Since the early 2000s, alternative online educational formats have been rapidly rising to prominence.
There are myriad reasons for this, and the phenomenon has not emerged without its share of controversy.
However, the clear and proven advantages of online learning have made it indispensable.
Online college, for example, is quickly becoming the premier way for working adults to rebrand themselves and improve their prospects while continuing to shoulder adult responsibilities.
Today, online learning takes many forms.
In today's business world, one of those forms is known as micro-credentialing.
You can understand why the idea has its detractors simply by looking at the name.
Micro-credentialing is short, focused, and fast.
Despite the clear disadvantages of that sort of thing, the fact is that it offers businesses a way to onboard key skills and capabilities rapidly.
Micro-credentialing makes it easier to find and optimize ideal candidates, hire internally, promote from within, and most importantly, keep organizations competitive where they might otherwise fall behind the curve.
In this post, we will explore the growing notion that this mode of workforce development is a critical way forward for businesses of all kinds and briefly survey the future of micro-credentialing.
The Evolving Landscape Of Workforce Development
The ways that businesses build and develop their workforces have always changed.
Throughout time, the most traditional way to do this is to simply hire the most qualified people available and to encourage and help them become more competent over time.
Sadly, an equally "traditional" way to do it is to just constantly search for better people and then go on a firing and hiring spree.
Micro-credentialing is helping to alleviate workforce development bottlenecks and job insecurity.
Traditional Approaches To Workforce Development
Other more traditional team development methods include in-house training, regular meetings, continued education sponsorship, tutorial videos, expert tutoring, workshops, and more.
These days, even online coursework might be thought of as traditional compared to radical new developments like micro-credentialing.
How Technology Is Changing Workforce Strategies
The two events that transformed workforce development over the last 15 years are the pandemic and the recession of 2008.
Excluding the advent of the Internet itself, events like these shed light on the need for employers and workers to diversify their skills more than anything else.
The 2008 recession marked a dramatic decline in job security, driving many workers to find the skills they needed to work elsewhere.
COVID forced people away from public spaces and shared offices, making the need for even more technological productivity bandwidth apparent.
Today, that added bandwidth is far too valuable to abandon.
Therefore, new developments like micro-credentialing are coming to the fore.
Why Adaptability And Continuous Learning Are Crucial
After all this flux and change in the ways we develop professional teams since the rise of the Internet, one thing is sure: the need to adapt to change will never be over.
What that means for us right now is that the best thing we can do is to embrace the latest, most streamlined ways to grow in skill and capability.
Right now, that means embracing micro-credentialing.
Case Studies: Micro-Credentialing In Action
Micro-credentialing has taken a number of forms in the short time it has been with us.
This versatility makes sense since the manageable, bite-sized chunks these credentials come in make them able to fill many professional educational gaps.
Scenario 1: Course Enhanced With Micro-Credential
In our first scenario, we find micro-credentials embedded within larger courses.
This gives especially talented and energetic students yet another way to stand out and obtain additional value from the course.
As an employer, talent like this is very attractive, and these types of micro-credentials can be used as a recruiting tool.
Scenario 2: Non-Credit Professional Advancement Enhanced With Micro-Credential(s)
One of the advantages of micro-credentials is that they can bring proven skills through veteran staffers, and enable them to bring these skills to the workplace for a greatly reduced cost rapidly.
When the employer knows a given skill is valuable, is being learned, and has a trusted employee through whom to leverage it, accreditation is little more than a formality.
Scenario 3: Experiential Learning Supported With Micro-Credential(s)
Experiential learning is one of the few traditional modes of workforce development which we have not mentioned here.
It doesn't take much explaining except to say that experiential learning means "hands-on."
It is uncontroversially one of if not the most effective learning modalities for the majority of learners.
Adding micro-credentialing to the known benefits of experiential learning brings a greater degree of authority and provability to the table.
To put it another way, it gives the learner a document-supported verifiability in the things they accomplish through workforce development.
The Role Of Micro-Credentialing In Future Workforce Development
To understand why micro-credentialing is gaining such precipitous and rapid acceptance in the corporate world, we need to look at its most unique and significant advantages.
These are the ability to fill skill gaps effectively, usefulness in true life-long learning, and the potential realization of truly unique career paths for individuals.
Skill Gap Solutions
The professional world is plagued with skill gaps.
These are a lack of proficiency where such proficiency would be useful or is needed.
