Question:
Hi there. At the company where I work, we often face the problem of skills gap and training programs that do not always bear their fruits right away. This, unfortunately costs us a lot of time and money. What can I do to solve that problem and encourage lean and efficient learning throughout the organization?
Answer from Bayt.com HR Guru:
Learning at the workplace is very important. According to the Bayt.com ‘
Learning in the MENA Workplace’ survey, March 2015, 98% of professionals in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) say that working in a company that provides learning and development opportunities is very important. However, training and learning courses often cost a lot and can’t be provided to everyone at once. That’s where social learning, or learning by observing each other at work, comes in. But in order to apply social learning effectively, there is a number of methods worth considering:
1. Mentors
One of the most effective learning methods is behavioral learning. Behavioral learning, or mentoring, happens when employees witness a successful behavior and learn from it. For this, we encourage you to choose among your top-achieving employees who have been around for a long time and assign them as
mentors to new hires or to employees who need learning.
2. Group work
Group work is a great chance for employees to
learn from each other. However, the trick here is to team up the right people together. Let’s say you have a group of 5 people and your purpose is to implement social learning. What we advise here is that you assign people with different knowledge and different experiences to each other and provide them with various tasks that would need in-depth knowledge exchange.
3. Online forums
You can also create an
an online forum for employees to share their expertise and knowledge on. It can include blogs written by your best employees, it can also include a page for questions and inquiries and a page for sharing mention-worthy experiences.
4. Self-learning
I think I can safely say that we’ve all been thrown in a pool, unwillingly, at some point in our lives. Not that I’m complaining, but without such an experience, half of us wouldn’t know how to swim. This is exactly what you can do to your employees.
Self-learning is a very powerful virtue that humans possess, and there is no better way to learn than from your own mistakes. This will also boost the employees’ confidence, knowing that they can be trusted early on. However, if the task at hand is too important, you can always assign a mentor to guide the employee through it.
5. Brainstorming
Finally, you can schedule daily or weekly
brainstorming sessions. Ask employees to take notes and hand in a summary of what was said after the meeting. This way, you can ensure that
new ideas come up and that those ideas are picked up. Exceptional employees will always pick up from others and learn as much as they can!
