This document discusses improving employee engagement through social learning. It argues that social learning enables the key drivers of engagement by allowing employees to share knowledge, network with peers, and collaborate in shared spaces. It provides examples of how organizations have used social tools like discussion forums, blogs, and expertise networks to create learning communities and drive better business outcomes through increased engagement. The presentation recommends that companies develop a pro-sumer learning model, employee social networks, and shared learning spaces to harness the power of social learning for engagement.

1. IMPROVING EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT THROUGH
SOCIAL LEARNING
Thomas Stone
Senior Research Analyst, Taleo

2. YOUR PRESENTER: THOMAS STONE
› 12+ years in the L&D / TM space
› Experience in research and
analysis, popular industry writer and
speaker, product strategy, learning content
development, instructional design
› Areas of expertise include social learning
and mobile learning
› 60+ speaking engagements
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3. Did you know?
› Earnings per share of top quartile companies is 2.6
times greater than below average companies
› 59% of engaged employees feel that their job
“brings out their most creative ideas” vs 17% of
unengaged employees and 3% of disengaged
› 74% of engaged employees “share new ideas
with customers,” only 13% of disengaged
› Disengaged workers cost the economy about $328
billion annually
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4. HOW DOES ENGAGEMENT DRIVE RESULTS?
› More productive workers
› Higher profit
› Safer workers and less risk
› Stronger customer relationships
› Longer tenure and less dysfunctional turnover
› Nimbleness and agility in times of change
› More positive work environment
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5. WHAT DRIVES ENGAGEMENT?
› Relationship with peers
› Opportunity to grow and develop
› Opportunity to excel by using unique skills and
talents
› Clear direction and communication about role,
objectives, success
› Recognition and reward for excellence
› Trust in management and peers to take risks
› Employee self-direction and ownership
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6. EUROPEAN SOCIAL PRACTICES = ENGAGEMENT PRACTICES
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7. TRUST IN SOCIAL NETWORKS: A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE
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8. CONSIDER: ENCYCLOPEDIAS
› How often did you consult Encyclopedia Britannica?
› How often do you consult Wikipedia?
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9. THE EVOLUTION OF TRAINING AND LEARNING
1:1 1 : Many Many : Many
Model
Time  1900’s 1900’s 2000 
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10. SO WHAT IS SOCIAL LEARNING?
Functional Definition:
Social learning is learning through your interactions with
others and through the knowledge and expertise of
others.
Techniques:
• User-generated content
• Social networking, expertise discovery
• Collaboration and sharing
Tools:
Blogs, wikis, microblogs, social networking, discussions
Ratings and reviews, file sharing, video, podcasts
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11. POLL
Which of these tools do you use to enable greater Social
Learning in your organization today?
› Discussion forums
› Blogs
› Wikis
› Microblogs / activity streaming
› Social networking profiles
› Content ratings and reviews
› YouTube-like internal video portal
› Podcasting (subscribable audio)
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12. SOCIAL LEARNING & ENGAGEMENT – BIG PICTURE
1. Develop a pro-sumer model to give all employees a
voice and validation
2. Develop employee social networks to deepen
relationships, peer commitment and trust
3. Create shared spaces where employees can
collaborate on company initiatives or share
expertise
4. Create shared spaces where groups can connect
based on common interests or identity
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13. DEVELOP
LEARNING
PROSUMER
MODEL
1. COPYRIGHT 2009

14. DEVELOP A PRO-SUMER MODEL
› Everyone is a producer and consumer of
learning, rather than dependence on “training team”
› Techniques?
– File and link sharing infrastructure
– Video recording and sharing – HD Video Cams are cheap!
– Discussion forums
– “Open” course authoring tools
– Blogs, wikis, and microblogs
– Ratings and reviews
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15. LEARNING CULTURE
• Training group is a
MUCH smaller subset of
the larger organization
• Training group can’t
possibly keep up with
“all” of the training
needs of the org
• It’s a scale problem
• Other examples of
industries where scale
has changed from social
contributions?
15 TALENT INTELLIGENCE

16. LEARNING CULTURE
• So what if the whole org
were “the training
group”?
• Why do we explicitly
look to a small sub-set
of people for education
and new information?
• What happens if we
expect everyone to
share what they know?
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17. LEARNING CULTURE
• What if we went
outside the org?
• To the extended
enterprise?
• Shouldn’t we also
be sharing with
partners, clients,
suppliers, etc…?
17 TALENT INTELLIGENCE

