At 360Learning, we don’t just preach the benefits of collaborative learning—we live them. Learning from one another daily is deeply embedded in our team culture and values.
This emphasis on peer learning doesn’t just make our team smarter; it makes us better at our jobs and directly contributes to our company’s growth. In 2019, 360Learning saw a 200% growth in revenue in the US. We’re now 178 employees strong and we were ranked the #4 mid-size employer by HappyatWork.
Building a collaborative learning culture doesn’t happen overnight. Over the past five years, we’ve designed an organizational model of intertwined work and growth called Convexity, with the goal of helping each team member have an exponential impact on the company.
We’ve mentioned our unique company culture a lot in our Onboarding Joei docu-series, and a lot of people were very curious to know more. So here’s how we incorporate peer learning into the very fiber of our company, and how it helps us cultivate sharp employees so we stay ahead of the curve in a crowded industry.
We guide employees through a collaborative onboarding process
New employees start their peer learning journey from their first day on the job. We’ve created an extensive onboarding process that combines both our own collaborative learning platform and in-person training to quickly help new hires, get settled into the company’s workflows and culture.
Onboarding new hires can be time-consuming for coaches, especially in a company that’s growing as quickly as we are. Instead of forcing coaches to go over the same materials with each new employee, we’ve set up a program of asynchronous courses that employees can do at their own pace.
This includes company-wide courses about our culture, processes, and tools, as well as department-specific content. Coaches create bespoke content for specific roles to make sure that each employee has the technical knowledge and training they need.
These online courses are coupled with in-person learning opportunities with the new hire’s coach who answers questions, helps them set OKRs, and oversees their 90-day probationary period. The coach monitors the new hire’s progress with various onboarding activities and can help them prioritize which courses to pursue. Through this combination of standardized and customized courses as well as individual coaching, each new hire gets their own tailored learning experience.
Maria Van Thienen, our sales enablement manager, says that by using asynchronous course modules, she can “onboard multiple people at the same time, and only spend [her] time and [her] sales coach’s time on refining and perfecting [their] new team members’ skills.”