Learn how your organization can benefit from social learning.
Learning from one another is what people have always done, so social and collaborative learning as a learning method is likely the oldest one in existence. Even if our approach to training and learning has evolved over time, we still inevitably learn from those we collaborate with.
“Learning is an experience, everything else is just information.” – Albert Einstein
Social learning is highlighted by Forbes as one of the top 10 business trends to drive success, so what does it look like?
How do you take advantage of it?
And what are the benefits? Let’s dive in and take a look.
Social Learning Is Growing – Here’s Why
While social learning at its core is defined as learning through interactions with colleagues and peers, it’s important to note that this doesn’t always have to be one-on-one or face-to-face. It can be facilitated through social software and platforms that connect workers in different locations and enable them to share valuable knowledge capital.
Social learning presents a huge opportunity for enterprises because learning technology is now mature enough to address common concerns related to tracking, recognition, and security. What’s more, social learning technologies now converge and integrate with other performance and productivity systems to produce full enterprise technology solutions.
This has paved the way to now measure the effectiveness of social learning initiatives and the results speak for themselves.
- Social learning approaches have a 75:1 ROI ratio compared to formal web-based training.
- Course completion increased to 85% on HBX, a Harvard Business School online education initiative when it introduced social learning.
- Productivity gains enabled through using a social learning platform can be as high as 35% by being able to connect with others using social tech.
- 82% of businesses that use social learning tools want to increase their use in the future.
Learning Doesn’t Stop When Lesson Time is Over
This statement is true even in enterprise learning environments. Employees are generally comfortable teaching (e.g. coaching peers) and learning from one another – and they don’t stop learning when they leave the workplace.
This has traditionally been difficult to implement in a business setting because organizations typically view training and development as an exercise that has a defined destination (e.g. an employee completes a course to gain a certain skill).
In reality, learning and upskilling is an ongoing journey and this is spurred by an ever-evolving business landscape where job functions are no longer static. For social learning to work effectively, organizations have to embrace the idea that learning is an ”always-on” activity, which is constantly accessible to empower learners to jump in at the point of need.
6 Benefits of Social Learning Technologies
What benefits can employees, managers and learning teams expect from implementing social learning technologies?
These technologies have a huge impact on several enterprise core processes from recruiting to training and developing talent. And what’s more, results are quickly measurable because social technologies have a direct and obvious effect on performance. Here are 6 key benefits:
1. No Time Wasted Waiting To Be Trained
Imagine a situation where an employee can rely on peers to get answers to day-to-day issues from day one on the job. Scheduled training can occur at any time, but people don’t have to wait for it to start being productive so ramp-up time is reduced.
2. Ask Questions And Receive Answers At The Point Of Need
We know we have a problem to solve as it occurs in real time, and ideally, we need an answer to solve it at that moment. Asking questions and testing solutions on actual problems in real time is the best way to learn a procedure.
3. Take Part, Even If You Are A Passive Learner
Some employees may be intimidated by asking questions in classroom situations or during meetings. When using virtual channels, this is much less of a problem, and those same employees are less likely to hold back asking and getting answers.
4. Review And Learn In Your Own Time
When answers are readily available online they can be reviewed over and over again – until learning has taken place.
5. Coach Others, Or Just Take Part In Whatever Capacity You Want
Anyone can take part in a discussion, and at any level (whether fully engaged or not). An employee can simply read and “like” (approve of or upvote) a quote or an answer, while another employee can lead a discussion or even coach others. Employees are free to engage as they wish!
6. Show Your Talent
If expertise has been developed, that knowledge can then be shared. Contributions by senior team members (the ‘experts’) can be facilitated and encouraged by an environment that rewards top performers with measurable recognition. This can play a big role in growing talent in the organization.
What Is The Role Of An Enterprise Learning Platform In This Social Learning Landscape?
Docebo’s Coach & Share module facilitates informal, social and collaborative learning within the organization by giving full power to social features, enabling peer review and coaching, and empowering learners to contribute to the process with their own content.
Vision Hospitality Group is using Docebo Coach & Share to enable social learning across a remote, spread out workforce. See the results in the case study here.
Ready to put social learning into action in your organization?Learn how to maximize the value of employee engagement and enhance L&D initiatives through social learning.
