By Guy Lyman
Source: Property Management Insider
A learning management system such as EasyLMS can revolutionize the acquisition of new knowledge and skills at your property management company, making your staff a continually improving asset. As your first line of learning, an LMS is loaded with industry, software and company-specific knowledge for everyone from your maintenance tech to leasing staff to property manager.
Through EasyLMS, there are many ways to leverage online courses and social channels to accelerate learning even further. With in-person training gradually giving way to online trainingand certification, and teams often geographically dispersed, it’s more important than ever to complement your LMS with learning activities that leverage the Internet and its opportunities for social engagement.
Here are five suggestions to put the “social” back into learning.
1. Set up learning groups
When users support one another in their learning, everyone learns more. That’s why you see study groups in graduate schools, for example (think of the famous hotel cram session in “The Paper Chase”). You can manage study groups based on peers, roles or regions, adding competitions to spice up the interaction. The Activity Feed in EasyLMS can act as a social network, allowing the ability to “like” and comment back and forth. Leaders can jump in to encourage learners and add their expertise.
2. Enable learning circles
Related to learning groups are “learning circles,” where the participants choose others to follow online in order to see what they are learning, how they are progressing and how they compare on the Activity Feed on a day-to-day basis. By viewing themselves in relation to their peers, employees gain motivation to excel.
3. Foster mentorships
For all but a few top people in your company, there’s someone in a higher position whose knowledge can be critical to their acquisition of new skills. By formalizing a mentorship program you can deepen these relationships, leveraging the Internet as the conduit for interaction. These can take the form of one-on-one relationships between an entry-level employee and a senior employee, or group mentoring. Points of discussion can include education related to multifamily as well as soft skills.
4. Start a reading circle
Choose books related to your company’s core values or rental housing industry issues and initiate a reading circle to discuss it online. You can select a new book on a quarterly or semi-annual basis, for example. This not only imparts new knowledge, it also builds team solidarity. Award participation badges through your LMS online to increase interest.
5. Hold new-hire roundtables
You might consider hosting interactive online sessions for new hires at 30, 60 and 90 days. These sessions allow them to bring up areas of confusion or challenge and share hands-on solutions with one another and with managers. Subjects can include common software issues, internal policies, real estate industry matters, property issues such as compliance or customer service, and more. New hires feel much better knowing they’re not the only ones struggling in one area or another. By using online meeting technology, you can ensure all employees have a seat at the table.
Together, your LMS and the Internet represent a remarkably powerful duo for motivating and delivering knowledge to your people in all sorts of creative, engaging ways. Start with this list and take a few minutes to think of ways you could be utilizing social engagement to complement the property management training you’re already enabling!
