Every company needs to invests in employee learning, but getting people to complete their training isn’t the same as helping them remember it. Learning retention is what turns a course into a new skill, a better decision, or a lasting behavior change.
How people learn has a huge impact on what they remember. Here are 10 learning retention facts that can help you build training that’s more engaging, more memorable, and more effective.
10 Unforgettable Facts About Learning Retention
1) Exercise Improves Memory and Skills Learning
Employees should be taking time away from their desks during the day, but there’s evidence that creating healthy routines through exercise can increase memory too. Findings show that bursts of physical activity as short as 15 minutes can improve memory and streamline skills acquisition.
2) Microlearning Drives Learning Retention
Microlearning courses are an effective way to deliver short, targeted pieces of content to learners without overwhelming them, as a study states that short-term memory can only manage around four elements at a time. The same study surveyed learning professionals about their experience of microlearning and found that 71% see its potential to increase knowledge retention and nearly 68% believe it can drive engagement.
3) Making Mistakes Can Improve Memory
Mistakes aren’t always a bad thing! According to a phenomenon known as the derring effect, making mistakes on purpose and then correcting them can improve meaningful learning, memory, and test performance. Though learners don’t realize the benefits of making mistakes, results show that learners remembered more of what they’d learned and could apply it more effectively. As you design learning programs, look out for opportunities to let people reflect on their mistakes in a safe place and show them it’s ok to fail.
4) Large Images Make Facts Easier to Remember
A study of images shows that memory is impacted by image size and learners remember large visuals 1.5 times better than smaller images. When it comes to training, it’s likely that learners will remember more by using larger screens and bigger, bolder images.
5) Color Can Make Content 39% More Memorable
How you present your courses matters—findings reveal that adding color to your materials can increase readership rates and help retain information. If you want your learners to engage with content and retain more information, make your courses stand out!
6) Active Learning Increases Competency
Hands-on learning in the workplace is one of the most effective ways to improve competence through learning retention, according to a study on active learning. Training delivered through hands-on activities, gamification, and group discussion can result in greater knowledge retention, as active learners retained 93.5% of previously learned information compared to only 79% for passive learners after one month.
7) Personalized Learning Sticks
Understanding your learners’ motivations, habits, and goals is key to creating personalized journeys. It’s critical to create employee training plans that has set goals and ways you’ll measure success.
8) Repetition Improves Long-Term Memory
Repetition is important and increasing repetition can improve long-term memory by 35%. By repeating key information, learners will more easily be able to call upon the information they’ve already seen. Spaced repetition, especially double spaced repetition, can boost retained information significantly.
9) Taking Breaks Helps With Memory Recall
Downtime is essential for health and employee wellbeing, but it could aid learning retention too. Research shows that when developing a new skill is separated by short periods of rest, the memory becomes stronger and performance develops 20 times faster. Rest allows your people to learn quickly, remember what they’ve been taught, and apply their new skills to the job.
10) Video Captions Increase Understanding by 56%
Visual and text learning are more effective when used together. Video captions can increase user comprehension by up to 56%, leading to greater retention.
Five Ways Bridge Helps Learning Stick
Learning retention isn’t about asking people to work harder or take more training. It’s about making learning relevant, engaging, and easy to apply. Here’s how Bridge helps companies build training that people actually remember.
1) Help Your People See Where Learning Can Take Them
People are naturally more motivated to learn when they understand how today’s training connects to tomorrow’s opportunities. When employees can see the skills they need for a future role or career goal, learning becomes more purposeful instead of feeling like another required assignment.
Bridge Skills Management helps employees explore career paths, understand which skills they need to build, and track their progress over time. That clear connection between learning and career growth gives people a reason to keep going.
2) Pay Attention to What Your Learners Are Telling You
Not every course will resonate, and that’s okay. The important part is knowing which learning experiences people are completing, where they’re dropping off, and which content is making the biggest impact.
Bridge Analytics give you visibility into learner engagement and course performance, helping you improve your programs over time. When you listen to both the data and employee feedback, you can create training that’s more relevant and memorable.
3) Make Video Part of Your Training
People are more likely to stay engaged with training when it’s visual, concise, and easy to access. Instead of relying on long documents or slide decks, mix in short videos that explain concepts, demonstrate processes, or share knowledge from subject matter experts.
With Bridge Advanced Media, you can create and edit training videos without needing a separate production team. That makes it easier to build engaging learning experiences that employees are more likely to watch (and remember).
4) Personalized the Learning Experience
The same learning path won’t work for everyone. Employees have different roles, different goals, and different skills they want to develop.
Bridge LMS recommends learning based on each employee’s skills, goals, and development journey, so people spend less time searching for relevant content and more time learning. When training feels personally meaningful, employees are much more likely to stay engaged and retain what they’ve learned.
5) Start a Mentorship Skills Community
Some of the most valuable learning happens after a course is over. Talking through new ideas with a mentor, asking questions, and applying knowledge to real work helps reinforce what people have learned.
Bridge makes it easier to connect employees with mentors and peers who can share experience, offer guidance, and help turn new skills into everyday habits. Those conversations help move learning from theory into practice, where it’s much more likely to stick.
Help your employees remember more from every learning experience
People remember more when learning is engaging, relevant, personalized, and reinforced over time. The right learning platform makes all of that easier.
If you’re looking for ways to build training that employees actually use (and remember!) see how Bridge brings together personalized learning, skills development, video training, mentorship, and analytics in one place. Watch a two-minute self-guided demo of Bridge to explore how Bridge can help you create learning experiences that have a lasting impact.
