Harness your community’s innate ability to connect and communicate to manifest a companywide mentorship mentality.
Returning to one’s earliest form of training, many will recall their first internship: an opportunity best described by constant across-the-office glances to affirm you are definitely on the same page as your more experienced mentors. While job shadowing is still one of the most effective forms of training; in recent years, on-the-job training has gone through quite a transformation. Today’s top corporate learning and development programs are moving away from lengthy in-person training sessions and are, instead, implementing short-form, stackable learning content campaigns—complete with social networking elements—to drive an upward trend in employee engagement and retention.
Fueling authentic workplace connection, 24G Learning, Marketing, and Communication Services aligns contemporary learning practices with content marketing strategies to supply employees with brand communications they want, need, and expect. The modern learner is now more informed than ever when it comes to brand engagement possibilities, specifically following the rise in social media content creation and the surge in at-home learning. This is why our instructional designers apply a 360º approach to corporate learning and communication, which combines traditional in-person training, seminars, and events with digital learning technologies to meet the needs of each individualized learner—including peer networking.
In providing ample opportunities for team interactivity, collaboration, and bonding alongside your corporate learning and communication strategy, you awaken a growth and mentorship mindset within your company’s culture. All team members become actively involved in the success of their friends and colleagues. However, to power up peer connections, the right technology and supporting communication channels must be in place for employees to actively engage with their coworkers when most pertinent.
Still determining which learning and communication applications are best suited for your organization? We’ve compiled our top 3 methods for harnessing community engagement internally:
1. Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs)
The most professional, all-encompassing mode of learning communication technology today, Learning Experience Platforms serve as a brand’s central hub for all things career development. 24G LXP, for example, offers a fully-brandable social-network-style interface that hosts live virtual training sessions, content libraries, and packaged training challenges—earning employees engagement points, leaderboard placement, and exclusive prizes. With powerful social connectivity elements built directly into LXPs, this is where employee recognition happens. Spurred by insightful conversations happening via comments or forums, users are able to make 1:1 connections with their close teammates, unlocking direct messaging and conferencing features. Not to mention, professional and personal social links can be added to employee profiles to promote continued networking beyond your brand’s LXP.
2. Private Social Channels
Supplementary to Learning Experience Platforms and other mandatory training tools and technologies, private social networks provide an added layer of interconnectivity to your workforce. At 24G, we use Slack, a messaging app built specifically for business, for all types of company communications—from our #DogsOf24G Slack channel to project or task-specific channels. Our Learning, Marketing, and Communication Services division encourages brands to meet their people where they’re at by launching private company Facebook Groups and Twitter Communities to keep the conversation going after office hours. And our Media Services and other creative teams can be found collaborating in design-specific apps via shared Pinterest boards and Instagram collections. By making communication options easy and accessible to your staff, you increase productivity as people feel assured that their voices are heard, respected, and desired.
3. Live Meetups
Despite the continued rise in popularity of virtual and hybrid workplaces, opportunities for live, in-person interactions are just as important. As a hybrid workforce ourselves, 24G employees are asked to communicate their in-office and at-home working schedules to their direct team members to best coordinate collaborative meeting scheduling. In addition to standard weekly meetings, regular company-wide events strongly support the organic networking of peers. These can take the form of annual or quarterly announcement sessions, live training demonstrations, workshops, and even learning competitions, in addition to refreshing company celebrations. Apart from brand-organized events, a truly connected workforce will naturally organize their own group meetups outside the office. When this happens, support your community by offering to feature them on social media or other relevant incentives.
Learning accessibility starts with community. In increasing lines of communication, you effectively power peer-to-peer connections, leading to an inclusive, growth mindset mentality in your company’s culture.
Reach out to us at 24G.com/training to fuel up your organization’s learning and communication strategies!