Workplace Communities

This blog entry is my notes on the Introduction to Workplace Communities webinar, presented by Mzinga.

Drivers:

• Removal of the intermediary - People support themselves and other


• Emergence of a more tech savvy consumer - stereotypes regarding tech users is being changed.


• Ubiquity of the web


• Talent shortages because of boomer retirements


• The first web natives "millennials" are the primary employment market

We need to rethink training, hiring, personnel development

Loss of knowledge of retirees

New cycle - Rethink retirement - career deceleration rather than retirement

Communities support the new cycle. Informal work environment

The difference between a top preforming partner vs. a new associate is so extreme that a tool is needed to allow the top performers to support/mentor the newer associates. Online communities support this.

Millennial Implications

Social networks help to recruit. They can spread the information very quickly if your company embraces these tools.

Millennials don't have the knowledge structure.

Deloitte youTube recruiting videos

Alumni and Community


Spans all generations

Keep in touch with the talent that has left the company. Summer associates, lateral moves, moves to in-house or government positions.

To bring back someone, it costs between 1/3 to 2/3s of new recruit.

Rehires more than 40% more productive.

Can be used for recruiting new personnel, new business.

Learning and development drivers
What we do as trainers, low effect on learning. Informal learning 87% - Formal learning 13% (Jay Cross - Informal Learning)

We are spending most of the training money for formal learning

Content development Traditional Courses and curriculumn outside of the relationship to real workflow and requires more time and expertise to develop.

Ace Hardware - Platform for hardware dealers to share and seek advice.

Increases sales resulted in 500% ROI in 6 months.
1/3 of Ace dealers use the site at least weekly.

Training is delivered through offical channels, learning often happens in spite of the offical channels. We have no clue of who knows what, how they learned it, or how to find the real experts.