Well-trained employees are essential for the long-term success of a company. They make up the company and should also be the focus of further training. A popular method that you surely remember from school is learning partnerships. These also offer some advantages within the company. Find out now how you can implement learning partnerships in your company!

Self-confidence, personal responsibility, leadership behavior – all soft skills that make employees valuable to companies. To promote such skills, it is essential to provide continuing education for employees. Therefore, you should offer employees the opportunity to form learning partnerships – this motivates them to learn in their daily work!

What characterizes a good learning partnership?

There are learning partners in many areas. Whether at university, during school time, or within a company – the principle is the same. A learning partnership can consist of several participants: as a duet or as a whole group – no matter what the configuration, the partners exchange knowledge and experiences. Ideally, this means that experts share their expertise with each other and complement one another. Learning partners do not even need to be in the same location. Methods like blended learning or Zoom calls allow for digital transmission of expertise!

For the human brain, there is hardly a better method than learning together. The learning material not only stays better in memory, but you also realize more quickly what you have not yet understood.

According to a statistic, people learn 70% by explaining it to someone else.

3 Scenarios for Learning Partnerships

To ensure the concept of learning partnership is successful in your company, we present three scenarios on how learning partnerships can be implemented.

Tip: Learning partnerships work anywhere and anytime! In some configurations, you need more technical support, in others less. The main thing is that all parties involved can learn something in the end!

Scenario 1: Learning Partnerships On-Site at the Company

To promote personal exchange between learning partners directly in the company, all parties involved should agree on a common meeting. Here, the personal conversation is the focus and allows learning partners face-to-face learning. Learners engage in a casual conversation about experiences and skills. For this reason, progress in learning is particularly visible on-site: on the one hand, you can avoid communication difficulties (due to lack of facial expressions and gestures) in a personal conversation. Additionally, it is easier to react to spontaneous changes or new information in person. For example, due to an acute problem.

To document learning outcomes, it is always beneficial if the learning partners jointly document their progress. A shared online platform or shared document supports the learning partnership. In this scenario, learning partners often act more spontaneously and independently of a strict training plan. This provides the advantage that acute problems can be addressed quickly.

Our blink.it Example: The Marketing Discussion Marketplace

We meet once a month in the marketing team, and everyone has the opportunity to bring a specific topic or concern. When acute problems arise, we sit down together and try to solve them directly. This way, there is no need for a separate meeting, and we learn directly in the situation :)

Scenario 2: Blended Learning Partnership

Blended learning complements the learning partnership in your company! The combination of on-site and online learning units helps partners to consolidate what they've learned. Thus, both partners can work on problems during in-person sessions, review the documented results, and subsequently verify their knowledge through, for example, quizzes!

Even you as an HR person are called upon here, as your role is to guide this learning process! Important knowledge content should be secured to support learners in the learning partnership. It is helpful if the online sessions build on the face-to-face learning units and give partners the opportunity to deepen their knowledge.

Do you know the common blended learning models? In our free overview, we have summarized three classic models for you.

Scenario 3: Learning in Tandem – Learning by Doing

What distinguishes the learning partnership from other forms of learning? Learning with and from each other! For example, in tandem: you are probably familiar with the learning tandem from the language learning field. Here, two partners learn a language together by going through a dialogue with each other and thus practicing pronunciation in the first step. Both learners are also teachers, as they control each other and look at a situation from different perspectives – which is why this method is so efficient! Learning partners can quiz each other and also teach.

You as an HR person are less involved in the learning process in this configuration but accompany the learning process quietly. The method is most efficient when partners exchange their knowledge independently of guidelines and focus on an acute problem.

Benefits of Learning Partnerships for Employees and Companies

Cooperative learning has more to offer than just the exchange between the learning partners. Well-trained employees not only have a higher sense of responsibility but also work independently and take responsibility. This motivates! You likely enjoy activities that you do well much more than those where there is a risk of failing.

Motivation and fun at work reflect positive results. This benefits not only the customers but also the company itself. Because satisfied customers lead to the company's economic success. Additionally, the company image is positively influenced – and all through employee training in the form of learning partners! Employees who are less tech-savvy also have a contact person to support them. This allows both learning partners to share their know-how and benefit from it! You will learn exactly how this happens next week in the second part of our learning partner series.

You see, there are different ways to implement learning partnerships. You also know the benefits that collaborative learning among employees can have. How you as a personnel manager can support learning partnerships will be explained in the next blog article! To not miss this, you should subscribe to our blog for free.

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