{"id":30531,"date":"2019-12-02T10:41:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T10:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=30531"},"modified":"2019-12-02T10:46:06","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T10:46:06","slug":"africonology-ceo-says-skills-development-can-be-addressed-through-peer-to-peer-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/12\/02\/africonology-ceo-says-skills-development-can-be-addressed-through-peer-to-peer-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Africonology CEO says skills development can be addressed through peer to peer training"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A survey conducted by Harvey Nash and KPMG \u2013 The CIO Survey 2019<\/em> \u2013 revealed a market gasping for people with the right skills in emergent technologies and solutions. And According to Mandla Mbonambi, CEO of Africonology, skills development is a critical issue, particularly in South Africa, that can be addressed through ongoing professional development and peer to peer training. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peer to Peer training empowers people to share their expertise and hard-earned professional skills with their colleagues. It\u2019s a powerful way of engaging with people and recognising their talent and their ability to share their knowledge with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peer to peer training\nhas become one of the fastest-growing trends in the training and skills\ndevelopment market for good reason. It bypasses some of the usual problems\nassociated with traditional training methods in that employees feel more\nrelaxed and more inclined to absorb new skills. Having a peer educate, inform\nand train, removes some of the barriers that impact on how people respond to\nformal training and improves collaboration and communication throughout the\nlearning process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What peer to peer\ntraining does is remove the sense of formality from the process, allowing\npeople to become more engaged with the information and the process. This\nimmediately puts them on a more even footing, giving them the freedom to ask\nquestions and really drill down into the details. Something they may not do\nwhen they feel that they\u2019re suddenly back in a classroom setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A successful peer to\npeer training programme should embrace informality and engagement. It should\nallow participants to feel comfortable asking any questions they may have in\nembracing the ability to build their understanding of product, service, and\nsolution. If anybody feels that the environment is judgmental or lacks mutual\nrespect, then they won\u2019t respond well to the process. There has to be an agreed\nstance of open learning and information sharing that works both ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peer to peer learning\nisn\u2019t just about the expert offloading their expertise. It\u2019s also about the\nexpert learning from others, using the insights and commentaries provided by\nthe peers they are teaching to reshape their own understanding and build their\nown skills. It\u2019s a two-way process that allows for continuous learning and\ngrowth across the board, and it allows for deeper engagement in the technology\nor solution as people become increasingly excited about sharing content and\nideas with their colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leadership must get\nbehind the potential of peer to peer learning for it to become embedded within\nthe culture of the organisation and to see any value. If leadership isn\u2019t\ncommitted to building a peer to peer training network, then it\u2019s unlikely it\nwill achieve sustainable growth. This should be further supplemented by clearly\ndefined outcomes that outline the expected results of the peer to peer training\nprogramme and how this can evolve over time. This can then be assessed using\nkey performance indicators (KPIs), employee feedback, and overall employee\nengagement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Implementing a peer\nto peer training culture and methodology in the business doesn\u2019t have to be\nincredibly complex. You can use external service providers that specialise in\npeer to peer training solutions to help build the culture and focus of your\nemployees. While it may sound counterintuitive \u2013 external trainers can suddenly\nlook a lot like traditional trainers \u2013 if you use the right people and approach\nthe skills development from the right level, the dynamic shifts. And by using a\ncompany that understands how this type of training works, you\u2019re already\nbenefitting from the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using an external\ncompany to provide peer to peer training has another benefit as well \u2013 it can\nhelp the business identify the skill gaps that lie within the different areas\nof the business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent LinkedIn\nsurvey of more than 4, 000 professionals, finding the skill gaps has been a\ncompany priority for a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same survey also\nfound that 68% of employees prefer to learn at work and that 94% of employees\nwould stay at a company that paid attention to the development of their career.\nPeer to peer training keeps people in their comfort zones and, if made part of\ntheir KPIs, can become a part of their role which helps them overcome one of\nthe biggest problems that any training programme faces \u2013 time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It empowers them,\nallows them to work with their peers in building skills and learning new ways\nof managing their roles and gives them the opportunity to expand their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organisations that\nsupport a culture of peer to peer learning and continuous skills development\nare not only investing in the future of their people but also in the stability\nof their business. Research has shown, time and again, that those companies\nthat invest in their people are more likely to retain them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering how\ncompetitive the market has become, how voraciously companies search out talent,\nthis is a powerful edge in a time when skills are the difference between\ndelivering innovation and watching it happen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A survey conducted by Harvey Nash and KPMG \u2013 The CIO Survey 2019 \u2013 revealed a market gasping for people with the right skills in emergent technologies and solutions. And According to Mandla Mbonambi, CEO of Africonology, skills development is a critical issue, particularly in South Africa, that can be addressed through ongoing professional development […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":30532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,6,19,9059,10675,13],"tags":[5099,11879,11878,3321,5098,11880],"class_list":["post-30531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-insights","category-regional-news","category-south-africa","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","tag-africonology","tag-cio-survey","tag-harvey-nash","tag-kpmg","tag-mandla-mbonambi","tag-peer-to-peer-training"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30531"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30537,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30531\/revisions\/30537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}