Shared learning has huge benefits for organisations. Understand the impact of collaborative learning approaches and prepare L&D teams for a new way of thinking.
The increase in remote and hybrid working has limited the opportunities for teamwork and building relationships with co-workers.
Although online L&D programmes offer huge benefits, such as flexibility and convenience, they also have one major drawback: isolation. And when employees feel alone, they’re unmotivated and uninspired to seek professional growth opportunities.
With just 49% of employees feeling enthusiastic about their jobs, collaborative learning provides an antidote to isolation and disinterest by creating interactions and engagement among learners. This high-impact, low-cost approach promotes a sense of belonging and community.
Learn the benefits and overcome barriers to collaborative learning. This blog post will help prepare L&D teams for a new way of thinking.
What is collaborative learning?
Distinct from unstructured group work, collaborative learning involves individuals working together on activities or learning tasks to achieve a goal or work together on a shared task. The group is small enough to ensure everyone’s voice is valued and heard.
By encouraging teamwork, discussion, and knowledge sharing, collaborative learning enhances the learning experience and interpersonal connections and camaraderie among participants.
Why is collaborative teaching important?
Restrictive and inflexible training programmes that do not meet learners’ needs can have far-reaching negative impacts on individuals and organisations, affecting performance, morale, and, ultimately, success.
Since 58% of employees prefer to learn or train at their own speed, it’s simply not enough to upload generic training videos or hold a once-in-a-while whole-team learning event that doesn’t consider the learner’s role, level, and time commitment.
By contrast, collaborative learning activities focus on empowerment and human-social interaction.
Since 80% of the global workforce is deskless, meaning they don’t typically have access to a computer or office-based, collaborative approaches to learning provide a holistic and immersive learning experience that promotes communication–enhancing personal and professional development.
With collaborative learning experiences tailored to individual needs, learners can engage in meaningful ways, receive targeted feedback, and actively participate in their learning journey.
What gets in the way of collaborative learning?
According to the CIPD, 46% of L&D experts “still do not have a handle on how much they spend per employee in the organisation.” This lack of clarity on investment can lead to insufficient resources for collaborative learning efforts.
With clear metrics, it’s easier to measure the return on investment and justify future investments, potentially resulting in missed opportunities for benefits like improving staff morale, teamwork, and innovation.
Secondly, collaborative learning between teams in the same organisation is one thing, but when it comes to enterprise collaboration across functional boundaries, a top-down, bottom-up leadership approach is needed to ensure responsibility and accountability.
In an organisation with a robust culture of collaboration, there can be uncertainty about assigning blame if collaborative learning fails. For example, one team responsible for collaboration might say the failure is due to a lack of support from upper management, while colleagues from a partner company might apportion blame to inadequate resources by their partner company. This lack of clarity can hinder future collaborative learning efforts and undermine trust.
Thirdly, learners must embrace collaborative learning principles. They should grasp the advantages of building strong relationships and tackling challenges collectively. Transitioning from a workplace culture of siloed work can pose challenges, such as resistance to change to new learning methods, as employees may need help to adopt a more open-minded, creative approach.
Overcoming resistance to change is another significant challenge. Employees who feel their ideas are not valued may become disengaged. Some 74% of employees are more effective in their work when they feel heard. It’s essential for organizations to foster an inclusive environment where every voice matters, ensuring that team members feel appreciated and their contributions recognized. Without this, even the most well-intentioned collaborative efforts can fall flat.
The benefits of collaborative learning
When employees are engaged, they work better, come up with new ideas, and feel happier at work; the benefits speak for themselves:
- Sales increased by 18%
- Profitability increased by 23%
- Productivity increased by 14%
- Customer ratings increased by 10%
- Organisational participation increased by 13%
Knowledge-sharing ecosystems like Blossom have a range of features and tools designed to promote collaborative learning and facilitate effective communication and teamwork among learners.
Customisable platforms for complex hierarchies and training workflows are modular and flexible, so they’re easy to adapt and fit as your collaborative learning needs grow.
In-depth, real-time, and historical data analytics give complete insight into how people are progressing in collaborative learning programmes. This panoramic view of insights lets you monitor whether you’re on track to meet your targets and extract meaningful people data to get C-Suite investment for future shared learning initiatives.
Let’s explore the five benefits of shared learning.
1. Builds community
No one wants to feel isolated at work. According to a 2024 Mental Health UK report, connection with others alleviates stress and prevents burnout. When learners work together, they gain a deeper understanding of each other’s roles and expertise and also reduce feelings of isolation.
If we consider this in context, imagine a marketing business aiming to enhance its customer reach. By providing opportunities for the team to collaborate and share data on website page views and conversions, SEO specialists and general marketers can devise strategies to boost visibility and drive sales.
In turn, co-workers benefit from building healthy relationships with each other. They learn more about each other’s expertise and perspectives, fostering mutual respect and trust.
