Community-Based Learning: How L&D pros are turning to a new approach to help learners feel connected and engaged

As an L&D leader, the power of community can foster a sense of belonging and revitalise your learning programs, even while remote.?

This has never been more important with the pandemic leaving many employees feeling less connected, according to Glint data . As a result, the need for belonging grew. In Glint’s Employee Well-being Report , employees cited belonging as the second most important driver for happiness at work, up four spots since 2019.?

To celebrate the launch of LinkedIn Learning Hub, an intelligent skill-building platform, I want to look at what “community-based learning” is, how it creates a virtuous cycle of learning, belonging, and engagement, and how it can be put into practice.

What is community-based learning?

Community-based learning connects learners to colleagues, peers, and experts to drive higher engagement and inspire skill-building. It uses blended online learning, supported by social features – such as course recommendations, sharing learnings on chat software, participating in online groups, or asking questions.?

The goal is to create a sustainable and intentional learning loop where learners are inspired to learn by someone they respect, encourage others to learn with them, and instruct those who have asked for help.?

How community-based learning builds skills for the future of talent development?

We surveyed thousands of L&D pros across APAC and they believe that learning is more engaging when people learn together (94% of L&D pros in South-East Asia agree ), employees who learn together are more successful (98% of ANZ L&D pros agree ), and that learning helps create a sense of belonging (91% of L&D pros in India agree ).?

This level of engagement is exactly what organisations need to effectively upskill and reskill an evolving workforce. And community-based learning is emerging as a strategy to drive engagement and meet these goals.

Read on for three advantages to integrating community-based learning into your learning strategy:

1. People learn better together

When people lost the ability to collaborate in person, they found other ways to connect, largely online, leading to an increase in the use of LinkedIn Learning’s social features since the pandemic hit. We’ve seen a 1,100% increase in people joining Learning Groups and a 121% increase in activity in course Q&As. We also found that learners who use social features watched 30 times more hours of learning content.?

“There’s a social learning element to LinkedIn Learning that makes it quite engaging. Being able to connect with instructors and fellow learners and having the opportunity to learn from one another via the Q&A feature helps make learning more sticky. It also ingrains a habit of learning in moments of need, which is fundamental to developing a self-directed learning attitude.” David Hendrick , Director of People Development, Centre for Healthcare Innovation at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore.

When people learn together, they better absorb, retain, and share knowledge.

2. Increase sense of belonging?

With a shift to virtual during the pandemic, we also saw new ways of culture-building emerge, with ”opportunities to learn and grow” and “belonging” rise as top drivers of great work cultures. L&D pros can achieve both with community-based learning because community builds belonging and belonging builds engagement.

“As humans, when we have a lot of uncertainty, we crave connection,” explains Naphtali Bryant , Director of Learning and Organization Development at Netflix . “I’ve been focusing on how I can connect teams and leaders with each other in meaningful ways. Those moments combined with creating and curating relevant learning content on topics like self-awareness, coping with change, and managing anxiety, are making an impact and helping us all get through this together”

3. When your learners shine, so does your business

In today’s climate, businesses need to be agile and dynamic to keep up with the pace of change. That means that traditional learning paths and courses aren’t enough anymore.?

Community-based learning exceeds the boundaries of the virtual classroom and becomes woven into the fabric of your organisation’s culture. Especially when L&D pros tie learning goals to business goals, learners experience higher levels of engagement because learning becomes more tangible.?

L&D leaders can close the loop by providing organisation-specific use cases for new skill competencies. This helps each learner understand how their efforts are helping the organisation achieve its mission and builds a sense of community and belonging.

Community-based learning is the path forward, but how do you put it into practice??

How to add community-based learning to your L&D programs?

1. Leverage managers as community learning champions

A manager is an organisational linchpin , able to connect individual contributors with senior leadership and business strategies. They know what skills are most in-demand in the industry, making them a critical partner in delivering personalised learning content. They are also on the front lines of fostering an engaging and inclusive team environment.

It’s critical to build managers capacity as learning advocates and champions for your learning culture. We found that 91% of employees say it’s very important for their manager to encourage learning and experimentation, and employees who see good opportunities to learn and grow are 2.9 times more likely to be engaged.?

Here are ways managers can be learning champions for their team:

• Embed community-based learning in weekly team meetings.
• Create team-driven learning paths around technical and/or soft skills.
• Have regular conversations about how to prioritise the team’s bandwidth to create time and space for group learning.
• Connect learners to industry experts and peers outside of your organisation.?

2. Use technology to foster more interaction while learning?

When people are able to share ideas and ask questions in the moment of learning, it leads to more innovative thinking and engagement. Once you’ve created a culture where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, you then need the tools to encourage real-time interactions. This includes everything from Microsoft Teams chats, Zoom breakout meetings to live Q&As.?

When the world moved online during COVID-19, Treasury Wine Estates applied that same model to help employees feel connected while learning remotely.?

The trick is to not simply convert in-person training into a video conference environment, says Kirsten Dale , HR Director, Global Talent and Capability, at Treasury Wine Estates. “Start fresh and bring a new perspective to building for live virtual: Can you drop the slides and just have a conversation? Is the content sufficiently modular? Is it too long for online consumption? Should we have virtual breakouts? Chat is where learners are hanging out these days, so make it a home for learning, too.”

As Dale describes, “Blending these online learning experiences helps keep learning social, and can help build a community centered around learning,”?

3. Weave opportunities for community learning into your organisation’s day-to-day

Establishing a culture of “continuous learning “ creates more agile and resilient workforces. This sounds great in theory, but how do you reach that nirvana? It comes down to helping the organisation be more intentional about how learning fits into the “flow of work.”

As Josh Bersin and Marc Zao-Sanders write in Harvard Business Review, “Learning in the flow of work is a new idea: it recognises that for learning to really happen, it must fit around and align itself to working days and working lives. Rather than think of corporate learning as a destination, it’s now becoming something that comes to us.”

To bring community-based learning to the day-to-day work that your employees are already doing, consider some of these ideas:

• Setting up lunch-and-learns and encourage employees to form their own learning groups.?
• Run learning competitions and challenges - such as the NETS Group’s gamification approach or MediaKind’s learning competition .?
• Double down on down on internal mentorship programs helping to create another community connection point

As our need for connection and community increases, community-based learning offers a powerful solution. It helps build a culture of curiosity and engagement and drives everyone toward common goals for themselves and the business.?

If you’d like to learn more about skill-building and the new Linkedin Learning Hub, join us for the LinkedIn Learning Asia-Pacific Digital Summit on September 28th.