Boost productivity with peer-to-peer learning

Wouldn’t it be great if you could leverage the same kind of thing at work? With the right approach, companies can derive a lot of benefits from P2P learning. It’s inexpensive to produce, easy to distribute and can boost productivity quickly. It increases communication among people and departments, spurring new ideas and innovations. It helps retain valuable institutional knowledge that can be lost when a key employee leaves. And it expands the company’s learning and development resources, while at the same time providing employees a path to enhance their credibility and recognition as experts in their field.

However, creating this kind of resource means adding some structure and guidelines. Not everyone who picks up a video camera is qualified to create an effective instructional video, which means certain standards need to be established for who can contribute.

Plus, a company can’t endorse the kind of free-for-all content that’s posted on public sources. Allowing videos, for example, that document unethical practices or contain objectionable content could create serious legal liabilities and/or harm the company’s brand.

While the cost to develop content is low, it is not “free.” Companies will need to invest in the right tools for creating good content, train employees to use them, and then give them time to create content. That also means implementing the right delivery system for organizing and delivering content. Workday, for example, is one enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that is evolving to manage content that employees create and share with one another.

With the right strategy, structure and tools, you can avoid common roadblocks and put in place an environment that will more than pay for itself. P2P learning can offer a company a powerful way to unlock the value of employee knowledge and experience and, in return, offer employees a way to be recognized and rewarded.

Develop a structure

This type of learning is not one-size-fits-all. There are many P2P approaches, and each company must find the best fit.

It’s important to understand what P2P learning does best. P2P is most effective when it’s used as a resource for supporting day-to-day workplace tasks and documenting institutional knowledge. For example, a warehouse manager might create a video that explains the best way to stack the company’s products for loading a truck in a way that speeds the process and minimizes the potential for damage. On the other hand, P2P learning is not designed to replace formal training or certification programs.

The right way to begin is to establish program governance, creating a committee that fits the organizational model and includes members outside the traditional learning and development group.

Depending on a company’s size and structure, the group might be organized in different ways. A small company might have a single centralized governance group, while a large multinational in widely different businesses might have multiple independent groups who govern their own P2P learning programs. A third option is a federated model with governance groups who operate their own P2P programs but coordinate their actions through a central body.

The governance committee is responsible for developing a strategy to address three key components:

• Vision. The group must articulate a clear vision and strategy for the program that aligns to the overall company learning strategy. The committee must be clear on what P2P learning means within the organization and should enumerate the challenges the organization is trying to address.
• Marketing. P2P learning is a new way of learning for many people, and it will require buy-in from stakeholders and marketing to potential contributors and users. The Workday platform includes learning campaigns that can be used to help promote your program. Choose a format for delivering the message, such as a video recorded on a phone by an executive, customize the message and make it feel personal. Provide reasons for and benefits of the program.
• Standards. Establish quality-control and content-approval processes to adhere to company branding, intellectual property and legal guidelines. Set standards that pertain to quality, accuracy, approvals, capacity, maintenance and appropriateness.

Achieve Quality Content

Setting standards is the first step, but it’s not enough to guarantee content quality. Users will expect high-quality content on a company-sponsored site, so it’s important for the company to invest in the training of its employees to ensure that they know, and have the skills to create, content that is accurate, specific enough to achieve a desired business outcome, and unique.

User-generated content should be created by subject matter experts (SMEs) and not just anyone. SMEs should be trained on how to create content or have skilled resources available to help. One approach is to create a certification program for SMEs on content creation and provide templates for course or lesson creation to standardize the process. If a company creates a certification program for content creators, it must be made clear who can participate in the program and what goals the company is trying to achieve.

While you want to deliver high-quality content, you should also encourage content creators by making the process easy; otherwise, employees won’t take the time to contribute. The Workday Business Process Framework can be leveraged to create that balance with an approval process that lets only approved contributors submit content. And the system automatically moves content through a formal process, from creation to review, approval and publishing.

Keep it fresh

Creating useful content is one step to success. Keeping it current is another. When we access a streaming video service, we’re tuned to look for what’s new and fresh. The same is true of P2P learning content. When users sense that content is stale, they’ll have less interest in accessing the platform. You must take steps to keep content current.

Platforms such as Workday have extensive analytic capabilities you can use to create metrics to track content consumption. Utilize views, ratings and comments to address content and look at demographics and trends.

Content that isn’t used often should be removed or reviewed and updated to ensure it is relevant and engaging. Identify someone to be responsible for this process and set a schedule for regular reviews. As part of that process, the content manager should also look for redundant titles, contradictory information, or titles that don’t meet legal guidelines (issues related to privacy, ownership, copyrights, etc.). Content certification will help reduce this issue, but it won’t eliminate it.

Measure, measure, measure

The power of P2P learning is greatly diminished if you don’t understand its business impact, which is why companies must establish measures to track use and utility across the enterprise. As you do, it’s important to keep a few things in mind.

First, be realistic about the time it will take to generate momentum in content creation and usage. If you’re planning to certify SMEs, it’ll take time to train them. And unless you set a formal schedule for content creation, it’s up to SMEs to decide when to publish.

Always tie metrics back to goals. If you’re able to measure business goals before and after related P2P content is created, you’ll be in a better position to understand its impact. And be sure to highlight success when it’s appropriate. Never forget to celebrate when you can clearly identify the impact of the program or a creator’s contribution. This will help keep SMEs motivated to create content, maintain user interest in the platform and help keep the spark alive.

How to get started

Piloting this program with the right group inside the business is a good way to get started. This allows you to track and monitor adoption on a manageable scale, then make any necessary changes prior to full rollout. A good candidate is a group that’s not afraid of change and is comfortable with technology. If the group members are skilled at using the platform you use to manage the process, that’s even better.

With support from leadership, create the structure you need on a small scale to govern the program and ensure quality content — all the things we discussed at the beginning. And one more thing: Establish a way to measure success of the pilot program so you can identify when it’s time to scale it to a broader audience.

Although we don’t think about it much, P2P learning is something we draw on every day, whether it’s a casual over-the-shoulder coaching session or how-to videos we pull up on our phone to walk through the steps of a task at hand. But with the nature of work becoming more dynamic and the technology being at our disposal to get instant answers, it’s clear that P2P learning will continue to grow in importance.

With the right structure and encouragement, any company can create a powerful go-to resource that can help employees get quick answers to their questions, and that will provide a powerful boost to productivity.

Adrian Lynn-Royerth is a DXC Workday Practice Manager and Talent and Learning Product lead.  He is passionate about helping customers maximize the Workday Power of One in their talent and learning transformation journeys.  Adrian has more than 4 years’ experience in Workday and has deployed 40+ projects in Core HCM, Compensation, Advanced Compensation, Talent and Learning.