You’ve likely worked with many internal experts on your learning projects to gather knowledge, examples, and tips. This isn’t always easy, but what if you could tip the balance further and empower experts to create digital learning for themselves? With pressure to deliver more for less, and drive specific skills, the role of the internal expert has never been more crucial.
L&D teams are harnessing the power of their people through collaborative content creation.
Internal experts are essential to every learning project. They’re the gateway to your content and the needs of your target audience. But they can play an even bigger role.
Unlock Capacity. Getting expert colleagues more involved in digital learning creation increases your capacity without increasing cost. This enables you to respond to your business’ needs at speed, and have your L&D team focus on projects that need them most.
Skill fill. There’s also a huge drive for skills. Organizations are focused on upskilling and reskilling for today and tomorrow’s needs. But the solutions need to be fast, smart, and scalable. Where best to find specialist, practical skills that are fitting for your organization? Your internal experts. Empowering them to upskill others directly makes a lot of sense.
Of course, involving experts can have challenges. They have a day job and although they know their content inside out, they may not know how to turn it into effective digital learning.
1) Pick a model that works for everyone
Empowering internal experts to create learning content isn’t about dropping them in the deep end. Before anyone starts creating digital learning, pinpoint a framework of support.
Whether it’s providing a foundation in digital learning design, buddying new creators with an L&D partner, or setting up key learning templates that guide creators through a consistent approach.
Focus on what will help your team and experts collaborate effectively, and experiment upfront.
2) Provide quick, but effective onboarding
Internal experts need to be engaged and feel comfortable with their project. But you haven’t got days to get them up to speed, so create:
– Best practice examples, that are of the right kind of quality level for these creators
– Simple processes that outline when to get a project checked and who to check it with
– Project diagnostics or needs capture templates, that help guide them on the purpose of the content
It’s all about balance. Don’t overwhelm them with technical details, tens of examples, or more design options than are needed.
3) Strip back decisions
Strip back design options and decisions that aren’t essential, so that expert content creators can focus on the learning content. This will help maintain quality and consistency, as novice creators are less likely to go off-piste.
Suggest templates, set guidelines, limit permissions and encourage reviews. Opt for tools that make it easy for them to bring in others to fill the gaps in expertise. Collaborative content is the name of the game here!
4) Create momentum
Involving internal experts who can act as champions, provides a great opportunity to increase engagement with L&D across your organization. As you work with more employees, your network of champions will grow. Provide a forum for this new community to share experiences and best practice.
Want to hear examples of how other L&D teams set their Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) up for success?
Empowering your internal experts will help you meet your business’ needs. This isn’t always straightforward, but it’s easier than you think. With the right tools, processes and support, you’ll create a community of content creators producing effective digital learning in no time.
We’re seeing many organizations instigate a sea-change in their learning cultures, through these ground-up, collaborative approaches.
Find out more by visiting Elucidat on Stand E160 or attend our Live Demo Zone session on Wednesday 12th October (11:45am – 12:15pm).
Written by Kirstie Greany, Head of Customer Learning and presenter of our session: Unlocking The Expertise Of Any Employee Through Collaborative Content Creation.