Traditionally, training materials were developed by instructional designers that work in an organization’s L&D department or even with an external company. This e-learning content creation process is slow, expensive, and has a huge maintenance issue. At Easygenerator, we came up with a new way of creating e-learning courses by leveraging your employees’ expertise for peer-to-peer learning. It is faster, cheaper, and it will solve your course maintenance issue as well as a few other issues along the way. We call this Employee-generated Learning. In this guide, we will explain the details of this approach and how to implement it in your organization.
What is Employee-generated Learning?
In a nutshell, Employee-generated Learning (or EGL) is an L&D model that promotes peer-to-peer learning by shifting the responsibility of content creation from L&D to your employees or subject matter experts (SMEs). They are the ones who hold all the expertise and the knowledge that you wish to share. The idea for this approach came about from a simple reflection on the current state of corporate L&D:
The problem
“We spent a lot of time and money to teach people outdated stuff.”
Research shows that creating one hour of e-learning takes 90 to 240 hours of work. Plus, that process can cost anywhere between $10,000 and $30,000. These numbers show that creating e-learning content is slow and expensive. But there is a third even more important issue: maintenance. It turns out that most e-learning courses living in a Learning Management System (LMS) are outdated.
The cause
The reason lies in the way we create e-learning. In a traditional e-learning content creation process, it is the instructional designer who is responsible for developing the content. Since instructional designers do not have the business knowledge to create a course, they will interview SMEs in the business to get the correct information from them. This is the main reason why creating e-learning content is slow and expensive. This process of interviewing, checking and double checking takes a lot of time.
Employee-generated Learning customer stories
Various companies have reaped the benefits of our Employee-generated Learning methodology. Want to see what those advantages have done for them? Read their stories to find out, and to discover what EGL could entail for you.
What companies have made the switch for EGL already?
Frequently asked questions
How does the L&D team fit into Employee-generated Learning?
Employee-generated Learning is all about turning your subject matter experts into content creators. Although they are experts in their field, they might need learning know-how guidance when it comes to the creation of learning content. Your company’s L&D team or instructional designer will transition to a supportive role, providing guidance and coaching. They move from being the sole creator to being a co-creator, coach, and curator, and can focus on quality control and sharing best practices with course creators. This all helps to improve the quality and effectiveness of the course.
What if my subject matter experts don’t have the time to create courses?
With the right tools, creating a course needn’t take too long. Your subject matter experts’ time will simply shift from being interviewed by instructional designers and giving feedback on courses to putting this expertise down in creating themselves. In fact, they will save time by not answering questions repeatedly. To get a better understanding of how this can work, you can read our blog article on how to overcome common barriers to knowledge sharing.
What if my subject matter experts don’t have the experience with creating e-learning that instructional designers or L&D have?
Don’t worry. With simple to use e-learning authoring tools, all your subject matter experts need to focus on is sharing their knowledge. The tool reduces the design work to drag and drop functionality. And your company’s L&D team or instructional designer will be there to support your course creators.
How do I ensure the quality of my courses?
In the world of Employee-generated Learning, the quality of your courses will still be high. With your subject matter experts creating courses, they ensure content is correct, relevant, high quality, and always up to date. After all, that’s the most important. Subject matter experts’ colleagues in L&D or instructional design will be there to help them keep the quality high. When you make the switch to EGL with our tool, you will also get plenty of support from our customer success team.