Social learning allows organizations to realize the benefits that eLearning promised 20 years ago. Social is flexible, cost efficient, and allows experts in an organization to directly connect with learners. Employees are already using social tools already with zero training required. How can training professionals leverage tools their employees already know how to use?

Can the challenge of conducting annual onboarding for 700 volunteer leaders be met in a cost effective and engaging way? Leaders are located across time zones, supported by different technology platforms, and do not have common availability for a centrally-located training meeting. However, networking and sharing ideas are key learning requirements of the group. In addition, budgetary constraints mean that only half the population can be trained per year, leaving the other half with very little support from national headquarters. This uneven approach has led to inconsistent results in terms of membership retention, chapter programming, and volunteer engagement.

We all know we may have some bad habits: biting nails, tapping our feet, regularly eating junk food. But did you know you can also work to create productive habits—habits that can improve your performance and build your knowledge? Those who have built diverse social networks are not only building more powerful relationships, they’re opening doors to new opportunities and staying ahead of the curve in their practice, and they seem to do it almost unconsciously … like a habit.

It’s no secret that most, if not all, of us are facing an ever-increasing need to provide more and more training on complex products, regulatory issues, advanced application processes, and the like. The question is: How do we continue to offer training that keeps our learners engaged in an environment of stagnated training budgets and headcount reductions?

One of the major challenges facing organizations is getting the balance between formal and informal right. Capitalizing on the benefits of social learning requires the right environment to facilitate it. The most successful communities have clarity of purpose, support from wider stakeholders, an engaged hub of participants, and a skilled facilitator to nurture it. For anyone interested in creating a sustainable and effective social learning strategy for their organization, understanding the benefits of a community approach and the right balance between structure and exploration is key.

L&D professionals are consistently being asked to do more with less while providing scalable training solutions that align to business needs. At the same time, employees are becoming increasingly accustomed to driving their own learning at home using popular technologies. By leveraging a mix of technology, instructional strategy, and organizational knowledge, L&D professionals can put employees at the center of the learning and performance ecosystem and, by supporting this shift in accountability through a focus on providing right-time, right-fit learning opportunities, truly do more with less.

You have limited resources and need to create from scratch, and you’re under time constraints to deliver targeted learning programs. What do you do? You have to leave the glitter aside and create what you can with what you have. When you are in the trenches of a startup, you have to constantly iterate on learning and training solutions. There is rarely a final learning product, more like an MVP, most viable product. MVP is the quickest way possible to start the learning process.