Mediaboss Marketing

When a major Canadian telecommunications company wanted to change how it handles employee training, it turned to social networking.

Telus, based in Vancouver, had long run formal programs -- mostly classes and lectures -- to train its 35,000 employees around the world, but found they were becoming a bit too stiff, said Dan Pontefract, head of learning and collaboration.

Some workers have difficulty learning in formal settings, and can better master new tasks by communicating directly with friends and colleagues.

Learning, after all, is social, says Pontefrac. The training should be social as well, he added.

"We always thought training was an event," he said. "It was something that you went to. We had a plethora of formal learning options."

However, Pontefrac added. "That's just not the only way people learn."

Now, Telus offers a combination of learning tools for its workers. "We didn't throw classroom learning out with the bathwater, but we made it a piece of a bigger pie that included informal and social," he said

The Telus training philosophy is now broken down into the three broad categories.

Formal training refers to any self-contained event that people go to, such as a lecture or classroom course.

Informal training refers to live Webcasts, podcasts or mentoring.

Read more from the original source:
Telus links social, traditional training