Social Learning for enterprises

Virtual_Collaboration

The thought of social learning has ended up truly famous, yet its significance is exceptionally expansive. It has been utilized to allude to the procedures of learning and changes in people and social frameworks. Global organizations are either presently utilizing or wanting to utilize social learning eventually. The effect of social networking on our lives has been spectacular. Be it socio-political clashes in nations, online fights to make mindfulness around an illness episode, raising stores for cataclysm struck individuals or figuring out how to do with consistency- the social networking is currently assuming a vital part in our lives. Social aptitudes are about imparting space to others and having the capacity to coexist with individuals in a mixture of settings. A singular's social achievement is based upon the nature of his or her social associations. Keeping in mind the end goal to have positive social communications, an individual needs to be socially equipped and have solid social learning abilities.

Our beginning supposition is that the predominant quality of humankind is obtaining, preparing and production of data. We utilize social methodologies that permit us to oversee data better. An excess of  individuals examining  Social Learning see the social measurement as its last objective. We see it rather in the quest for importance and a way whose main role is to utilize social ways to help us in individual development and survival.

What It Means?

Social learning is portrayed as "discovering that happens outside a formal structure or classroom and is truly the way individuals have constantly gained from one another. Social learning focuses on data imparting, cooperation and co-creation."

While the act of social learning has been around for a long time, we require a superior meaning of it throughout today's work environment. The majority of us have a dream for what formal classroom preparing looks like, so here's one approach to view the fundamental distinction between informal learning and social learning:

Informal learning is a term used to portray anything not adapted in a formal program or class. It can occur inside gatherings or alone utilizing exercises, for example, perusing or pursuit.

Social learning is acquiring skills from others. It happens at meetings, bistros or online — with or without social networking apparatuses.

Online networking

Learning associations are quickly getting to be more acquainted with online networking. They are getting to be more inquisitive and mindful of the possibility to intensify learning and information imparting. They are additionally beginning to comprehend contrasts between the numerous devices and are beginning to understand that the best arrangements will be content-driven, not innovation driven.

The Content Management System

This arrangements with substance administration and its conveyance/presentation in an as easy to understand route as could be allowed, with engaging illustrations and meeting the fantastic client experience standards: it is not remarkable to discover organization preparing administration stages and learning courses furnished with interfaces which are not in accordance with these contemplations: client disagreeable and muddled situations with a terrible client experience are lamentably very basic. It's better not to belittle the way substance are conveyed, on the grounds that learning must be compelling in a domain furnished with great cognitive affordance.

Self Learning: organizations' archives flourish with substance that can improve and incorporate preparing ways. At the point when arranging new learning stages, it is important to expect the coordination of more sources – both inside and outer – in an organization toward oneself way.

How social learning has any kind of effect ?

The primary advantage of supporting a social learning environment in the working environment is that it empowers workers to assume liability for their own particular individual learning. Commonly, representative preparing happens through formal, educator drove channels amid recommended preparing occasions. Ordinarily, workers must interfere with their normal obligations so as to go to preparing sessions in a physical area outside of the workplace — frequently bringing about extra expenses for travel and cabin.

Encourages development

Social learning goes about as an impetus to advancement. It encourages a consistent stream of thoughts and best practices. This helps an association to learn and adjust better approaches to upgrade execution.

Helps individuals realize what they have to realize

A noteworthy motivation behind why social learning is extremely powerful is that it conveys what the learners need to know. It helps them realize what they have to realize and graph their own particular course of learning. Staying with the above illustration, the structural designer utilizing LinkedIn can put inquiries to his associates about particular parts of the development innovation on which he needs more data.

Gives anxiety free learning

It is remarkable that push is the greatest foe of viable learning. Social learning permits learners to secure data in a casual and anxiety free environment. Dissimilar to formal realizing, where you need to experience the rigors of going to extensive sessions and wrack your nerves to answer addresses in appraisals, social learning can be utilized to get the required data by reaching your associates over expert systems administration destinations.

At long last, social learning upgrades corporate culture and encourages working environment coordinated effort. People are regularly social creatures who need to feel some piece of a gathering. Learners that have the capacity to help and be backed by different learners are more inclined to feel that they're a piece of something greater.

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Meet the Skills Gap Head-on with Social Learning

Meet-the-Skills-Gap-Head-on-with-Social-Learning

We hear many stories about how the world of work is changing and the pace of change is increasing. As Jobs are becoming more complex, and many employers are concerned about an increasing skills gap. We think proactive companies can leverage the pace of change to increase employee engagement.

