Is Social Learning Better Than Formal Training? [Infographic]

Employees want learning and development opportunities. In fact, 8 out of 10 employees will leave an organization “if they don’t receive the right training to perform their job[s] effectively,” according to a new infographic compiled by enterprise peer-to-peer learning platform showd.me 

And while employees want learning and development opportunities, formal training programs may not be the answer. First of all, the costs can be prohibitively expensive: one hour of formal learning runs about $1,798. Moreover, people who participate in formal training programs forget up to 70 percent of what they learned within one week.

Ouch.

Showd.me’s infographic suggests that social learning could be the way to go when it comes to offering learning and development opportunities to employees. Peer collaboration, for example, costs much less that formal training, and 86 percent of employees say it teaches them “what they need to know.”

For more on the failures of formal training and the successes of social learning, check out the full infographic: