Entreprise Collaborative - Examples of Facilitating Collaborative Work and Learning

Examples of Facilitating Collaborative Work and Learning

Par Michael Glazer

Mercredi 09 Décembre 2009 04:57

The nature of my work has changed significantly over the past few years. Some of the change is due to advances in technology while others are due to changes in workforce expectations and work habits. For me this has meant that formal training is becoming a more specialized type of learning experience. And, the learning experiences I design and facilitate have changed, too, with many of them fitting into one of the three core processes Harold Jarche lists in his post about the future of the training department.

Let me share two examples with you as they relate to what Harold calls the core process of “facilitating collaborative work and learning amongst workers, especially as peers.” The first example is taken from a recent pilot program meant to help a global cadre of mid-level managers create individualized learning plans and help them progress through their careers, raise their level of internal exposure and help them build a stronger network with one another:

First, we conducted a job skills analysis to identify, organize and prioritize specific skills that differentiate good performance from distinguished performance for mid-level employees. The results also gave us insights about how to refresh existing course materials most effectively and how to determine which activities are best suited to the company’s learning philosophy.
To begin the pilot, each of our company’s regional CEOs hosted a video conference with the participating managers. The goal was for them to exchange thoughts on issues related to regional business strategies and the skills needed to execute them. Those dialogues created a new, deeper and sustained level of engagement between middle and senior leaders, many of whom chose to carry their relationships beyond the scope of the learning program.
Following that, we discussed with each region’s cadre what we believed to be the most important skills for their development. From it they selected which skills they wanted to develop, and they nominated senior leaders with whom they wanted to learn. We then enlisted the participation of those senior leaders, and they created a series of podcasts on their areas of expertise which were followed by small group meetings with the cadre members. And, to help extend this style of learning beyond the scope of the program, we developed a technique employees and their supervisors can use together to build personalized learning plans. Other aspects of the pilot activities varied by region and, in some cases, by individual.
At the pilot’s conclusion, we asked supervisors and participants if they would recommend the program to other colleagues. 91% of supervisors and 100% of participants said they would recommend the program. And at the following promotion cycle, several managers cited participation in the program as a contributing factor in earning promotions.
Another program focused simply on increasing revenue for a suite of new service offerings:

We hyper-targeted the training at a cross-section of key members of strategically important account teams, and employees participated as members of intact account teams. With a focus on collaborative work, the design of the training aimed to offer participants a forum for practice and later, a means to deliver actionable results to clients. In other words, the training was a group version of facilitated, on-the-job learning specifically designed so account teams could deliver a real-world work product to clients as soon as the program concludes. This, we hoped, would create new, immediate revenue opportunities. We were able to track business results directly from the training, and in one case it happened in a matter of hours after the training ended.

The design of both programs is, to an extent, a reflection of how client work is pushing our employees and work groups to collaborate with one another in new ways. At the same time, employees are giving us signals that they want to have the freedom to pursue their own professional interests. They want to feel like they’re plugged in to everything the company has to offer. Both forces are pushing us to spend more time considering what our learning department can do to help employees better connect and collaborate.

In my experience, “who does this employee need to know” is becoming as important a learning design question as “what does this employee need to know.” Increasingly, the answers to both are coming directly from the employees themselves.

Michael Glazer - Entreprise Collaborative - Ecollab Contributeur
Michael Glazer (@mglazer) is a senior learning advisor a global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller where he has led their global learning function for the past three years. During that time he earned a reputation as “the guy who won’t stop drawing on the windows with dry erase markers.”

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