Building a strong employee base within your company is no easy feat. Even by bringing the best and the brightest professionals in your industry together, there’s no guarantee that they’ll work cohesively and productively as a team. And humans need that sense of connectedness to be at their best.
Whether you’re joining a book club, playing on a sports team, or completing a group project at work, to be successful during each of these experiences you need to build rapport with those around you. If you don’t, you’ll feel as if your time is being wasted, and you’ll eventually move on. If you do, you’ll feel as if you’re part of something special, and you’ll put forth your best effort every day.
In order to build a successful company, employers must first focus on hiring professionals who believe in the mission of the company as a whole, and who are invested in helping each other succeed.
Humans are social creatures, and we think, learn, and grow as a result of those with whom we spend the most amount of time. When we’re with other people on a regular basis, we observe their behaviors and attitudes we start imitating these same behaviors and attitudes. This social learning has a huge impact on how we develop throughout our lives.
If we attend training at work and no one around us is invested in learning the new material and implementing new skills into their daily routines, we likely won’t be either. But if the reverse happens, and our peers are engaged in the learning process and ready to make changes to their daily routines at work, we likely will be too.
We learn far more from observing, discussing, and role-playing with our peers before, during, and after training than we ever will just by attending the formal training session our company provides.
When your training programs include a large amount of small group activity, role playing, project-based work, you’re encouraging social learning. This is one of the keys to building a successful team. Being able to do this in a virtual environment is even more critical because space separates everyone. As part of social learning comes the ability to actively work without the trainer managing all the tasks. Virtual training solutions vary greatly, so as you look to improve social learning in your virtual programs, look for those that include things like customizable and easy to use break out rooms, role play rooms that allow recording and the ability for each learner to independently review the information important to them.
Successful virtual training should mirror in person training and the right virtual training technology should give you more tools than your trainer would have in a live environment.
Social learning has a huge impact on the life of your employees, and it affects whether they’re successful and satisfied at their job.
To learn more about how the right technology can assist in increasing the social learning aspect of your virtual training program visit Jigsaw Interactive at www.jigsawinteractive.com.
