Use Case: Peer to Peer Learning

Peer to peer learning in the workplace is based on the principle: employees learn from employees. A free ebook about this topic can be downloaded at the end of the page.

Table of Contents

What is Peer to Peer Learning?

Peer to peer learning in the workplace is based on the principle: employees learn from employees. 

So ultimately it is about people sharing and exchanging knowledge on the same level. Especially in agile industries, peer to peer learning is an increasingly important part of personnel development.

Peer to peer learning is a great way to quickly share knowledge within the company. For example, when plans, laws or guidelines change at short notice.

Peer to Peer Learning: Advantages

Experience shows that peer to peer learning is an effective method. After all, companies hire their experts for a specific reason: they have relevant knowledge from which others can benefit. As a rule, the learning effect of peer to peer learning is even greater than with an external trainer. 

Because peer to peer learning often involves the very targeted and also very short-term exchange of highly specific corporate knowledge. External trainers are usually unable to meet this requirement. A well-functioning exchange between employees, on the other hand, guarantees very targeted knowledge spurts that precisely fill in existing gaps in knowledge. It could not be more effective.

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Peer to Peer Learning: Challenges

However, exchanging knowledge quickly and at short notice is difficult in some areas. For example, how is it possible to reach employees who do not have permanent jobs and are constantly on the road? 

An employee app allows questions and knowledge content to be reliably shared regardless of time and place.

Peer to Peer Learning: Requirements

In certain working environments, it is a prerequisite within peer to peer learning that knowledge is only shared in a very targeted and tailored manner with those employees for whom it is relevant. For example, in working environments in which personnel with very different qualifications work. 

Secondly, a very targeted exchange in many areas is also important for data protection reasons. This is the case, for example, when personal data is transferred in peer to peer learning and must not fall into unauthorised hands. It must be possible to share knowledge content quickly, intuitively and securely. An employee app meets these requirements.

Peer to Peer Learning: Risks

Instead of using a secure corporate app, employees often use popular messengers such as WhatsApp and others for peer to peer learning. That carries risks. 

Private Chat Apps – Violation of privacy: 

  • If a contact changes his or her number without informing the sender, highly sensitive data can be inadvertently sent to the wrong recipient as soon as the number is reassigned. 
  • Employees who leave the company are often not removed from the internal WhatsApp chat. This gives them information that is not meant for their eyes. 
  • If critical photos are transmitted, there is a risk that they will automatically be stored in the recipient’s personal cloud environment. 
  • Unauthorized third parties from the private environment of the recipient may then have access to this data.

Closing words – KEYWORD

Peer to Peer Learning: Employees learn from employees. Especially in very agile environments, where employees work together across locations or in areas where employees move around the house and are rarely at a fixed workplace, it may initially appear that peer learning requires a high degree of planning and preparation. 

But there are very effective ways of introducing peer to peer learning in such corporate environments. An employee app can provide valuable services here and network employees with each other in a targeted manner – one-to-one or in groups, so that they can exchange knowledge in a very targeted manner at any time, no matter where they are. 

Since peer to peer learning boosts the internal flow of knowledge in a company and constantly refreshes the knowledge of employees with new impulses, it is a cost-efficient method of promoting the knowledge and skills of your own employees. Over time, the costs of training and seminars with external experts are reduced considerably. In addition: Once an employee app has been implemented, peer to peer learning requires little effort on the part of management, because knowledge is passed on internally all by itself. From employee to employee. Peer to peer learning also promotes an interactive and collaborative corporate culture. Could you want more?