Plus, allowing learners to take ownership of their learning process and outcomes, they build a sense of responsibility and accountability as individuals actively contribute to their own and others’ learning.
Learning experience platforms offer organisations ways to create a collaborative and fun learning culture, supporting self-development through upskilling and reskilling initiatives.
2. Enhances problem-solving skills
An overwhelming majority (92%) of UK business leaders believe soft skills are more important than ever. In fact, LinkedIn has observed its members adding problem-solving to their list of skills to enhance their profiles. To support this trend, the social media platform unlocked free LinkedIn Learning courses like Strategic Thinking Tips to Solve Problems and Teamwork Essentials.
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Even with free access to training, barriers to improving problem-solving skills persist. Frontline workers, for example, most, if not all, have no computer access. Simply offering skill-enhancing sessions where a laptop and internet connection are needed can alienate workers, impacting morale and job satisfaction.
A range of informal and formal collaborative learning opportunities can develop essential problem-solving skills and meet the needs of a diverse workforce. Empowering learners to use their initiative and arrange time together to address operational challenges allows employees to practice their problem-solving skills in a practical context.
Additionally, knowledge-sharing forums can boost knowledge retention among a defined user group.
Empower workers with collaboration tools that promote teamwork and boost engagement.
- “Blossom has changed the way we learn – it has elevated our capabilities to share our knowledge and qualify our mentors and employees. It has also organised their method of learning and appetite for learning. It has had a positive impact on every user in the organisation.” –Liat Segal, HR Manager and Manager of Learning at Perach
3. Fosters creativity and innovation
When individuals don’t share ideas, businesses can suffer. Missed opportunities and a lack of innovation can cause a company to fall behind competitors due to the inability to adapt and evolve.
Collaborative learning can transform a workplace into a vibrant, innovative environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute their best ideas. Make use of:
- Collaboration software that integrates with other tech stacks, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Asana. Seamless communication and project management enable learners to share ideas, files, and feedback quickly.
- Discussion forums. Online or in-person forums empower learners to post their ideas and respond to others.
- Online workshops: Virtual sessions that allow learners to collaborate on developing new concepts, such as creating a new product or improving internal procedures.
- User-generated content. This allows learners to create and share content, creating a lively and team-oriented learning space.
4. Increases learner confidence
When learners share their ideas in a collaborative setting and receive positive feedback or validation from peers, it reinforces their belief in the value of their contributions. This validation helps boost their confidence in their own abilities and ideas.
Let’s put that into perspective and imagine a group project where learners are tasked with developing a marketing campaign for a new product.
One learner suggests an alternative social media strategy, explaining how it can reach new audiences. When the group discusses this idea, their peers offer positive feedback, recognising its creativity and potential impact.
This peer validation reassures the learner that their idea is valuable and worthy of consideration, boosting their confidence in their ability to share new ways of working. As a result, the learner feels more empowered to share their ideas in future collaborative learning programmes, knowing their input is valued and respected by their peers.
5. Improved social skills
Technological advances continue to disrupt skills, altering job roles to accommodate the demands of implementing AI and automation software. With about 44% of employees anticipating their primary skills, such as self-awareness and agility, to change in the next five years, collaborative learning is a huge opportunity for employees and their organisations.
As teams adapt to new technologies and workflows, collaborative learning improves social skills by providing opportunities for learners to interact with their peers.
By engaging in discussions, debates, and group activities, learners hone their verbal and nonverbal communication skills. They learn to voice opinions clearly, listen actively, and convey their thoughts well, reducing the likelihood of misunderstandings.
Not only that, but collaborative projects allow ample opportunity to improve listening skills as workers learn how to delegate tasks, resolve conflicts, and leverage each other’s strengths to achieve shared goals.
How ready is your L&D to shift its mindset?
L&D shouldn’t be the sole provider of everything. When L&D teams act as facilitators in discussions about workforce development strategies rather than the exclusive providers, organisations can reap the benefits.
This collaborative approach encourages greater ownership and engagement from wider leadership, other departmental managers, and, in some cases, external agencies working on similar priorities. It cultivates a culture of partnership, where responsibilities, ideas, and insights are freely shared across teams and departments.
By pooling learning resources between partner agencies working on similar projects, organisations can increase the speed of results.
Take a collaborative approach to upskilling and reskilling
Empower your workforce with collaborative learning, and watch innovation, engagement, and productivity increase.
By taking a collaborative approach to upskilling and reskilling, you can foster ownership and engagement from leadership, departmental managers, partner agencies, and, ultimately, learners. This environment encourages the free exchange of ideas and insights, helping your organisation pool resources, reduce duplication and adapt quickly to changing market dynamics to stay competitive.
Choose the next evolution in learning solutions with Blossom, combining the unique features of an LMS and LXP for enhanced collaborative learning. Schedule a demo today.
