Life’s better when it’s social, and so is learning! When there’s a community feel to it, everyone has a voice and feels empowered. This 20-minute session talks you through it.

Life’s better when it’s social, and so is learning! When there’s a community feel to it, everyone has a voice, they’re empowered to share their expertise, and it breaks that knowledge out of silos (so you won’t lose it when someone leaves!).It’s the natural way we learn too! 70% of what we learn comes from job-related experiences and 20% from social interactions with colleagues.

This webinar recording will teach you how to tap into both! Plus, all of this

Agenda

• How to use peer-to-peer support to make learning relevant and contextual.
• Creating learning that’s less formal and more fun.
• Retaining valuable knowledge by encouraging subject matter experts to share.
• Why and How HubSpot and Harvard Business Review use it in their strategies.
• Getting people to buy into and engage with your community.
• Practical tips on doing it effectively in HowNow.

Why does social learning matter?

It gives everyone a voice, allowing all of your subject matter experts to share their valuable insights and experience with colleagues. The more people do it, the most relevant and contextual knowledge they’re gaining!

Who better to share tips on selling a particular product than the person who’s been there done it and got the t-shirt? And for creating a sense of value, worth and influence, there’s nothing better than having your thoughts recognised and voice heard.

Think of it as a two-way knowledge exchange where everyone’s opinion matters equally, Typically junior members of a team might feel valuable, but they’re digital natives and if they’re given the platform to showcase that, they’ll feel on par with everyone else!

Make learning less formal and more fun

Learning should be enjoyable! If not, you’ll have a hard time convincing people to do it. And doing it socially is a great way to pull it off. What sounds more appealing, a one-hour course where you sit there in silence and take notes or learning a new skill through a bit of back and forth with a peer?

One’s forced, but the other’s more natural - it’ll help people think out of the box too, driving more creative learning experiences.Collecting feedback is a great way to capture that community essence, so encourage dialogue wherever you can. Whether that’s surveys, live class or letting them comment on content.

This is how you can get to know your people and their learning habits better.

Never lose valuable knowledge again

If there’s skills or knowledge that only one person understands, what happens when they leave your company? They take that with them! Worse than that, you lose time and productivity figuring it out all over again.

Not when you learn socially, as it breaks knowledge out of those silos, ensures it’s shared and captured before it’s lost. We like to think of it as plugging a hole in your leaky bucket, and nobody likes a leaky bucket.

Learning from the big guns on social learning

HubSpot’s quite a fun brand, so it probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that people can hold voluntary sessions to share cake decorating tips. They also cover serious topics like Adobe Illustrator, but it’s all up to the learner and session leader. It’s a platform to show your skills above your standard role, a chance to have your voice heard and let others learn from your passions and expertise.

Harvard Business Review used social learning in their HBX CORe program, where peers are encouraged to ask and answer questions. In 90% of cases, the responses from peers were accurate, and the community aspect played a significant role in the 85% completion rate - far higher than any other online MOOC.  

How to encouragement engagement and adoption of social learning

It seems stupid to say, but how many companies make sure they’re letting people know about new projects and initiatives? Not too many, and even fewer do so at the point where employees can get involved or share their experiences.

Being more transparent and inclusive will encourage others to get stuck in and raise their hand if it interests them.Celebrating and sharing achievements is not only a great morale booster, it encourages people to share the process and tips that took them to this higher level. Whether that’s a great resource, productivity hacks, an event they attended and so on.

Learning events are your friend here too. As they do at HubSpot, you can create sessions that help people share ideas, talk through topics or just get to know each other better. Ideas might include a book club, hackathons in which you try to ‘break’ the product and anonymous Q&A’s that let people speak unfiltered.  If friendly competition’s your thing, gamification might be up your street.

Whether that’s leaderboards to gain points or rewards for reaching certain targets, you create more motivation to progress. Highlighting your top learners falls perfectly into this, because they feel celebrated and others might feel inspired to reach that level in the next month or quarter.

Got any questions?

We crammed a lot into that session and, to deliver on our promise of keeping it short and sweet, we didn't take any questions! So, why not leave them as a comment below?

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