The change in work is not new. Over a hundred years ago, the automobile changed the entire support structure of personal transportation as hostlers became service station workers and wagon makers became auto workers. That change took decades. The quantitative analysis skills we learned in the mid-90s became obsolete in under ten years. In technology, skills now become obsolete in as little as 18 months.

How are companies coping with the rapid pace of change? Some just keep on doing what they are doing and fall behind. Some deal with employee churn, turning out obsolete workers and hiring new ones. Others provide constant skill training as new methods evolve and deal with employee churn. Still others turn to a contingent workforce.

At the leading edge, companies hire not for skills, but the ability and desire to learn. Google led the way when it stopped using skill assessments like brain teasers, GPA, and degrees to select people and hired people based on innovation, personal sense of mission, and personal autonomy. They no longer require degrees, but hire people on the ability to imagine innovative questions and seek answers.

Today’s employees want to learn and grow. Millennials and Gen Y workers want to advance in their careers.

If you have engaged them, they will look for growth opportunities in your company. If they don’t find them, they will move on.

Engaging learners may be simpler than we think. Jacob Morgan, in his video presentation “How to Stay Relevant in The Changing World of Work, offered tips to workers who want to stay relevant. He encouraged people to become continuous learners and follow their passions.

Employers can accelerate the learning. If you want to attract and retain good employees, you can provide the opportunity for them to act on Morgan’s suggestions.

  1. Leverage online education platforms. In our recent article on MOOCs, we showed how there are thousands of courses available at little or no cost through leading universities and online learning providers like Udemy and FutureLearn.
  2. Use social channels and create filters to stay on top of current and relevant information. Collaborative tools in our LMS, personal networking opportunities, and cross-functional teams provide the opportunity for our people to learn with and from each other. Social learning is not new, but new tools make it easier. Leverage collaborative technology to create a knowledge-sharing culture.
  3. Participate in communities that are relevant to your interests and passions. Help employees take advantage of social tools to create learning communities within your organization. We were doing that fifteen years ago using a wiki and Yahoo Instant Messenger, but the collaboration tools available today multiply the possibilities. Create private groups at LinkedIn, connect with an LMS platform, or create a SharePoint community.

We have one more tip to foster continuous learning. Take one step beyond encouragement, and create a culture where learning is expected, and then follow through by providing opportunities for people to use their new skills in new projects or roles.

You may be concerned that helping an employee to learn may cause him or her to seek a new position outside your organization. If that happens, encourage them to improve themselves and stay in touch. You may have created an ambassador or your next leader.

References:

Bessen, James. "Employers Aren't Just Whining – the." Harvard Business Review. August 25, 2014. Accessed January 28, 2016. 

Weddle, Peter. "How the World of Work Has Changed." HigherEdJobs. August 11, 2011. Accessed January 28, 2016. 

Morgan, Jacob. "How to Stay Relevant in The Changing World of Work." Forbes. May 29, 2015. Accessed January 28, 2016. 

Social Learning Paradigm - Future of Learning

Social_Learning_Paradigm

The way of human learning approaches are constantly changing. One of the newest models is social learning . It is estimated that roughly 76% of organizations worldwide intend to explore social learning in the future. The tools with which these organizations will administer such a model are just as unique as the idea itself.

What it Involves

It involves social media, but that is far from the only tool used. Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts, Mind Maps, Discussion forums, Instant messaging applications and RSS Feeds all provide a wide variety of knowledge from which individuals and organizations can learn. This paradigm dramatically impacts traditional learning and causes some to be overwhelmed by new technology.

Benefits:

There are three significant benefits of this new learner psychology :

  • Better engagement and motivation for learners.
  • Ability to acquire skills faster.
  • Higher retention of knowledge.
  • Opportunities to nurture talent in the right direction.

Engaging employees is the only way to educate them. Their attention is paramount to the educational process. Higher retention of knowledge is also significant, given that traditional instructor-led course work, no longer provides high retention rates. Nurturing your talent is also important, as that is the only way organizations can succeed.

Obviously, social learning has the power to transform organizations that are willing to implement its effective strategies.

Why It Works

When employees are led by both their superiors and teammates, the quality of education improves and the results are far better than when left to course work alone.

Learner psychology shows that close contact, imitation of superiors, concept understanding and role model behavior, support a healthy learning environment. When employees learn in a group, setting their motivation to grasp concepts is far greater than when they learn individually.

