Corporate learning is an area of huge potential for just about every company, but that potential often goes unrealized. Generally speaking, when companies begin to incorporate training into their employee experience, they have few options that are both effective and affordable.
Most training programs wind up incorporating content produced externally by contractors, which is by its nature generalized. Though external content can be beneficial in some ways, it will never be as targeted or effective as internal training. People who know the ins and outs of your company can speak to their direct experience, creating targeted content that is more useful.
Every employee has something to teach
When we designed MangoLMS, our learning management system that comes built in with the rest of the MangoApps tool suite, we looked to YouTube for influence. A few decades ago, when eLearning started to become a buzz word, the technology that makes YouTube possible didn’t exist. If you wanted digital corporate training, you had to buy or rent studio equipment, or bring in a contractor. Furthermore, there wasn’t a good mechanism for online distribution.
That’s no longer the case. Nowadays, any person with a smartphone can film and upload high quality video. As a result, YouTube has become a hub of quick educational content for a wide variety of topics. Why doesn’t your company have the same thing internally? It’s not like you need Hollywood-quality videos to teach people how to do their jobs.
Every person at your company is an expert on something. In the course of their usual work, most people teach and learn from the people around them holistically. However, that knowledge isn’t captured in any tangible way unless it’s somehow recorded for posterity and wider distribution.
A bottom-up approach to corporate learning
MangoApps gives your team an organized, searchable system for teaching each other en masse. Just press record, share your knowledge, and upload your course directly to the company brain.
People inside your organization exchange knowledge every day, on an ad hoc basis. On the most basic level, this starts from day one, when you meet your coworkers and they show you what they need you to do. As you continue to grow in your position, you continue to learn, and you start to teach. That exchange of ideas translates into real value for the company.
Today, this happens digitally as well as in person. We’ve seen this time and again with our clients. They use MangoApps to make knowledge flow between locations, shifts, and teams that may never meet face to face.
Just creating a forum like this can make a huge difference. Our customers give their teams a space where they can ask a question and get crowd-sourced answer. Furthermore, they can search through the database of past conversations and files, and everything is mobile-accessible.
Training that is focused and localized
With MangoLMS, it’s easy to turn these same concepts into a codified learning path. You just have to identify patterns of confusion, find an expert, and have them address it. This kind of targeted micro-learning allows your internal superstars to demonstrate, in concrete terms, how they achieve operational excellence.
Corporate learning consultants have their place, but lack the nuance required to give your learning program a strong ROI. The best learning comes from people who know your company—and its unique challenges and opportunities—best.
What was the last eLearning course you watched? Did it give you any real, actionable takeaways that you then implemented? It probably featured some splashy graphs, and a talking head who didn’t know anything about your company. Somebody in management likely had you watch this training because it checked a box on their list of required employee resources.
Now imagine a version of corporate learning where your team has built its own content. You open the course, and see the face of a person you know, whose work you respect. They tell you exactly what they do for your company, and share insights they’ve drawn on the job.
That’s not a checked box. A bottom-up approach to learning is a competitive advantage, and with MangoLMS, it’s within your reach.
Read more about building your eLearning platform, or schedule a demo with us to see MangoApps in action.
