How to leverage the Creator Economy in L&D with Employee-generated Learning

Recently, we discussed what the creator economy means in L&D and how it’s shaping the future of corporate learning. By now, you’re likely considering changing your organization’s approach to learning and development in order to reap the benefits of the creator economy and share knowledge more easily, quickly, and at a lower cost. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that a strategy we like to call Employee-generated Learning. But first, let’s define some key concepts.

What is the creator economy?

The Creator Economy refers to the growing trend of individuals creating and sharing content online, often through platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Essentially, these individuals share their knowledge and skills drawing from their personal passions and professions.  This implies the knowledge shared is external, generic, and not associated with any organization.

What does the creator economy mean in L&D?

In the context of L&D, the Creator Economy refers to the use of user-generated content (such as short courses, articles,  videos, podcasts…) in training programs, allowing employees to create their own content as part of their learning process. The idea of employees creating and sharing their knowledge provides a fresh perspective and makes training materials more relatable for other employees, as well as foster creativity and innovation within an organization. We call this Employee-generated Learning.

How to leverage the power of the Creator Economy in L&D

Leveraging the power of the Creator Economy in L&D can start with simple steps like including employee-generated content such as instructional or demo videos, best practices or any form of know-how that employees use to get things done at work.  This is essentially Employee-generated Learning in action!

What is Employee-generated Learning?

Traditionally, training materials are developed by instructional designers who work in an organization’s L&D department or even with an external company. This e-learning content creation process is slow, expensive, and has a huge maintenance issue. With Employee-generated Learning, employees create content and contribute to a part of the training content. This approach is faster, cheaper, and it will solve your course maintenance issue as well as a few other issues along the way.

Employee-generated Learning is the most effective way to create most of your corporate training content. Additionally, the Employee-generated Learning methodology fits into the growing trend of moving from a top-down to a bottom-up approach to learning strategy – in other words,  bringing the benefits of the creator economy into the corporate world.

Ready to leverage the power of the creator economy (aka Employee-generated Learning) in L&D? Here are some resources to help get you started:

• Comprehensive guide to Employee-generated Learning
• Scaling up your e-learning activities with Employee-generated Learning
• How to switch to an Employee-generated Learning mindset
• 5 tips for implementing Employee-generated Learning
• How to revolutionize your e-learning strategy with Employee-generated Learning