L&D professionals know that about 80% of what people learn on the job is through informal means, but most are only starting to consider ways of harnessing social learning to deliver business benefits. Vincent Belliveau examines why social learning will continue to be a major trend in 2010, and how it may be integrated into a blended learning strategy.
Many critics think the surge in social learning is technology-driven, a result of the availability of wikis, blogs and online communities. While indeed technology is now facilitating it, informal learning has always had an important influence on organisational learning and performance. The real revolution lies in how informal learning now dovetails with changing perceptions of how learning is deployed and managed within the organisation. The rise of blended learning has given us an opportunity to look at learning and development (L&D) strategies afresh, meeting learner needs through a combination of delivery mechanisms. True blended learning is not just classroom training plus elearning. Issues such as globalisation, more geographically dispersed workforces and stringent cost control measures are driving this increased interest. So it is logical that informal learning should also form part of this mix.
Harnessing informal learning
Traditionally, L&D professionals have not considered informal learning as part of the corporate mix because it is so difficult to facilitate, track and measure. This is where technology has made an impact. Communication across corporate wikis, blogs and social networks can be tracked, reviewed and archived. Much of this communication reflects real life – people reach out to experts and colleagues for knowledge and support when they need help. Moreover, the organisation can maximise learning retention and accelerate time to competence by incorporating bite-size, just-in-time informal learning into a blended learning programme. It is need rather than technological capability that should be central to the development of a social learning strategy, and it can add value in most learning scenarios and company cultures.
There are five key steps to integrating or blending social learning into your current L&D strategy:
- Start small. Proactively look out for suitable projects. Identify a business unit or team with a specific need and use them as a pilot programme. Then get the buy in of advocates and sponsors, referring to social learning tools as a means of supplementing the existing learning programme.
- Recruit experts and champions within your organisation and encourage the team to contribute by demonstrating how it can help them achieve their goals. Engagement will help to deliver success.
- Learn the lessons from each project and accept that no two projects are likely to have exactly the same needs. Vary the tools and approach used according to what best suits the needs of the learners and share best practices.
- Communicate the success of each project or programme. Other business managers and teams will be more receptive to the inclusion of social learning if they know it has been used successfully by other teams who have had similar learning needs. Once a series of blended learning programmes have been completed successfully, using social learning as a key learning tool, it will become part of the learning culture of the organisation.
- Expand the use of social learning in the organisation. As social learning becomes part of the learning culture, L&D professionals should analyse every new or existing learning requirement to recommend the inclusion of social learning wherever it might improve learning outcomes. Ultimately, social learning opportunities should be listed for every relevant programme in the organisation’s learning catalogue.
Measuring performance
Measuring the outcome of L&D activity is complex when it is delivered over multiple channels. One answer is to have all learning activity planned, managed, recorded and, where appropriate, made available over the same platform, with each employee having to remember and use only one user logon and one password to access all programmes (or possibly with each user being automatically authenticated). Social learning can be integrated into the process by requiring or encouraging participants to log activity or contribute to corporate wikis or discussion forums as part of the learning programme. If a proportion of this activity (e.g. contributions to wikis or blogs) can be tracked automatically through a common system – such as an LMS – it is then easy to monitor the volume, frequency and quality of employee contributions to the workplace community, as well as identify the more active community members. Each employee’s comprehensive L&D record can then be compared to their performance.
In addition, the employee can be tested to ascertain their competency before and after their participation in social learning programmes. This is interesting, for instance, in career and succession planning, where L&D professionals can identify the competence or expertise an employee needs to acquire in order to be eligible for a new role. The employee can be empowered to leverage blended learning opportunities, including social learning, to help them make that leap. Additionally, participation in workplace communities helps employees build their internal networks of peers and mentors, further supporting career growth within their organisation and demonstrating their value as an information resource.
A simple way to measure the impact of social learning is to roll out two identical L&D programmes, one integrating social learning tools, and test the acquisition and retention of knowledge once the training has been completed. In our experience, if the programmes are equally well structured, the programme that includes social learning elements is more successful.
What next?
It’s important to remember that it is impossible to “formalise” all informal learning, but what can be captured and leveraged can make an important contribution. As L&D budgets are cut in response to the continuing economic difficulties, L&D professionals will need to be more creative in how learning is planned and delivered. Social learning can be highly cost effective, so while it is currently a small component of blended learning, it is likely to become a more mainstream part of the corporate learning culture.
This is why organisations have started to take informal learning seriously, but we are at a very early stage – comparable to the blended learning market five years ago. True blended learning works best when it is at the heart of a comprehensive learning curriculum rather than the traditional siloed approach to L&D. And organisations that focus on the business case for integrating social learning and providing the relevant framework and tools are those that are likely to derive the most significant business benefits.
Vincent Belliveau is Cornerstone OnDemand’s general manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Prior to joining Cornerstone OnDemand, Belliveau served as the North East Europe director of IBM’s Master Data Management (MDM) and Information Integration Solutions. Belliveau was also a consultant with McKinsey & Company earlier in his career. For more information on Cornerstone OnDemand, visit the website: Cornerstone OnDemand Inc.
