186 participants in the mining industry

Microlearning in the Mining Industry

Workplace learning is experiencing a drastic shift with organizations’ time and money constraints limiting employees’ options to leave the site for training. Those constraints are amplified for people working in the mining industry in remote parts of Canada.

Anaconda Mining Inc., in partnership with Agnico Eagle, Training Works and the Mining Industry Human Resource Council will lead the six-month (the entire project is two years but the training program is only six months) Microlearning In The Mining Industry project, which will put learning in the hands of almost 200 participants who work in the mining industry. Employees have four minutes of daily microlearning that can be done anywhere, anytime on their mobile devices. Coupled with onsite coaching and mentoring, this comprehensive blended learning program fits easily into a miner’s daily work schedule.

Future Skills Centre is investing $930,000 in this innovative project that tests the outcomes of bite-size, daily learning based on each employee’s need in their role at the time and focusing on health and safety and communications. All the training in this program will have a diversity lens applied to ensure appropriateness for the target audiences. The additional on-the-job support from coaches and mentors is designed to improve behaviour-based awareness through the hybrid of digital learning and a mentor/mentee on-the-job feedback loop.

The partners note some of the participants of this program will not have formalized post-secondary education but are eager for more learning opportunities. The goal is to learn how this micro-learning model impacts overall bottom line metrics of the organization and whether there is a direct relation between this type of learning model and employee empowerment, behaviour change and overall ROI.

Evaluation Strategy

This project will be evaluated using tools and approaches aligned with its goals, context, and stage of development. The evaluation will focus on generating the right evidence at the right moment to move the intervention forward. Read more about our evaluation strategy.