Frankly, there is nothing as well-tuned for deleting skill gaps as micro-credentialing.
It gives people the opportunity to learn and master precisely what they need to master to become better at their jobs, make the company more profitable, and be more secure in their positions.
Facilitating Lifelong Learning
In work and education, lifelong learning is something of a buzzword.
As a result, it loses much of its meaning.
However, micro-credentialing makes true lifelong learning a feasible reality, because learning in a meaningful way no longer requires a massive investment in time and money.
It can be done in short amounts of time, completed in the learner's free time, at their own pace.
Enabling Individualized Career Paths
The facility of micro-credentialing to make truly individualized career paths a reality is arguably their most compelling feature.
Often, employees who are most successful in a corporate role become so by finding their unique skills and abilities and when those skills and abilities match the unmet needs of the organization.
Before the advent of micro-credentialing, this could only happen by chance.
Now, an employee can, with intentionality and purpose, drive their way home straight toward a genuinely unique career path that meets the unmet needs of their employer.
As a bonus, this facet of micro-credentialing may even have the potential to remedy the loss of employee/employer loyalty, which has been eroding for years.
Emerging Trends In Workforce Development And Micro-Credentialing
Any potential flaws in micro-credentialing as a system can be overcome with the power of the blockchain.
Blockchain-Verified Credentials
Blockchain is a practically infallible way to secure information.
When a node in the chain is changed in an unauthorized way or by an unauthorized party, the other nodes in the chain automatically nullify the change.
This means micro-credentialing credentials logged within the blockchain cannot be maliciously falsified or deleted.
Artificial Intelligence In Skill Assessment
One of the major bottlenecks in any educational system is the limited ability of teachers to review student work.
AI offers the potential to do this work for the instructor, making the process potentially faster.
Further, this streamlining effect may have no significant upper limit.
Inter-Organizational Recognition Of Micro-Credentials
Even if a given micro-credential does not come with academic recognition, such recognition with an organization is easily a strong asset and a certain possibility.
FAQs: Micro-Credentialing And Future Workforce Development
How Will Micro-Credentialing Impact Recruitment?
Micro-credentialing has the potential (and, indeed, is) to open new avenues to employers looking to find the (actual) perfect candidate.
It does this, primarily, by giving employees the ability to become the perfect fit for a role, even if the individual is not a perfect match already.
It also has great potential for turning existing employees into ideal professionals in their current role or a new one.
Are Micro-Credentials The Future Of Professional Development?
There is little doubt that micro-credentialing is at least part of the future of professional development if not a very large part of it.
In some industries, it could make up the entire face of professional development.
For others, it is certainly going to play a critical role.
It can be said with certainty, however, that to ignore this new learning modality is to risk losing the competitive edge.
What Are The Challenges Of Incorporating Micro-Credentialing?
The primary challenge to micro-credentialing is its novelty paired with the "micro" aspect of it.
For these reasons, people will resist it.
But this resistance will fade as has the resistance to online learning at all levels.
The reason for this is the undeniable utility of micro-credentialing.
Policy And Regulation: Standardizing Micro-Credentialing
Current Regulatory Framework
At present, the lack of academic acceptance or accreditation makes micro-credentialing seem experimental at best.
In time, this will fade, because all valuable things gain acceptance eventually.
But it will take persistence and the willingness of forward-looking decision-makers to move forward boldly.
Standardization Efforts
The level of standardization that micro-credentialing needs is likely to require proactive implementation of the blockchain and AI.
These things still face resistance of their own, leaving micro-credentialing far behind the level of acceptance that it deserves.
Potential Impact On Workforce Development Policies
It may take the drafting of radical, new corporate policy to make micro-credentialing a viable reality.
This means that decision-makers will need to be even bolder than previously stated.
But of course, those who fail to adopt game-changing developments will, as always, learn this the hard way.
Conclusion
At present, only the most adventurous and foresighted organizations are embracing micro-credentialing.
As their success becomes clear in hindsight, others will get on board.
For those who are wary of this new learning modality, we can say that it can be implemented in small ways, ways that have little impact on time and expense.
Then, if it doesn't work for your organization, you can easily de-integrate it.
However, our experience with novel, tech-driven learning modalities tells us that those who adopt micro-credentialing sooner will become the leaders in their industry.
The difference between adopting it now and waiting is to choose whether to lead or to merely succeed.
To learn more about the proven successes of micro-credentialing and find out what it can do for your business, get in touch today.
