Dozen Ways To Promote Informal Learning
Learning
management systems and learning content management systems are the
centerpiece for many learning departments, but most organizations are
unaware that these systems have capabilities to support informal
learning.
Learning
leaders can support informal learning within systems, but all solutions
are not rooted in technology. Some tactics require only that managers
and employees revisit lessons when and where appropriate and provide
adequate learning support or access to developmental resources. What
follows are 12 ways to engage a workforce in informal learning tactics.
1. Encourage learners to continue learning after formal courses.
Most
enterprise learning systems provide a variety of
communication capabilities that not only share administrative
information about course materials but also facilitate informal learning
after the course finishes.
These communication capabilities may include pre-set
notes, which can prompt workers to apply skills taught in training at
times when instructors anticipate workers might need reminders. Or,
the system may enable distribution of resource materials, such as
supplementary readings, references, job aids and similar materials that
workers could consult in a performance support context. Ongoing
discussions among participants in which they can share challenges and
strategies to transfer learning to the job are another possibility.
2. Provide a space for communities.
Because
they let learning professionals distribute information and promote
conversation among participants in a course, most enterprise learning
systems allow users to set up groups with the same capabilities. Within
these groups, learning professionals can promote conversations among:
a) Occupational communities that find online
communities helpful when they do not have an opportunity to work
together in-person. These communities could include decentralized
communication professionals or occupational safety teams in
organizations with several work locations. For instance, IBM has had
communities like these for many years.
b) Demographic communities that find that online
communities let them connect with people who share similar
characteristics, such as gender, race or sexual orientation, but who
might be uncomfortable meeting in public. For example, many large
organizations have women's, African-American, Latino and LGBT networks.
c) Interest-based communities that find online communities provide them with an opportunity to discuss particular subject areas, such as agile programming or management.
3. Provide self-assessments to assess workers' interests and skills; apply that self-awareness.
The
self-assessments can be written internally or acquired through
third-party sources. For example, the website for prospective students
of the Masters of Technical Communication program at Southern
Polytechnic State University near Atlanta lets prospects assess whether a
master's degree even meets their needs.
4. Maintain skills profiles for key job categories.
Enterprise
learning systems provide a number of capabilities for skills
management. The first of these are tools to maintain profiles for the
skills or competencies needed in particular jobs. These skill profiles
play a key role in performance and career management.
One
key challenge with skills profiles is developing them. Someone in the
organization needs to identify the competencies needed in each major job
family, as well as distinguish among junior, intermediate and advanced
skills. That's easier said than done since doing so involves many
people, starting with workers who hold those jobs and their managers.
Devising
the list also may seem daunting because organizations have two
strategies: go for a limited number of broad competencies, which may be
too general to be useful, or collect a larger number of specific
competencies, which can feel restrictive and likely should contain
competencies unique to a position rather than general ones for all
positions. Further, a system cannot resolve these philosophical issues
or develop the lists.
Because
their primary service is skills, most large professional services
organizations invest heavily in skills management, as do many larger,
more established government agencies and high-technology companies.
However, the benefits associated with skills profiles can effect any
organization looking to optimize hiring, facilitate retention and create
targeted developmental interventions to build the workforce.
5. Assess skills workers possess.
In
addition to developing skills profiles for particular jobs, some
enterprise learning
systems let managers assess workers' skills against profiles. Managers
and workers can use this analysis to determine individual training and
development needs.
Essentially,
while working with a manager, learning leader or other third party,
workers review a list of competencies needed in their jobs and, for
each, indicate their skill level. The system matches the skills and
employees' levels
with a generalized profile of workers in that job and generates a list
of skills gaps where the worker's skill level falls below that of a
competent person in the position. At that point, a manager can step in
to direct any development needed, or if the organization has self-paced
development options available, employees could take advantage of
existing resources to improve their skills and close gaps.
Skills assessment processes pose challenges. One,
the longer the list of skills, the more burdensome an assessment can be.
Imagine assessing dozens of skills. Two, a values-based assessment -
"satisfactory, good and excellent" - can lead to more poor assessments
than a performance-based assessment - "can perform independently," "can
perform with moderate assistance," "can only perform with substantial
assistance."
6. Track skills development.
If
organizations can link competencies developed through training to the
competencies in one or more skills profiles, the system can
automatically update workers' skills profiles to reflect the new skills
acquired when learners complete programs. This can be an asset when
leaders are considering what candidates are available for internal
promotions, development options like projects or succession planning.
Most
systems also let people manually update skills profiles to reflect
competencies developed through informal learning. Ideally, a system
should require that workers actually demonstrate they can perform a
skill to a manager before updating the profile. Otherwise, workers could
receive recognition for skills they might not really have.
7. Match skills available with those needed.
As
part of hiring, talent management systems which link learning to other
talent processes such as selection can generate a list of workers in an
organization who already possess skills a hiring manager wants.
Doing
so lets organizations manage their inventory of skills as well as
provide tangible recognition to workers who have developed in-demand
skills, including those developed informally. For example, skills
tracking capabilities in LinkedIn help track skills, and fee-based services let recruiters use them to identify candidates.
8. Assist with career planning.
Provide
self-assessments to help workers determine what types of work suit
them. Also provide career road maps to identify skills needed in a
particular career. Let workers assess their current qualifications, and
link those skills to developmental opportunities to fill gaps,
including informational interviews, training, developmental assignments
and professional organizations. This connection to talent strategy
boosts learning strategy effectiveness and can help boost retention.
Employees not only see opportunities for advancement, but they also see
learning as a tool to facilitate career growth.
9. Tailor information to each workers' needs.
Provide
workers with the information they are likely to need based on their
particular work contexts. Learning and talent systems maintain profiles
for each worker and match worker characteristics with labels on content
that authors included when they stored the content.
Emerging
systems hope to offer additional levels of tailoring, much like
Amazon.com and e-commerce systems that pinpoint content based on
previous use.
10. Record informal learning activities.
Because
most informal learning happens outside of an internal development event
or some similarly measurable activity, it often requires some manual
effort to track it. Managers and workers might add participation in
conferences, completion of university and other third-party courses,
books read, leadership roles in nonprofit organizations and similar
activities. Doing so increases the likelihood that others will recognize
the worker for skills acquired informally.
11. Track progress toward a particular goal.
Just
as enterprise learning systems can track informal learning activities,
they also can track activities focused on a larger goal.
For
example, a company that makes custom hearing devices can certify new
workers who custom fit the devices through a combination of classes and
supervised field work. The system automatically records course
completions. Later, managers manually record completion of each
supervised field activity in the system. When workers complete all of
the required activities, they receive certification.
12. Track informal learners, which informal learning resources they use and which ones they don't.
The
analytics and reporting capabilities of most enterprise systems report
the number of times that workers visited particular
resources used in informal learning and the number of unique users who
did so. For instance, if a particular user visits the same resource four
times, that would count as one user but four visits. Therefore,
distinguishing among visits and visitors can help leaders assess the
general usefulness of a particular page.
Some
systems also let designers request satisfaction data from users on each
page. For example, some systems let learning professionals include a
two-question survey asking users whether the information on the page
answered their question and include a space to explain why or why not.
For
learning leaders looking to increase the availability of and
participation in informal learning in an organization, these
capabilities can help. In many cases, the company is already
paying for them. Find out what existing systems offer, then choose one
on which to pilot informal learning efforts. When the organization
embraces it, add another.
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