ll soon

forget). It’s agile and quick. It’s proactive, not reactive. And, because it’s

rooted in science, it continuously builds and reinforces the right knowledge

for each employee based on what they know (and don’t know), which

develops the right behaviors. When learning is done this way, it contributes

to the overall success of your organization.

Finally, you can be confident that your training is moving the needle on

business results. This is because the impact of learning through Axonify

is measurable. Unlike other traditional training platforms, Axonify

demonstrates how training directly impacts business performance, so you

can actually see the results. And what’s more, these insights can help you

make decisions that directly influence other targets you’re measured against,

like throughput, yield, cycle time, reportable health and safety incidents and

perfect order rates.

Long story short: with Axonify, you get business results—not bottlenecks.

state that Axonify helps them perform better on the job

consider Axonify as the best training solution they’ve used

participate voluntarily at least 3x per week

It’s proven, Axonified employees are more engaged

Meet Axonify. The microlearning solution built for manufacturing

80%81%84% 80%81%84% 80%81%84%

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Are you ready to make microlearning a critical part of your manufacturing organization’s success?

You can, with Axonify.

With the Axonify Microlearning Platform, you do more than train your people. You

drive business results by meeting the needs of each individual frontline employee.

By providing a personalized experience that fits into the workflow—and can be

completed in minutes—we ingrain the knowledge your people need to change their

behavior and achieve your business goals. What makes us different? Axonify is

trusted by more business leaders than any other learning platform on the market.

Why? Because our approach is proven to deliver major bottom-line results. We

know, because we measure it.

Want to learn more about how microlearning can drive business results in your

manufacturing organization? Read our comprehensive guide: Everything you

need to know about microlearning.

Contact one of our microlearning experts today to learn more.

sales@axonify.com | Toll-Free: 1-855-AXONIFY (269-6439) | axonify.com