Another important aspect is that of the millennial workforce. With more employees familiar with the concept of ‘social learning’, implementation is much easier. The current workforce is highly motivated by social media and understands how to effectively use technology to their benefit. In reality, organizations must change the way they educate their employees if they want the best results. Millennials learn differently than previous generations, and have higher standards for their education, and so should the companies they work for.

Does it really impacts learners retention

Learning through social enterprise tools, enables effective knowledge sharing, easy discussions and collective negotiations which result in enhancing the levels of workforce engagement. The benefits like vast scope of learning among many learners at a single point of time, reinforcing the performance of both the individual and the organisation truly retain the learner’s attention and keep them focussed of the learning curve, besides greater @work knowledge construction and application that affects the bottom line results.

The Future of Learning is Clear

As rapid technological advancements are greatly impacting the millennial generation, which in turn are transforming the Learning strategies, organisations must set the stage for social learning to stay abreast with times and reap benefits.

How to Measure the Impact of Social Learning

How to Measure the Impact of Social Learning

Social learning is at the forefront of workforce development discussions right now. It may feel like a new phenomenon, but it is as ancient as learning. The knowledge that people gain outside formal training has always existed whether we noticed or not.

The difference between then and now is that we want to leverage informal learning to improve performance instead of just letting it happen. We want to make its benefits visible.

What is Social Learning?

Social learning is not any one thing. We use dozens of terms to define it, but they come down to learning from one another as we connect, converse, and collaborate with each other. It doesn’t matter if you call it social networks, informal learning, communities of practice, or anything else. It is what we learn as we work together.

Another way to describe social learning is by the way it happens.

  • Tribal knowledge is the knowledge contained in our groups: business functions, work teams, project team, job families, or any other permanent or temporary group. Humans are tribal beings, and our tribal memberships fluctuate over the course of a day as we interact with various groups of people. People create tribal knowledge and passed it on as they work together.[1]
  • Tacit knowledge is what we know and find difficult to communicate Leadership, innovation, and intuition are good examples. It can be described as what everybody knows but can’t explain. Tacit knowledge in your organization can be a competitive advantage because your competitors can’t duplicate it.[2]
  • Conversational learning happens when people have talked about what they know or don’t know, or about a problem they are trying to solve.
  • Social knowledge is available to anyone in a social or cultural context. Unlike the insider information in tribal culture, it is freely available to anyone.

How do we measure transfer of knowledge?

One way we can measure informal learning is through the technology we use to enable it. Many solutions are available today. We have enterprise collaboration tools like Slack, Jabber, HipChat, and Vibe. LMS vendors are integrating collaboration tools into their platforms, and we have established content sharing platforms such as SharePoint and Box.

We can use embedded analytics in these tools to answer these questions:

  • Who takes part and how much (and who doesn’t)?
  • Who shares knowledge and resources?
  • Is the number of participants growing?
  • What percentage of users are active?
  • What activities do they participate in?
  • Who seeks new knowledge sources and how much?

These kinds of measures help us understand adoption, enthusiasm, and satisfaction levels, but we need to measure on other factors also. To measure whether learning is taking place and whether it is improving performance, assessments and surveys delivered through the collaboration tools can capture the information we need. If you make the surveys short and user-friendly enough, you can gauge what is happening.

Measuring Impact

Measuring impact is harder than collecting data on events. Surveys and assessments can help gather information about individual or team work or team performance, but your business leaders are interested in organizational performance. This is where we need to move from an internal focus to discuss the concerns of stakeholders.

Measuring the impact of social learning on the organization requires alignment of objectives to organization strategy and goals. To set the stage, you will need to work with your business leaders:

  1. identify the KPIs you want to influence,
  2. determine what metrics you will use,
  3. agree on the expected percentage of influence the learning will have on the outcomes,
  4. use data to correlate social enterprise learning behaviors with organizational performance metrics,
  5. control for other factors that may have influenced the outcome, and
  6. calculate the business impact.

Not controlling social learning doesn’t mean it needs to be out of control. Business leaders, L&D, and other influencers will set the direction by the way they use the tools and what information they share. The most important factor is your organizational culture, but that doesn’t mean you need to transform your culture before you start. You can use the tools as an integral part of your planned cultural change.

Social learning tools can improve your organization. Seize this opportunity to create a learning culture.

References:

1. Freifield, Lorri. "Unlocking Tribal Knowledge to Transform Your Organization." Training Magazine. December 12, 2013. Accessed November 10, 2016.

