Workplaces are trying to navigate the new norm of hybrid work and what this means for workplace learning.
According to Deloitte, companies that prioritise teamwork and collaboration are:
- 5 times more likely to experience employment growth
- twice as likely to increase profits, and
- twice as likely to outperform their competitors.
Deloitte estimate that collaboration has a net value add to the Australian economy of $46 billion dollars.
Teamwork is beneficial to productivity, skillset diversity, and elevates knowledge across the company.
But what about when it comes to organised L&D?
Typically, workplace learning is rolled out at an individual level. It’s set-and-forget, without much effort to engage the learner or encourage any form of competition. For example, a new starter might be assigned workplace learning for the first few weeks of a new job. In the next 6 months, they might be assigned another module, maybe about cyber-security, or privacy policies.
While this kind of learning is certainly more helpful than nothing at all, it doesn't do much to encourage collaboration or create engaging learning experiences.
I certainly think a campaign about privacy policies would be more fun if I did it with some mates…
It’s here where our hero, team-based learning, comes swooping in.
So, what is it?
Team-based learning (TBL) is a strategy where learners – you guessed it – work in teams.
The official definition is “an active learning and small group instructional strategy that provides students with opportunities to apply conceptual knowledge through a sequence of activities that includes individual work, teamwork, and immediate feedback”. But that’s super wordy.
Basically what we’re talking about is working as teams to learn and apply knowledge. Within those groups, individuals can at times work independently to use what they’ve learned to benefit the broader group.
On a Yarno campaign, learners participate in teams to complete and quiz their understanding of certain topics. Grouping together teams creates a competitive aspect, encourages communication, and strengthens workplace relationships. I’ve heard of Yarno teams standing in a circle workshopping their answers to help boost their team score! We also know it works, because of our world-class completion rates of over 85% (compared to the industry average of 15% for open online courses). But why does it work?
Let’s unpack some of the key benefits of team-based learning.
1. It builds relationships and strengthens culture
Let’s start with the big one: team-based learning strengthens interpersonal relationships.
We know from Deloitte, and also Forbes, that some of the most valuable skills of the next decade will be collaboration and teamwork. We also know that they are important to staff: in one survey, nearly 3 in 4 employees rank teamwork and collaboration as “very important”. A strong company culture where staff interact and feel supported is vital, both for employee morale and long-term company success. Gallup research also found that employees who are engaged with their team and workplace are more involved and work harder, resulting in 21% higher productivity, and lower rates of burnout and fatigue. So, pretty important for businesses to factor into their workplace learning strategies to strengthen culture and support employees to build relationships.
It’s also important for staff: in one survey, nearly 3 in 4 employees rank teamwork and collaboration as “very important”. A strong company culture where staff get along and feel supported is vital, both for employee morale and long-term company success. Gallup research found that employees who are engaged with their team and workplace are more involved and work harder, resulting in 21% higher productivity, and lower rates of burnout and fatigue.
Well, team-based learning can connect workers that may not necessarily interact day-to-day and create camaraderie and team spirit despite different departments or geographic locations. As co-founder of the team-based microlearning platform, Yarno, I have numerous examples of running a workshop aimed at creating learning content, where most of the participants have never even met each other!
On a Yarno learning campaign, learners can be grouped under any category. This means you can strengthen collaboration between working teams at any level: mate vs. mate, state vs. state, or even staff vs. managers. Basically, we’re closing (knowledge) gaps and kicking (teamwork) goals.
2. It creates a more engaging learning experience, and encourages completion rates
Grouping together learners in teams makes for a far more engaging learning experience.
Once you group together teams to compete against each other in a learning campaign, you are gamifying the learning experience. Gamification basically means you are applying game mechanics to a non-game environment: in our case here, we are creating a team vs. team aspect to workplace learning. Introducing an aspect of friendly competition to L&D creates a more fun and engaging learning environment.
83% of employees who receive gamified training feel more motivated to perform at work. It’s a tried and tested way of improving engagement and knowledge retention in workplace learning. In fact – gamification has been found to aid long-term retention by up to 10 times in comparison to traditional learning methods.
On a Yarno campaign, an individual’s quiz score is added to an overall team score. On the leaderboard, you can see where both individuals and teams are, and who’s at the top. This motivates learners to log on and complete their learning, so they’re not letting down the team.
3. Promotes development as a team, rather than prioritising the individual
Team-based learning is a way to increase overall group performance, rather than targeting individual learning.
A study into team-based learning in the classroom found that most teams score overall better than the top-performing individual by about 14%. This means that two (or more) heads really are better than one!
In an L&D setting, grouping people together in teams encourages problem-solving, and discussion around the learning content. This plays a big role in learners retaining, understanding, and applying the knowledge.
If the success of the team is reliant on an individual, they feel more accountable to complete and succeed in their learning. Instead of relying on self-motivation, the learner is motivated by group success – having coworkers reminding them to get the job done to benefit the whole.
We’ve found that motivating learners through a team-based campaign is a great way to push completion rates over the line and see knowledge applied and recalled throughout the learning campaign. With completion rates of over 85% (compared to the industry average of 15% for open online courses), our team-based learning campaigns are really effective at engaging the learner and developing the whole team.
Yarno has created a lot of healthy competition. Just the rivalry between the depots. Each depot has its own individuality and it likes to be better than the other depots
Conclusion
Where traditionally the focus for workplace learning has been on the individual, team-based learning has numerous benefits including boosting engagement and completion rates.
We hope to see more companies adopt team-based learning approaches in their L&D strategies in 2023 and beyond. It works for the company, it works for the learner, and it works for the bottom line.
If you haven’t tried team-based learning in your workplace, it’s probably a good time to start.
Find out more about team-based learning with Yarno:
How gamification and competition boots workplace productivity
