Why you can't ignore informal learning

Received wisdom suggests there are three ways to effectively help people develop: learning from experience (collaborative projects, stretching assignments, changing roles); learning through others (feedback, coaching, mentors, expert advice) and learning from instruction (formal courses and structured self-study programmes).

In practice, this is easy to overlook. Too many organisations have a knee-jerk instinct to go straight to the third option - ie anyone with a development need is sent onto a formal course (and then only when the budget allows). Organisations may indeed want to encourage more 'informal learning' with better collaboration and on-the-job learning opportunities for their staff but they don't really know how to reliably go about it. Instead, they look on - with a mix of envy and confusion - as the in-crowd of informal learning evangelists eulogise about the benefits in their blogs and tweets.

Informal learning is, by nature, elusive. Yes, it may be going on in your organisation but if you don't know when, where or how, then what good is it to you? How do you foster the good stuff and discourage the distractions? And how are you supposed to keep track of informal learning when it's hard enough to stay on top of your formal interventions?

Capture and nurture

So what are cutting edge organisations doing? Well, first of all they appreciate that there's more to it than just imposing an informal learning 'infrastructure' to organise their employee networking. It's the same mindset as with Facebook and Twitter. You can't 'control' these activities, so don't even try. You need to go deeper and look for ways to influence and encourage people to collaborate in sharing and exchanging ideas that suit their particular roles and team culture.

Informal learning is most likely going on somewhere within your organisation right now. Realising this, savvy L&D practitioners are endeavouring to capture good examples of informal learning in practice. Part of the challenge here is that good informal learning is 'instinctive' and few people at the sharp end realise that what they're doing is actually a great example of informal learning. However, if you can find pockets of good practice in your organisation, you can then create a forum to showcase the learning and encourage others to follow suit.

Your forum could be a dedicated area on the intranet or another existing internal communications channel. You could even create an in-house social network for good practice in informal learning. People can add their experiences and tell others what's worked for them to give you ideas to build on. You'll need to educate people to recognise and value informal learning and to share their initiatives and experiences. Offering an incentive might help here. Remember, the aim is to create a buzz and to share best practice.

Routing development needs

The key benefit of understanding what informal learning is really going on in your organisation is that you can tap into it to 'route' development needs more appropriately to the best available interventions - ideally at the point when a development need arises, before the default request is made for traditional 'training'.

This really requires an up-to-date and detailed knowledge of all of your in-house development initiatives and tools (formal and informal) as well as effective innovations across the wider training profession. This utopian position is what cutting edge organisations are striving to achieve because it means employees have easy access to the widest range of effective development opportunities to improve their own productivity, which in turn drives retention and long-term organisational performance.

By harnessing the value of informal learning, even in the short-term, you can free up training budgets and focus them on the areas where they'll make the most difference. This could be on targeted events and self-study programmes to build the strategic capabilities needed or embedding consistent core behaviours across the organisation. However, be careful. You don't want your informal learning push to be seen as a cheap shot at saving costs. It's really about matching the right intervention to the needs of individual learners and embedding opportunities to maximise your employee performance.

Informal learning is a worthy and practical addition to your development portfolio. It's a realistic alternative and it means that traditional training doesn't have to be the 'default option' for your organisation. That's why informal learning matters. That's why you can' t ignore it.

Al Bird is learning consultancy director at KnowledgePool He can be contacted at al.bird@knowledgepool.com