How To Convince Your Boss About The Usefulness Of A Corporate eLearning Blog
A corporate eLearning blog constitutes a powerful communication and online collaboration tool for your corporate learners. But, what do you do since your boss is more laid towards leaving things the way they are? Tangible arguments are indispensable in such a context. In this article, I'll highlight the top 8 points that will inarguably convince your boss about the usefulness of a corporate eLearning blog.
1. Cultivate Strong Community Bonds
We are social creatures. Ever since the beginning of mankind, people formed groups, at first to effectively tackle survival issues, and then to fulfill their need of belonging within a wider community. This has remained unaltered throughout the years. A corporate eLearning blog represents the virtual space that provides the answer to your corporate learners’ need for belonging to an online learning community of like-minded professionals. Online training courses can be frustrating, demanding, and time-consuming. The addition of a corporate eLearning blog is the ideal remedy to all the heavy workload that online training courses bring. Employees communicate with each other, share thoughts, raise questions and feel part of a greater community with a common purpose. Τhis is fundamental in increasing employee retention and engagement throughout the learning process.
2. Improve Online Collaboration Skills
One of the skills most frequently asked for almost any position is the ability of the candidate to function as part of a team. No employer likes people that like to ride solo. A corporate eLearning blog can contribute to the transformation of even your most independent employee. No one-sided interactions exist here. Corporate learners can brainstorm, upload information and files, work on group collaboration online projects, comment on their fellow colleagues’ questions and assist them in problematic areas. A great deal of idea exchanging takes place, and this definitely takes your employees’ online collaboration skills to the next level.
3. Enhance Reflection On Recently Acquired Knowledge
Reflection on acquired knowledge commences by your employees’ posts on an issue they just read about, want to examine further, and share their thoughts on. This offers their peers additional insight into the topic or a different point of view. The constant exchanging of opinions increases the ability to reflect on previous knowledge and re-evaluate it under the light of new information. Open questions based on real-world examples are often posed by online facilitators. Corporate learners are encouraged to come up with an answer based on what they've learned, but also on their personal experiences. This enables them to personalize the subject matter to an even greater extent, making it easier for them to remember it or even put it into practice when needed.
4. Give Answers To Frequently Asked Questions And Clarify Uncertainties
As an asynchronous eLearning tool, a corporate eLearning blog gives both managers and online facilitators the opportunity to detect questions that identify common problematic areas for many employees. As such, the online facilitator is in the position to shed light on such questions in a single post as opposed to replying to each participant individually; as a result, managers and online instructors manage their time more efficiently. Corporate learners’ sense of community, on the other hand, is amplified even more, as they realize they face the same issues and difficulties as their fellow colleagues.
5. Reinforce Creative Thinking And Writing Skills
A corporate eLearning blog is an open space for corporate learners to communicate on topics related with the online training course they have attended. As such, creative thinking is central in this context and permeates every aspect of the corporate eLearning blog. Online facilitators pose questions that require creative thinking to be answered. Interaction between corporate learners on different posts asks for even greater creative thinking for a conclusion to be reached. What’s more, corporate learners’ writing skills are also enhanced, which is an integral part of many positions in a corporate environment.
6. Provide Opportunities For Peer-Based Feedback
Why not throw corporate learners the ball, and let them evaluate each other by providing peer-based eLearning feedback? This makes it infinitely more interesting and engaging for them. It also enhances collaboration and promotes a mentality where everyone is allowed to freely express their opinion. Additionally, peer-based feedback can help corporate learners better assimilate the information, as it gives them the opportunity to re-examine the subject matter from different perspectives, fact that improves their understanding. Make sure, however, that netiquette rules are applied properly.
7. Promote Practical Application Of Knowledge
It’s all about using real-life experiences to enable corporate learners to relate to the online training content, and see how they can practically apply it. A corporate eLearning blog is the space where employees can share how they implemented what they have learnt, what worked, what didn’t, or what could have been done differently on the job. Managers can contribute with industry-specific best practices and real examples that allow corporate learners to connect the theoretical with the practical aspect of the online training they’ve received.
8. Provide After-Training Online Support
Corporate eLearning blogs don’t just end after the online training course is completed. Quite the opposite actually, as they represent an ongoing “How-to” tool that is constantly updated with new concerns and online content, thus constituting an omnipotent source of information. Employees can often resort to the corporate eLearning blog for anything that practically hinders them on the job.
A corporate eLearning blog is undeniably an essential online training tool. From enhancing teamwork skills to offering corporate learners a sense of community, the advantages are numerous and noteworthy.
Want to learn more about blogs in online training? Read the article 8 Benefits Of Integrating eLearning Blogs Into Your eLearning Course Design to gain even greater insight about the benefits of integrating eLearning blogs into your eLearning course design.
