Harness the power of your people: Shifting your learning approach to Web 2.0

Web 2.0 technology enabled the birth of social media as we know it. Read more in our post ‘Is your learning experience as basic as 90s dial up?’

But has your learning approach shifted to match how the modern workplace chooses to learn? In this article, we’ll explore how you can do this.

It starts with design

Design a learning approach that allows your people to not only access and complete content in a way that best suits them, but also enables them to contribute content.

We know that organisations have vast amounts of knowledge that exists within their wider workforce. But we tend to rely on only a few people to capture and distribute this knowledge.

Start tapping into the vast knowledge of all your people

Provide the opportunity for everyone in your organisation to contribute knowledge. This could be a problem posted as part of a learning pathway activity or an open forum where everyone can contribute and source answers. Encourage constructive feedback through comments and give your people the chance to provide their perspective on how things are done.

Recognise contributors

When a valuable contribution has been made, provide meaningful recognition. This could be in the form of a simple like button, but also consider a ranking mechanism or kudos which allows for increased status amongst their peers.  More formal recognition linked to career objectives is possible too! The important factor is to make the recognition meaningful so it encourages repeat visits to the platform, enabling more opportunities to contribute and learn.

Social media is successful because when we contribute to a content stream or a social community, we feel a connection and sense of ownership. If someone cares about the content, they are far more likely to stay engaged and retain it.

Encourage experts

Now take it one step further. If someone is continuously contributing valuable information, let’s recognise them and consider making them a mentor for others. Often our Subject Matter Experts are few and far between and are very time poor. What if our approach to learning in its essence, encourages experts and mentors to emerge and flourish?

Use the right technology

Simply using all formats of social media in your workplace without the right strategies and technology does not necessarily give you the kind of platform needed to support workplace learning. Apart from needing to ensure interactions are being tracked and attributed to an indivdual’s learning profile, we need to avoid misinformation being shared, and the inevitable distraction of an open social media feed. Traditional LMS technologies are more restrictive and, despite having some social elements, are not well equipped to handle this new way of learning.

Combine the functions of a Learning Experience Platform, like ClearXP, with the strategies below:

• Guide and moderate
  Information shared by your people needs to be factual for it to be valuable to your organisation. Put in place processes to guide learners, and ensure posts are validated by moderators.
• Meaningful recognition
  Recognition is a strong motivator, but you need to ensure what you are providing has meaning and encourages your people to return multiple times.
• Content integration and curation
  Incorporate content from other sources such as your intranet, content repositories and other open sources such as YouTube, made available as part of a learning pathway or as a research assignment.
• Content recommendation
  Use AI to help analyse your people’s habits and automatically recommend content relevant to their role and ambitions.
• Monitor to improve
  Tracking what takes place and using analytics to provide insight into what learning has taken place will open up a new way of thinking.
• Mobile drives a habit of learning
  By ensuring you have technology that supports and drives mobile usage you are helping foster a habit of learning. Using an App to notify when a contribution has been recognised is a driver for repeat visits to the platform and opportunities to engage.

By embracing Web 2.0, designing dynamic learning interactions and using the right technology, we can usher in a new way of learning that allows your people to demonstrate their abilities and skills like never before!