Social Learning Design: Why You Need to Know What You Don’t Know

Hello there. I am Karen Chong , and I lead Social Learning Design & Strategy at Tigerhall . I write about our take on business strategy through the lens of learning behaviors and mindsets.

One thing I love about my job is interacting with business leaders and learning from them. Sometimes, this includes understanding their worldview through their pain points and successes.

Throughout these conversations and research, one thing is clear: there is often a disconnect between where the industry is going, what leadership is focusing on to achieve business goals, what talent development leaders want for their people agenda, what certain business units are driving as their own KPIs, and what individuals think is important for their own career growth and development. It’s also fascinating that most people have no clue how Social Learning can support many of those areas.?

I have encountered numerous large organizations with inspiring digital and innovation mission statements, which their L&D teams have translated into a learning program. Sadly, these typically have very low impact and engagement, because they’ve failed to make it relevant for the actual people who’ll be consuming this content or going for that training program.?

So, how can we create learning programs that connect team and individual goals with what the wider organization is trying to achieve? How can we make people feel they’re plugged into a wider mission that they can get truly excited and socially engaged around??

At Tigerhall, we recommend a funneling approach that makes sure you cover all bases when analyzing your organization’s needs and leveraging social learning to bridge those gaps. This means starting your needs analysis from a macro-view of the industry and overarching business landscape, down to the needs and mindsets of the individual employee.

This thorough needs breakdown ensures that:

• Key industry shifts and integral organizational challenges are not overlooked when designing L&D programs
• The voices of business units key to the overall success of the organization and business goals are heard and accounted for
• Employees are socially engaged in the process by collaborating, aligning the learning experience with organizational objectives as well as their individual career growth trajectory, and leveraging a community of experts to directly gain insights from

Asking yourself the questions at these four levels and making sure that they are clearly answered will help you develop a learning experience that meets the needs of the organization and business units, while making sure your employees are engaged and developing relevant skill sets that will lead to actions that achieve those business goals for the organization. You will then be able to connect the dots across the different levels of the framework and make sure that what your individuals and business units are learning fulfill the gaps faced by your organization and industry.

Breaking down the framework

Macroeconomic

Do your L&D programs prep employees for significant industry trends and changes?

• Challenges faced by all players in the industry in general e.g. supply chain; regulatory and compliance; ESG
• Challenges posed by other industry players
• New industry entrants

Organizational

Are your learning programs focused on solving problems specific to the organization?

• Leadership transition and succession planning
• Lack of learning culture?
• Resistance to change
• Talent gaps
• High turnover rates
• Access to senior leaders knowledge and goal alignment

Business Unit

Are your learning programs focused on solving business units’ KPIs and goals?

• Challenges faced by different business units
• Sales enablement for sales teams
• Executive presence for the C-Suite
• Leveraging data for Marketing teams

Individual

Do your learning programs prioritize employees' personal career aspirations?

• What are the skill gaps of individual employees?
• How can we develop employees to reach their potential individually?

If you’d like somewhere to start, you can begin by filling in this short form . Like our framework, this helps you take a funneling approach to your organization’s need analysis and how Social Learning can supercharge your talent development programs.

Bridging the Gap

After you have answered these questions at the four different levels, it becomes important to see where the needs diverge from your training program and from the perspectives of the learners. For example, digital transformation may not seem an important goal to a sales team, but perhaps going digital can improve customer satisfaction and engagement – understanding the gaps will enable us to bridge them. Moreover, this strategic analysis will serve as a powerful tool to drive buy-in from stakeholders, especially those participating in the training program itself. And that’s where we think all social learning programs should start to set yourself up for success.

Take the short 1-minute survey and I'll personally send you a bespoke plan for targeting your needs and key business problems through social learning.