One thing that all successful organizations are good at is rewarding the open sharing of knowledge and encouraging collaboration among employees. This trait is so ingrained in some organizations that impromptu training sessions happen throughout the workplace on a regular basis. Skills are taught and creative new ways of performing a job are discussed easily. It is these companies that are the most innovative and that attract the best and brightest talent.
Companies that are successful at encouraging this type of knowledge-sharing have built a culture of training among their employees. There is an expectation that the sharing of knowledge and experience is good for the entire organization and that everyone benefits from it.
So how can this culture of training be expanded to other organizations and teams? By building a framework that makes it easy to share ideas and to collaborate among peer groups.
So how do you build the framework?
The best way to build the type of environment that encourages a culture of training and knowledge sharing is to start with the right platform. It actually begins with your selection of learning management system (LMS). Believe it or not, the LMS a company chooses can set the stage for whether it is easy for employees to collaborate, or nearly impossible. With most LMS platforms, an employee is an island within the system. It is impossible to even communicate with peers, let alone to collaborate and share ideas.
But with the right LMS, collaboration is built into the system. I’m talking about a Social LMS, built on the same principles as a social media website – where the open exchange of ideas and interaction takes place naturally as a part of the system. Imagine that each employee has a profile and can share his or her own workplace experience and knowledge. Each employee gets an opportunity to instruct and to learn, based upon their own skill-set.
With a Social LMS, training can take place as a formal process, the same as it does now. Or, it can take place as part of an informal knowledge-sharing network – just like what happens at those innovative and highly successful companies. In fact, knowledge-sharing becomes part of the interaction within a Social LMS, since it is built into the system.
The best part about a Social LMS is that the process of knowledge sharing, collaboration and learning comes naturally. We humans are after all social learners. And since we can share our own set of work experiences, we are naturally encouraged to learn more and to grow our skills in the workplace. It’s just human nature.
So, the way to build a culture of training within an organization is to make it easy to collaborate and share knowledge. And the best way to do that is to start with the right LMS. One Social LMS platform that every company should look into is the award-winning TOPYX® LMS. With more than 10 million users and growing, TOPYX is the choice for many innovative and successful companies. Request a demo of this exciting new way to look at training.
Jodi Harrison
Vice President, Business Development
jodi.harrison@interactyx.com
Interactyx Limited
interactyx.com
