By Yvonne Ohumukini-Urness
Online communities like Facebook have become a thorn in the side of many businesses over recent years, but social media and collaborative online tools can be of benefit to employees and employers. As a way to share knowledge and innovation within an industry social tools are both cost and time-effective. Some businesses have already implemented a ban on social media however, so how can you reconcile this distrust of online tools with their usefulness? Just how much should you trust employees to use them and how much should you formalize the process?
The trouble with formalizing anything that has grown up naturally is that it stifles growth and changes the way people use it. Formalization can take away the spontaneity, especially if it’s something employees have already been using themselves. Management should ensure that they understand how people use the tools and why, and strive to keep all the positive aspects.
There is a good argument to say that use of these informal tools should be encouraged, especially during the economic downturn. At a time when training budgets are being cut any free knowledge base or learning solution should be embraced. On the other hand, time spent using these tools needs to be justified.
For any time spent on informal learning to be justified it needs to be tracked effectively, and this is something management can implement without over-formalizing the learning itself. For example, tracking the amount of time spent on social tools or having collaboration meetings where people can discuss new ideas allows managers to note the real-time cost and effectiveness of those tools.
For large organizations who want to utilise social tools to disseminate knowledge, a great idea is to put all of their training materials online. Instead of organizing a costly conference for example that people have to travel to, make the information available as presentations through the company website. This allows many people access to training in their own time, or at a time that fits in around their schedule. It’s formal learning in an informal environment.
