Micro-credentialing is an excellent way to bring needed skills to your business.
It can make a slightly imperfect job candidate into the ideal job candidate in record time.
Best of all, it is faster, more affordable, and more reliable than more traditional credentialing methods.
Micro-credentialing is being leveraged by top-performing businesses across all industries and markets.
That means that if you don't implement this innovative way to upskill your workforce, your business is likely to lose its competitive edge in the coming years.
Here, we will discuss how to make the rubber hit the road when it comes to making micro-credentialing work for your organization and turn this surprising new up-skilling method into a reliable skill-building resource.
Steps To Implement Micro-Credentialing In Your Organization
We know that every business organization needs to develop the skills of its teams to remain competitive, and we know that micro-credentialing is the way to do that, at least at this time.
The question is how to make it work for you.
Assessing Organizational Needs
The first step will almost always be to identify what skills your organization needs to onboard.
There are three general ways to approach this question: the human, the technological, and the social side.
- The Human: In this approach, we look at an individual team member and ask what skills she or he needs to become competent or more effective in their current or potential role. This is usually the simplest and most micro-level way of approaching the problem. You can usually match an individual with a useful new skill to learn in a matter of minutes.
- The Technological: In this approach, we start by looking at tools we need to bring on board and then consider training people in the use of those tools. A good example might be a point-of-sale system in a chain of restaurants. These tools streamline customer service tremendously, but hospitality crews need to be trained to use them.
- The Social: Perhaps the most complex way of assessing your micro-credentialing needs is the social approach. Through the social approach, we make determinations like identifying a need for better leadership, soft skills, diplomacy, and knowledge of finance or economics. Think of this as looking for ways of imbuing your organization with wisdom.
Identifying Skills And Competencies
Naturally, there are more ways to identify skills and competencies than the three we have mentioned.
But these can get you started thinking along the right lines.
Anyone can find useful skills and assign Micro-Credentialing tasks to employees.
The trick is to do it in a way that is both scalable and that ensures the skills learned won't just be learned long enough to pass a test and get credit.
Therefore, we need to look at the process a little more closely.
Developing A Framework For Micro-Credentialing
Whenever possible, it is best to go about the implementation of Micro-Credentialing in a deliberate, controlled, and most importantly, measurable way.
The good news is that any good micro-credentialing platform or service will have much of this framework set up for you.
The key is to choose the right micro-credentialing service provider, platform, and package for your company, your business model, the needs of your team, and your industry/market.
How to Choose a Micro-Credentialing Platform
To choose a platform that works best for your organization, you may need to engage with a consultation service.
Whether you do or not, the key is getting the skills you need and none of the skills you don't.
Further, you need the learning to be delivered compellingly and effectively.
Criteria For Selecting A Platform
- Credentialing Requirements: How much effort does it take for employee X to complete credential Y? Is the time and effort required commensurate with the benefits of micro-credentialing? Are the requirements legitimate, useful, and sufficient?
- Cost: Is the program, features, and all the support that comes with it priced within your budget?
- Features: Are the features useful to you? You may need to try it before you will know. But learning is a very personal thing and even a small difference between one learning environment and another can mean the difference between real learning and educational busy-work.
- Integration: How well will the graphical user interface, dashboards, and other digital control surfaces interlock with your existing network? Does your system meet the operational requirements of micro-credentialing software? Will your team members have to be trained to use the training GUI?
- Security and Accessibility: Does the micro-credentialing platform take steps to secure your user information? Is it user-friendly?
- Analytics: Does the platform give you useful, live data on how well your team members are taking on their learning tasks? Can you watch the skill-learning grow in real-time within your organization?
- Support: Do the providers of the platform walk you through integration and help you get started? Will they be available to answer questions when problems arise? Support is a key part of integration and a great asset for as long as you use a micro-credentialing service.
Budget Considerations, Security, And Data Privacy
We mentioned these, but they can withstand repeating.
If the program breaks your budget, it won't do you much good, since you won't be able to operate even with all the skills you may gain.
Of course, if your data security is compromised, micro-credentialing can quickly become a minor concern compared to data damage control.
