learning

Driving Performance Through Employee Generated Learning

The workplace is changing rapidly. With new technologies and ways of working emerging constantly, employees must have access to up-to-date training and development opportunities. However, traditional top-down learning approaches where L&D teams create all the content are too slow and expensive to keep up. The solution? Employee generated learning (EGL).

EGL is a bottom-up approach where employees create and share training content, leveraging their expertise to provide tailored, just-in-time learning. The benefits of traditional methods are clear:

• Faster content creation: Employees can create relevant content 5x faster than L&D teams working alone. This massively increases training capacity at no additional cost.

• Always up-to-date: With SMEs owning content, it stays current as processes change. No more outdated materials.

• Higher engagement: Employees enjoy co-creating materials more and learn better from peers.

• Encourages knowledge sharing: EGL builds a thriving culture of peer learning and collaboration.

• Saves money: Far cheaper than traditional eLearning development.

However, implementing EGL requires a shift in mindset for L&D. Rather than controlling all learning, they become enablers, providing tools, guidance, and governance for employees to share knowledge. L&D takes on more strategic roles – focusing on culture, analytics, and addressing wider capability gaps.

Implementing Employee-Generated Learning: A Bottom-Up Approach

With EGL, subject matter experts (SMEs) create and share training content, leveraging their expertise to provide relevant, just-in-time learning.

Implementing EGL requires a shift towards a “bottom-up” learning culture where employees drive their development. Here are some tips for making this transition smooth and successful:

Start small with pilot programs

Don't try to roll out EGL across the entire organization at once. Begin with small pilot initiatives targeting engaged users where you can demonstrate quick wins. For example, work with the sales team to set up EGL for onboarding new hires.

Provide an easy-to-use platform

Choose intuitive authoring tools and templates so SMEs can quickly create content without formal instructional design training. The focus should be on good functionality rather than advanced features.

Offer incentives

Gamification, rewards, recognition, and highlighting personal growth opportunities can all motivate employees to share their expertise through EGL. However, be careful not to over-incentivize to the point where participation feels mandatory.

Define governance upfront

Have light-touch governance without too much red tape that could hinder EGL. Ensure branding, messaging, legal, and compliance requirements are met without stifling creativity. Appoint ambassadors to promote quality standards.

Gather continuous feedback

Regularly survey users on the relevance, quality, and benefits of EGL materials. Use this input to refine the approach over time. Analytics on usage and performance data can further shape improvements.

Leveraging Tools to Enable Employee-Generated Learning

Here are some popular EGL tools to consider:

Easygenerator

An e-learning authoring toolkit tailored for non-experts to create interactive online courses quickly. Features include:

• User-friendly drag and drop interface
• Variety of templates and themes
• Quizzes, scenarios, and other interactive elements
• Analytics on engagement

https://www.easygenerator.com

Microsoft Stream

A corporate video-sharing platform to upload and share tutorial videos. Allows comments and likes to gather feedback. Integrates with Microsoft 365.

https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/microsoft-stream

Wikis/Office 365

Collaborative web-based documentation platforms for employees to co-create “how to” guides and process documentation. Features include:

• Real-time co-authoring
• Version control
• Searchability
• Access controls

Slack/Teams

They are leading enterprise collaboration hubs for chat, document sharing, and hosting informal peer discussion groups. Valuable for a social learning culture.

Podcasting

Enables subject matter experts to create audio training content—easily consumable format for mobile learning.

The key is to provide SMEs with an ecosystem of modern tools that remove complexity barriers and facilitate simple content creation and sharing. Governance controls are still needed for quality and branding, but these should not hinder creativity.

With the right tools, an organization can tap into its collective intelligence and deliver training content far faster through EGL approaches than traditional L&D development.