18. ENGAGEMENT BENEFITS FROM A PRO-SUMER MODEL?
› Everyone becomes a creator and a consumer
› Everyone has a chance to share their unique
expertise, knowledge or skills
› Everyone has a chance to share their voice
› Employee can discover new connections and
strengthen existing ones
› Highly engaged employees can find new avenues to
add value
› Unengaged workers may find a voice and new
opportunities to become engaged again
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19. ANOTHER REASON PRO-SUMER MODEL IS A MUST…
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20. DEVELOP
EMPLOYEE
LEARNING
NETWORKS
2. COPYRIGHT 2009

21. DEVELOP EMPLOYEE NETWORKS
› Turn potential ties into weak ties, turn weak ties into
strong ties, and develop denser networks
› Techniques?
– Linking content to people and people to content
– Expert and expertise location
– Ratings and reviews
– User-generated content
– Microblogs
– Activity feeds / Walls
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22. HIERARCHIES VS. NETWORKS
McKinsey Quarterly
Harnessing the power of informal employee networks, 2007 TALENT INTELLIGENCE
Lowell L. Bryan, Eric Matson, and Leigh M. Weiss

23. WHY NETWORKS MATTER: WEAK TIES
Sales Marketing Production R&D HR and Legal
Weak ties
This person has strong
connections to multiple
groups (weak ties) which
enables her to act as a
conduit between N C E
T A L E N T I N T E L L I G E teams.

24. WHY NETWORKS MATTER: STRONG TIES
Sales Marketing Production R&D HR and Legal
Strong ties
She is also tied to
multiple people within
her own group (strong
ties).
She is quite likely the
most influential person in
this E N T I N T E L L I G E N C E
T A L company.

25. BENEFITS OF CONVERTING POTENTIAL TIES TO WEAK TIES
Sales Marketing Production R&D HR and Legal
Learning from network
• Discovering potential ties
and increasing the density
of the network
• Increasing the flow of
information
• Increasing the number of
connections to other
groups
•Diversity of perspective
andLinnovationI G E N C E
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26. ENGAGEMENT BENEFITS OF LEARNING NETWORKS?
› Reflects expectations of Millennials
– McKinsey research shows networks = retention
– Millennials move in tribes, grown up with networks
– GenX = biggest user of LinkedIn and Twitter
› More connections = greater resiliency, agility
› Connections = relationships = trust = engagement
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27. EXAMPLE -- RAYTHEON
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28. CREATE
SHARED
LEARNING
SPACES
3. COPYRIGHT 2009

29. DEVELOP A SHARED SPACES MODEL – LEARNING COMMUNITY
› Shared spaces around topics and initiatives
› Shared spaces around user attributes
› Techniques?
– File and link sharing infrastructure
– Dedicated pages for updates, announcements etc…
– Discussion forums
– Blogs and wikis
– Microblogs
– Social networking
– Activity feeds
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30. THE LEARNING INVERSION
Learning On-the-Job Official Spending
20% 20%
Formal Learning
Informal Learning
80% 80%
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31. KNOWLEDGE WORKERS = EXPERTS AND EXPERTISE
› “Command and control” evolving to “Persuade and influence”
› “Top-down communication” evolving to “Managed viral
communication”
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32. SELF-ORGANIZATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND LEARNING
› In a world of knowledge workers, does expertise still
primarily come from above?
› What happens when learners share expertise with
each other?
– Opportunity to grow and develop
– Opportunity to be recognized
– Opportunity to connect with peers
– Development of a true learning culture
– Learning culture = self-efficacy = engagement
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33. EXAMPLES?
Communities of practice since 1999
$75 million in savings as of 6 yrs ago
Deloitte, Sabre
Holdings, EMC, Booz
Working women’s network for Allen
professionals dealing with leave Hamilton, Marathon
of absence and related issues Oil, Nokia, Capital
One, Mayo Clinic, and
many more!
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34. 1. Engagement has a direct impact on key business metrics.
2. Engagement is tied to employee voice, opportunities to
learn, reward & recognition, relationships with peers, and self-
directed behavior.
3. Social learning is an enabler of all of these engagement drivers.
4. Three ways to use social learning to drive engagement:
a. Provide infrastructure and tools for users to share.
b. Provide opportunities for users to network with each other.
c. Create shared spaces where learners can collaborate.
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35. QUESTIONS
CONTACT
tstone@taleo.com
@TaleoResearch on Twitter
@ThomasStone on Twitter
COPYRIGHT 2009

36. SOURCES
› Slide 2 – EPS Data
http://gmj.gallup.com/content/102523/Return-Investment-Engaging-
Employees.aspx
› Slide 2 – Engagement Data
http://gmj.gallup.com/content/24880/Gallup-Study-Engaged-
Employees-Inspire-Company-Innovation.aspx
› Slide 28 – Training Percent Data
US Dept of Labor
› Slide 29 – IBM – Global Study: Capitalizing on Complexity, page 31
› Slide 31 – Caterpillar
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4467/is_200406/ai_n21350864/
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