Any good micro-credentialing platform will take robust steps to secure your critical information.
They will also be open and up-front about their costs, giving you a complete and accurate estimate of the total end-to-end cost of your micro-credentialing needs.
Creating And Administering Micro-Credentials
Choosing a well-organized and supportive provider for your Micro-Credentialing needs will all but ensure that you have everything you need to take on the skills you need to succeed.
Most often, your most important task is to make sure you work with the best service available.
What is it exactly that a good micro-credentialing support team does?
Role Of The Micro-Credentialing Team
First, you should have two micro-credentialing teams, one internal and one brought to you by your micro-credentialing platform of choice.
The one brought to you by your selected micro-credentialing platform will bring the support you need to your internal team.
From there, your internal micro-credentialing managers will disseminate this support to your community of workers/learners.
They will:
- Ensure system requirements are met at each workstation
- Connect value where investments have been made
- Teach key system features to participants at all levels
- Remain engaged throughout the systems' integration process
- Maintain privacy, security, and accessibility
- Collect performance data and deliver analytics and reporting
- Recommend and provide additional learning resources to those who need them
Steps To Creating Micro-Credentials
Naturally, it isn't ideal to pick micro-credentialing courses on a whim.
You need to make sure they will deliver value once complete.
Here are some important steps to follow.
Best Practices for Micro-Credentialing Creation, Assessment, and Validation
1. Check For Market Demand
A little research should reveal whether the credential you are considering will hold real value for your organization.
2. Outline How The Credential Will Meet That Demand
Next, draft an explanation and description of how your micro-credential will meet that demand.
Run it across peers and team members.
Your argument should be compelling and logical, and there should be real-world examples of it.
3. Break The Credential Into Chunks
Divide up the credentialing process into the smallest units possible.
Learners should feel accomplished as frequently as possible.
This is because the feeling of success triggers physical changes in the brain that we need to learn new skills and keep them.
4. Leverage A Range Of Media
Use video, audio, text, games, tasks, and any type of medium you can to teach your learners.
Some learners may use all of them. Some may just use what they need.
The more channels you make available, the less likely it will be that some people will get left behind because their learning style is not represented.
5. Make The Assessment Criteria Simple
Testing should be as simple as possible.
Multiple-choice questions are the gold standard for online training modules.
You can make them more reliable by using more of them rather than making any single test more complex.
6. Stay Committed To Persistent Improvement
For deep-seated psychological reasons, learning works best when we do not aim for it to end.
Therefore, making micro-credentialing a permanent practice keeps your teams in a mindset in which they are ready to learn.
Of course, this is also important if you want your teams to remain competitive in the foreseeable future.
Overcoming Challenges in Implementing Micro-Credentialing
Creating value always takes effort, which means resistance to it is always present.
When it comes to training a workforce, that resistance may come in the form of obstinance.
Resistance From Management or Employees
Internal resistance can be expected to some extent, even if it's just a mild lack of enthusiasm.
You can overcome this by making participation mandatory, but there are better ways as well.
You can incentivize with rewards and recognition.
Perhaps the cheapest way to incentivize active participation is by posting results so that your people will take on a spirit of competition.
Technical Challenges
Tech trouble is an ever-looming problem.
For this, the best solution is to have internal and external tech support.
You want an IT team that understands how micro-credentialing integrations should work.
You also need to work with a platform that will support you throughout the process.
Budget Constraints
The most important way to keep micro-credentialing affordable is to know your budget constraints and insist that your provider offer a package that will remain within them.
In addition to this, you can select free and low-cost learning resources to supplement those offered.
Conclusion
Follow all the steps discussed above with a mindset and an intention of promoting workforce development.
In so doing, you will develop and maintain a competitive edge in your industry, an edge that is rapidly becoming necessary rather than optional.
Sources
- https://www.accredible.com/blog/how-to-choose-digital-credentialing-software
- https://www.credentialingexcellence.org/Resources/Microcredentialing-Toolkit/Phases-of-Microcredential-Development
- https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/three-steps-developing-useful-microcredentials
