How Social Learning can enhance your training goals in 2021

In today’s digital world, websites and applications enable knowledge and talent sharing between individuals and teams. Solutions like Slack, Zoom, and Google Meet have made the process of collaborating across teams, departments, and geographies are effortless. Sites like YouTube, Udemy, and Pluralsight make the acquisition of new skills easy unlike traditional methods of training that existed a decade ago. With the existence of social media and online learning, the process of social learning has become prominent. Social media has proved that people can make significant connections and interactions online. Likewise, In Social Learning, the learners find it more effective by sharing their knowledge and developing critical thinking through discussions with their peers.

The new informal learning approach

L&D leaders recognize the benefits that can be achieved through revamping their learning strategy by implementing new models and theories. One such model is the 70:20:10 learning model that describes how people learn effectively.

The 70:20:10 learning model states that people attain 70% of the learning from their job experiences, 20% from social interactions, and 10% from formal learning. This model has a direct approach to on-the-job experiences and socialization. The organizations that implement the social learning model maximize the team’s productivity and engagement by enhancing their learning effectiveness through hands-on experience, socialization, and formal learning.

Knowledge retention in Social Learning

The knowledge-sharing approach has become a new norm in eLearning. Organizations use knowledge-sharing to improve employee performance and retention. Engaging employees through conversations about sharing their knowledge will help them understand that knowledge sharing is a personal benefit.

Social learning is a real-life approach to learning. With social learning, your employees will communicate and interact with their colleagues openly. Also, your employees will come up with new ideas and thoughts throughout the learning process.

A Learning management system (LMS) enables you to provide training using innovative approaches like microlearning, social learning, gamification, blended learning, mobile learning, and more. These modern learning approaches are a far cry from the out-dated mundane old-school training methodologies. You can also leverage a wide variety of interactive formats like video, user-generated content, SCORM, webinars, and more to captivate and educate your employees. Utilizing an LMS for training your workforce will reach your training goals efficiently and help you create a culture of continuous learning and improvement in your organization.

What are the benefits of social learning?

Social learning brings numerous benefits for your company as well as for the well-being of your employees. With this method of learning, you can provide your employees greater control over their training content. Let’s deep dive into the benefits of social learning and how it can boost your training ROI:

1.Enhance the Learning Retention of your Employees and your Training ROI:

According to Bandura’s social learning theory, learners retain 5% of their information on what they hear and 10% of what they understand. The percentage of retained learning increases more when learners are more actively involved in the learning process.

Only 50% of the learning is retained when done through discussions and interactions, while 75% of the learning is retained when it takes place through on-the-job experience and other hand-on-activities. The learners learn more by doing things practically and by socially interacting with others.

2.Supplement your Manager Development Measures:

Today, the cost of poor management has approached 7 trillion dollars globally. Poor management at the workplace leads to lost productivity and unmotivated employees. Even your costly training programs can do nothing if your workplace has poor management.

But you can overcome this by making your managers and supervisors a part of your social learning model. Incorporating a training program for managers and supervisors is an easy decision for most organizations. But most of the time the training is kept separate for them. Think of it as a dance class. If the dance instructor is right, he will allow the learners of different learning styles to join and train them, suiting their diverse capabilities. With this approach, everyone learns together and makes progress faster.

By including the manager and supervisors in the social learning model, strengthens your workplace team bond. When a manager does not feel left out from the team, they manage and supervise the team better.

3.Boost your Employee Retention:

Social learning has a direct benefit on your employee retention. It creates a conducive culture for your employees. As it is a peer-to-peer aspect, employees will focus on developing their social wellbeing. 70% of employees would choose a company that invests in employee development and learning. This motive helps them remain engaged and achieve higher, and will work harder for the company that invests in their career. Social learning in talent development enhances employee retention by offering more visual and factual examples.

4.Identify and Recognize your Employee’s Talent

According to SHRM and Globoforce survey, recognition is one of the strategies to create a positive workplace culture and experience. Implementing interesting features like gamified learning helps the administrators to provide a way to track learner progress and performance. Social learning creates a social interaction within the workplace creating opportunities for your employees to participate in group activities and fill the knowledge gaps.

5.Instill a Strong and Warm Company Culture:

Imagine you employed ten expert employees with impressive qualifications but they can’t work together as a team. You might have hired a team of jugglers.

Having a well-collaborated team is the best way to maintain a warm and robust company culture to have an engaged, productive, and professional team.

Your training and development should have standards for working collaboratively within your company for developing a learning community that reinforces and strengthens themselves.

Conclusion

Incorporating social learning into your learning strategy ensures a healthier workplace with better learning retention rates, employee engagement, and productivity. It also helps in formulating the team morale and their well-being.

But to adopt result-driven social learning strategies in the workplace, you need to invest in the right tools in the eLearning context. Investing in a Learning Management System with specifications like gamification, social learning, mobile learning, and a built-in course authoring tool is the first and foremost step in the right direction.

Why Choose KloudLearn?

With KloudLearn, you can quickly implement social learning strategies and enhance your learning experience using a robust Learning Management System. With its built-in content library, you can promptly curate your training content by focusing on the 70 and 20 aspects of the 70:20:10 model. Give your workforce a seamless social learning and structured learning experience with the mobile application. Schedule a Demo today to know more about KloudLearn.