Enable Collaborative Learning With These Essential LMS Features

Why is it Important for Companies to Prioritize Collaborative Learning?

There are several reasons why collaborative learning is important for companies:

  1. Improved teamwork: Collaborative learning can help to improve teamwork and communication within a company, as it encourages employees to work together towards a common goal.
  2. Increased knowledge and expertise: Collaborative learning allows employees to share their knowledge and expertise with their colleagues, which can lead to a more knowledgeable and skilled workforce.
  3. Enhanced problem-solving skills: Collaborative learning can help employees develop their problem-solving skills by working through challenges together.
  4. Increased employee engagement: Collaborative learning can be a more engaging and enjoyable way for employees to learn, which can lead to higher levels of job satisfaction and retention.
  5. Enhanced company culture: Collaborative learning can help foster a culture of continuous learning and development within a company, which can be attractive to potential employees and help to improve the overall performance of the organization.

How can an LMS Improve Collaborative Learning?

Companies need digital tools that make collaboration accessible and efficient, so nothing hinders team members’ abilities to work together. The ExpertusONE LMS platform enables both coaching (one-on-one collaboration to improve a specific skill) and collaborative learning between teammates. Our next-generation LMS platform provides companies the flexibility to serve their learners.

Take a look at these four LMS features that enable collaborative learning and coaching in the digital training space.

LMS Features that Facilitate Collaborative Learning

Virtual meetings allow learners to interact directly with instructors and peers.

The ExpertusONE LMS enables live meetings through our virtual video conferencing tool. This feature is embedded within the platform so learners and managers alike can schedule, host, and access meetings without using a third-party platform or website. Companies are looking for tools that streamline the learning experience and ensure learners have minimal distractions, so they can focus on training. By integrating essential tools—like a virtual meetings system—companies can manage all learning initiatives from a single platform.

Managers can schedule one-on-one coaching sessions with team members through the ExpertusONE LMS or schedule group meetings for a specific subset of the team. The LMS will send out notifications and alerts to team members about scheduled meetings. Then, team members can easily access the meeting link from within the platform.

These one-on-one meetings are especially impactful for sales teams. Direct sales coaching sessions can be recorded within the LMS software so managers can later leverage these resources for other training initiatives. For example, a sales manager can spend one-on-one time with a team member to talk through the best sales strategies or practices, rehearse pitches, and so on—and other sales team members can then watch this session as part of their training.

These live learning sessions create an excellent supplemental training resource for teams already completing other interactive training sessions. Live meetings allow companies to actively model and demonstrate a particular process or strategy instead of simply telling the learner about it.

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Engaging, competitive, interactive digital experiences encourage collaborative learning.

Collaborative learning is beneficial for companies and learners. Companies benefit from employee engagement, increased knowledge retention, and optimization of employee knowledge. Employees benefit because collaborative learning can help them acquire new skills and build meaningful connections at work. Ultimately, the burden of facilitating collaborative learning falls on companies, and leadership must provide their teams with tools to facilitate collaboration, or it simply will not happen.

Healthy competition at work is one way to engage employees in the learning experience and encourage interaction among peers. The ExpertusONE digital LMS platform provides LMS gamification resources so companies can facilitate competition, reward learners for achieving learning goals, and provide badges and points systems that align with corporate goals. For example, if the company is pushing the training initiative and looking to increase the number of learners who complete assigned training courses, a leaderboard could rank employees by the highest number of completed courses. In addition, companies can customize these badges and awards based on corporate branding and values, highlighting specific elements that pertain to existing initiatives—like employee engagement, company value propositions, or upskilling training.

The ExpertusONE platform streamlines digital training so learners can interact with their peers—through leaderboards, meetings, and LMS applications in Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce stores—and collaborate during the learning process. For example, managers can place team members in learning groups to direct training sessions or work toward specific initiatives. Even further, leaders and managers can follow up directly with team members to ensure they meet training deadlines.

The ExpertusONE enterprise LMS also enables managers to create interactive course content—video and audio components, polls, quizzes, and more—that makes training more enjoyable. This becomes part of the collaborative learning landscape because it makes learning more engaging and integrated into the overall work experience. As learning becomes a part of the employee’s everyday workflow—and training happens in the flow of work—collaboration is enabled. With training topics at the top of their minds, team members can discuss, strategize, and implement new practices, ideas, and methods learned in training.

Coaching and collaborative learning, when enabled by technology, bring forth the next era of corporate training.

The next era of corporate training will be more collaborative than the era we are currently in. This is because technology has advanced so considerably that collaboration is possible in both the physical and digital spaces without much division between the two experiences. This flexibility and adaptability that tech has afforded us mean collaborative learning and coaching are possible.

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The ExpertusONE LMS offers a Collaboration Hub and a Coaching and Mentoring Hub to set learners and managers up for success in the collaborative learning space. These hubs were designed to make it easy for learners to train in groups. Managers can include specific employees in group sessions with shared learning goals and invite team members to train in a live setting from within the ExpertusONE platform. If the company rolls out new products or releases new features, the sales manager or training manager can identify which team members must be assigned courses related to the new elements and identify who has not taken training (if that is the case).

Use cases for the ExpertusONE Collaboration Hub extend beyond internal teams. Companies can also leverage Collaboration Hub and ExpertusONE’s Learning Record Store to identify opportunities for upselling clients and customers. As customers complete training, companies can determine which courses are most popular or necessary and seek opportunities to upsell products or services based on existing customer needs and interests. These collaborative learning features give managers and leaders a high level of insight into their employees’ and customers’ needs and interests.

All of these features can also be extended into workplace applications like Salesforce—ExpertusONE has an app in the Salesforce store—so that learners can train in the flow of work. The Salesforce LMS application can enable easier access and promote engagement by simplifying the overall training process for companies that distribute training to multiple sales teams or customer departments.

Collaborative learning and coaching are two critical components in the modern training landscape, and companies need digital platforms to support these initiatives. An LMS platform is the best comprehensive choice to enable learners to engage with training in multiple ways—through self-paced learning content, one-on-one coaching, or group sessions.

Want to learn more about ExpertusONE’s collaborative learning features? Schedule a free demo today.