Fighting for Attention: Why Your Employees Aren't Listening

Micro Learning, AI Adoption, and Why AI Might Be The Next Vacuum

Your employees aren't ignoring your learning programmes because they don't care. They're ignoring them because they're drowning — in notifications, app toggles, Slack pings, and the relentless noise of modern work life. Welcome to the attention economy. And L&D is losing.

In this episode, I'm joined by two guests joining me from Australia: Mark Eggers, co-founder of micro learning platform Yarno, and Tom Bailey, Head of Learning at OFX, host of the Rogue L&D podcast, and L&D Professional of the Year 2025. Between them, they bring a rare combination of product thinking, marketing instinct, and hard-won practitioner experience — and this conversation does not pull its punches.

What We Cover

The attention economy and what it actually means for L&D

We dig into the research: a 40-second observed attention window, 60 to 120 interruptions per day, and over 1,200 app toggles per knowledge worker. And that's before we even talk about what's happening on their phones. Expecting employees to sit through a 45-minute click-next compliance module in this environment isn't just optimistic, it's delusional.

AI adoption: more pressure, not less

We all assumed AI would free up time. In practice? It's raised the bar on output and added a new cognitive load. Mark describes how AI has compressed a 60-minute task into 10 minutes at Yarno (which sounds great until you realise the expectation has simply shifted to fill that gap). Tom draws a sharp parallel with the invention of the personal computer. We're in the middle of an adoption curve that's exhausting everyone, and humans genuinely can't keep pace.

Micro learning and gamification done properly

Mark explains how Yarno's quiz-first, spaced repetition model was born out of frustration with the "click next" culture, and how applying behavioural science, game mechanics and competitive dynamics can drive 90%+ participation, even on dry commercial content. Tom shares what it looks like from the L&D practitioner side: why the product experience and the marketing campaign have to move together, and why different functional teams need very different motivational hooks.

Why internal marketing is non-negotiable

Tom is direct: marketing is indivisible from your L&D practice. Full stop. If you're sending a "proud to announce" email to employees who've never heard of you, have no reason to trust you, and are already at capacity — you've skipped about three steps. We talk through the AIDA model, why most L&D comms jump straight to action without building awareness, interest or desire, and what genuinely effective internal campaigns look like in practice.

Permission, pilots, and pushing the brief

L&D has a gift most functions don't: the freedom to fail fast and iterate without catastrophic consequences. Use it. Run the pilot. Ask for forgiveness. Move the needle, then tell the story. The business isn't going to give you permission, because the business doesn't even understand the problem yet. That's on us to solve.

This one builds on the previous conversation with Giles on the attention economy, but takes it somewhere more practical. If you've ever wondered why a great learning programme got ignored, this episode is your answer.

Listen to the full episode below 👇