Are you in control of the informal learning narrative taking place in your organization?
As custodians of workplace culture and employee experience, HR needs to be at the center of all learning experiences be it formal or informal learning.
Following several discussions with our clients, we have realized that more than 50% of them haven’t been training their staff as they normally would. For some budgets have been cut and training is only limited to ‘critical’ technical skills and sporadic induction trainings.
Whenever you stop something, you have to start something – that’s the rule of replacement. Now if you go a long time without intentionally starting something, something you have no control over will sprout automatically.
Now if formal classroom training is on halt and you haven’t yet introduced any other learning intervention be rest assured that staff has started learning informally from one another. It is not a bad idea for staff to learn informally but the question is – are your staff learning the right things or behaviors from each other?
When you are not controlling the narrative of informal learning you may expose your organization to the formation of a toxic culture as people adopt misaligned values and bad practices from each other. If you have employed new staff during the past 18 months most probably your induction process was sporadic. Training for the new staff may not have been done adequately and communication of who you are and what you stand for could have been done minimally. In such a case your new staff’s opportunity for learning about your organization and capacity development lies in the hands of their peers. The danger is as they observe their peers they learn and glean behaviors and traits that can be toxic to culture and performance.
As custodians of workplace culture and employee experience, HR needs to be at the center of all learning experiences be it formal or informal learning. Learning should not happen by chance; be deliberate, organized, and embrace all aspects of the learning experience. Now with staff disintegrated as they work from home there is more need to preserve your workplace culture and foster team connection.
You can regain your control of the informal learning narrative by introducing Staff Empowerment Talks (SETs) in your organization. The Staff Empowerment Talks follow a structured John C. Maxwell curriculum that will ensure that staff learns from one another as they indulge in healthy conversations that will result in improved team productivity and positive wellbeing for your staff.
To learn more about how we can launch this transformative program in your organization book a virtual meeting with one of our consultants and get more details on how this will work.