2. Spacey, John. "10 Examples of Tacit Knowledge." Simplicable. June 27, 2016. Accessed November 2016.

Why You Should Put Culture First in Social Learning Implementation

Why-You-Should-Put-Culture-First-in-Social-Learning-Implementation

The benefits of social learning in an organization are indisputable. We have seen an impact on performance and productivity, learning engagement, and the ability to retain high performers.  

  • It taps into the knowledge already in your organization. 
  • We humans are well adapted to learning from each other. We’ve been doing it since the dawn of time. 
  • Peer-to-peer learning creates a space where the learner can feel safe taking risks without a sense that their boss is evaluating their performance while they are learning.i 

However, just jumping into social learning without careful planning and preparation could cause your efforts to fall flat. We want to give you a few things to think about before you get started. 

Culture First 

The first step in implementing social learning is assessing your organization’s readiness. For your project to be effective in driving business objectives, your organization must value learning. It must be a learning organization—"skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.” ii A simpler definition is “one that facilitates learning and continually transforms itself.” iii 

The important factor in this definition is the transformation, meaning that learning drives action.     

"…new ideas are essential if learning is to take place……Without accompanying changes in the way that work gets done, only the potential for improvement exists.

David A. Garvin  Building a Learning Organization  

The Pursuit of Knowledge—with a Purpose 

Becoming a learning organization as a business strategy arose during the quality management movement in the late ’80s and early ’90s. That trend began as the practice of using statistical process control and root cause analysis to improve manufacturing processes but soon grew to encompass any business process. Its focus was continual improvement to reduce waste and lower costs, but its foundation was the pursuit of knowledge. 

We recall the comments of W. Edwards Deming, a revered leader in quality management, at a workshop in 1993. The first was a rhetorical question in response to an attendee’s remark: 

How could you know? Have you measured it

Followed by:

There is no substitute for knowledge.

Building the Culture 

If your organization doesn’t have a supportive culture, a social learning program won’t change it. However, if your executive leaders will take the lead, social learning will help you get there. 

However, there are other factors to consider. We list here eight organizational attributes that will help you build a healthy learning culture, beginning with the most important. 

  • Executive Buy-in. The top management team must adopt social learning and take part in it—and to model the behaviors they want to see. Your people will know if your top team isn’t committed and will assume it's just another feel-good program. 
  • Business Alignment. Learning goals must align with business goals. New skills and behaviors  are essential to the constant improvement and innovation required to stay competitive—and if your program doesn’t support the business, you won’t get executive support. Alignment is a responsibility of the CLO and the executive team. 
  • Transparency. Communicate the goals, values, methods, and results of your efforts. Let your people see inside the gritty details. Make the successes of learning in innovation and improvement visible to the entire organization. 
  • Trust. Trust is more than ethics and transparency. Nothing says we trust you as much as being allowed to fail and try again. Your people need to feel safe in pointing out issues and implementing solutions. 
  • Learner Focus. This mindset is the WIIFM of social learning. Your people need to see that their commitment to learning benefits their growth and will eventually lead to more opportunities. 
  • Tangible Rewards. We don’t mean awards and bonuses. Learning is about advancement in careers. Promote from within as much as practicable and use new assignments and projects as rewards. The best reinforcement of both  knowledge and achievement is the opportunity to use new skills and principles on the job. 
  • Manager Engagement. Give line leaders the learning, support, and opportunity to be the heroes of the transformation. Make it possible by supporting and expecting collaborative learning in work teams and projects. 
  • Resources. Learning content is essential, but there is much more, including support, coaching, and feedback—but the most critical resource is time. When you give people time to learn, they will reward you with higher productivity. 

You will know when it’s working. We recall a conversation in an organization that was striving to build a learning culture. The CHRO asked an analyst if he could complete a new assignment by a specific due date. The analyst replied, “Yes I can. First, I have to learn how to do it.” 

The boss replied with a smile, “Do it.” 

References:
i. Blake, Kelly PalmerDavid, Erika Andersen, Liane Davey, and Monique Valcour. “How to Help Your Employees Learn from Each Other.” Harvard Business Review, December 18, 2018.

ii. Garvin, David A. “Building a Learning Organization.” Harvard Business Review, July 1, 1993.

iii. Pedler, M., Burgogyne, J. and Boydell, T. The Learning Company: A strategy for sustainable development. 2nd Ed. London; McGraw-Hill. 1997.

Pixentia is a full-service technology company dedicated to helping clients solve business problems, improve the capability of their people, and achieve better results. 

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