Surely, you’ll agree with me that our approach to learning has evolved over the years – thanks to the advancements in technology. Even with that, social learning has proven itself to be very relevant in today’s world.

According to Albert Einstein, learning is an experience, while every other thing is information. Furthermore, according to a study by Bloomfire, about 70 to 90 percent of all workplace learning occurs informally.

The same study also confirmed that

“87% of employees identify social knowledge sharing as important, while only 37% of them feel the same way about formal company training”.

That said, here’s a burning question; what is social learning and why is it so important for corporate learning & development?

Earlier, in some of our posts, we mentioned some important points regarding social learning. First, we talked about the best learning approaches for an organization’s onboarding program.

In case you’re interested in getting information regarding the topic, you can check here to read more about it. Apart from that, we’ve also covered how you can use learning to juice up your learning strategy – you can refer to the post by checking here.

In case you’re also interested in how you can use learning to boost collaborative learning, here’s a post that you’ll find handy.

In this post, we’ll be progressing in our social learning topic, as I’ll be sharing with you some of the key benefits of using the learning approach in your organization. Without further ado, let’s get to the business of the day.

What is social learning?

As earlier mentioned, the concept of social learning has been around for a very long time. However, we didn’t get to know about it until Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory started gaining recognition across the world.

Speaking of the theory, Bandura emphasizes the essence of observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of other people. Here’s what the Canadian and American psychologist said in 1977, regarding social learning below:

“Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous if people had to rely solely on the effects of their actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions, this coded information serves as a guide for action.”

In simple terms, Bandura’s social learning theory states that by nature, we’re social beings and we learn better from observing others and our surroundings.

Furthermore, there are four key stages of social learning, according to the psychologist. The first one suggests that learners must pay attention in order to acquire knowledge.

Next, after listening, the learner must be able to retain what he/she has learned. Furthermore, he/she must be able to reproduce knowledge. Motivation is the last stage, and it’s the drive behind a learner’s ability to imitate information.

Key benefits of using the social learning approach in your organization

 1- Improves collaboration

One of the benefits attached to using social learning in your organization is that it helps to improve collaboration among your employees. Certainly, you’ll agree with me that everybody has their weaknesses and strengths.

And since that’s the case, encouraging collaboration among your employees is one of the approaches that you can utilize to address these weaknesses. And you can only achieve that when you adopt social learning in your organization.

2- Effective communication

Another benefit of adopting the social learning approach in your organization is that it helps to achieve effective communication. How do I mean?

By building good relationships with other people, employees can easily reduce stress and anxiety in their lives. Apart from that, there’s also a guarantee for better mental health.

One benefit of that is it helps people to build confidence, which is a very vital ingredient to develop strong communication skills.

3- Training employees

When an organization adopts the social learning approach in all its programs, including onboarding, employees tend to waste no time waiting for the company to roll out training every time.

Here’s what I mean, with the learning approach, learners/employees can always rely on their peers to get answers to their day-to-day problems, instead of waiting for a training program.

Since training programs don’t always come every day, people can always find solutions to their daily issues when social learning is rightly adopted.

4- Improves employee engagement

Another reason why you need to adopt social learning in your organization is that it helps to improve employee’s engagement levels. Admittedly, it can sometimes be very boring, sitting in front of a PC to acquire more knowledge.

However, when you have an LMS system with a bit of social functionality, the narrative changes. According to a recent study, about 3.81 billion people actively use social media across the world in 2020.

Furthermore, the study also confirmed that the figure increased by 9.2% when you compare it to that of 2019. With that, you’ll agree that social media is one of the tools that helps to boost people’s engagement.

So, by adopting social learning, you can rest assured of an improved engagement level for your employees. It can improve employee engagement in several ways.