The importance of social learning in today’s workplaces is often underestimated. Although social learning exists on popular social platforms, this does not make it a time-wasting activity, a misconception that persists among many managers. Whether you’re taking courses online or in person, interacting with other learners is integral to developing your knowledge and skills.

Now more than ever, an L&D professional needs to incorporate social learning into the design of both their formal and informal training activities. In addition, there should be built-in opportunities for learning as a standard component of the aforementioned workflow activities of collaborating and exchanging knowledge.

Globally, companies are already benefiting from social learning’s improved training programs. As a result, this post will help you understand how a well-planned social learning approach can benefit your business.

Reasons To Adopt Social Learning In Your Organization

Maintaining a culture of learning in the face of uncertainty has been a challenge for many companies. Today’s workforce requires more than what is provided by the standard training and development programs. We all know that the most significant learning occurs outside of conventional classroom teaching.

Peer-to-peer interaction, learning management systems, observations, and casual chats among coworkers all enhance workers’ capacity to learn. Hence, the virtual and blended organizational paradigm of today is the wave of the future. The foundation of these projects is a social learning environment where employees can work together to learn, making learning much more exciting and interesting for workers.

1.    It Is An Cost-Efficient Option

It is well-known that in-person training can be pretty pricey. The costs of hiring a trainer, renting a space for the training, paying for participants’ transportation, lodging, food, and other incidentals, as well as the effort and time that participants must take away from their usual duties to participate, are all reasons why in-person training costs a lot.

Unless you count the time and energy spent researching and selecting the appropriate technologies to enable social learning, there are no actual up-front costs or budgets associated with social learning. Because of this, it can be considered economical.

It is possible to greatly improve the efficiency of formal learning events by incorporating interaction beforehand, amid, and around them. Learners’ attention can be directed to places where it is most needed, redundant programs can be eliminated, and in-depth courses can be swapped out for on-demand resources. When taken as a whole, this has a major bearing on how effective your learning approach is for your company.

2.    Helps In Facilitating Knowledge Sharing

When it comes to bolstering performance, social learning is crucial since it facilitates the quick spread of new information. When it comes to in-person training, employees may have to wait a long time to learn something they might need immediately.

Facilitating skills and knowledge sharing among employees is a wonderful approach to increasing productivity in a business. It allows individuals to benefit from the experience and knowledge of their colleagues much more quickly than through traditional training methods.

For example, an employee may need to acquire new abilities to be evaluated for a promotion to a management position at a retail store. Since a training session might not be offered for another six months, social learning allows individuals to go online and start immediately.

As a result, it’s a great tool for ambitious learners who wish to go above and beyond to increase their range of skills and performance, as it ensures they won’t be prevented from pursuing any additional training that could help them succeed in their jobs.

Building a learning environment outside your structured learning offerings can also be facilitated by recognizing and encouraging a proactive approach to training in performance assessment discussions.

3.    Increases Engagement

In many businesses, trainees abandon their courses halfway through. The primary cause of this is the employees’ disengagement and inactivity. Traditional e-learning can be tedious because of its length and because learners are not actively engaged in the process of learning.

Using learning management systems for employee training to train your staff helps maintain their interest and participation in the training program by encouraging them to work in small groups to complete exercises and other tasks. Learning is more fun and effective when done in a group setting where employees can interact and share their experiences.

In today’s world of social learning, the most effective strategy for fostering employee training and organizational growth is to foster social learning and encourage employee collaboration.

Using Axis LMS by Atrixware, you can set up online communities, message boards, forums, and more to foster a company-wide culture of social learning. Get in touch with them to learn more about their Axis LMS.