Episode 17: Employee-Generated Learning with Kasper Spiro

In this action-packed episode of The Management Theory Toolbox, host Travis Mallett and guest Kasper Spiro, Chief Learning Strategist & Co-founder of EasyGenerator, dive deep into the paradigm shift from traditional, top‐down corporate training to a dynamic, employee generated learning (EGL) model. Discover how real-world practice, authentic peer feedback, and cutting-edge technologies like AI are transforming learning—and why “practice makes permanent” is the mantra for today’s modern workplace.

Key Takeaways

• Practice Over Passive Learning:
  • Explore why hands-on practice is not just beneficial but essential, and how “practice makes permanent” can solidify skills better than rote education alone.
• The Four Pillars of Effective Learning:
  • Know the Why: Understanding the purpose behind learning content fuels motivation.
  • Leverage Personal Experience: Connect new insights with your own professional journey.
  • Engage in Real Practice: Apply what you learn immediately to build expertise.
  • Seek Constructive Feedback: Use peer insights and data (e.g., via XAPI and Learning Record Stores) to continuously refine performance.
• Employee Generated Learning (EGL) vs. Traditional Training:
  • Break away from outdated, one-size-fits-all courses. Empower employees to create, update, and own their learning experiences.
  • Discover how EGL fosters trust, engagement, and relevance—resulting in higher completion and success rates.
• Future-Proofing Corporate Learning:
  • The integration of AI and advanced tracking transforms static learning management systems into interactive, on-demand “corporate brains” that deliver instant, personalized answers.

Resources & Additional Reading

• EasyGenerator:
  Learn more about their innovative approach to employee generated learning at EasyGenerator.
• Employee Generated Learning (Book):
  Dive into Kasper Spiro’s insights by checking out his book, “Employee Generated Learning: How to Develop Training that Drives Performance”, published by Kogan Page.
• Bloom’s Taxonomy:
  Enhance your understanding of effective learning objectives with Bloom’s Taxonomy.
• Five Moments of Learning Model:
  Explore the Five Moments of Need framework, which redefines how and when learning occurs on the job.
• 70-20-10 Learning Model:
  Discover the breakdown of effective learning strategies in the 70-20-10 Model, emphasizing that 70% of learning happens through hands-on experience, 20% via collaboration, and only 10% through formal training. 

Connect & Engage

• Join the Conversation:
  Share your insights and experiences in the comments below, or reach out to us on LinkedIn.
• Meet Our Guest:
  Follow Kasper Spiro on LinkedIn for more on his innovative work with EGL and learn about upcoming events, webinars, and speaking engagements.

For more transformative insights and in-depth discussions, visit our website and subscribe to The Management Theory Toolbox podcast.

Transcript

I think practice is even more important than learning.
People who are just doing practice without any education will probably get further along than people who do just learning and no practice.

Welcome back to the Management Theory Toolbox, your top destination for the behind‑the‑scenes of the management and business world. This isn't your typical business podcast. Yes, there are plenty of resources out there that will give you specific tips and tricks to manage your employees or create a strategic plan. But here, we believe that management is too complex to be summarized in a few tips and tricks. At the Management Theory Toolbox, our mission is always to go a layer deeper—uncovering theories and tools that will help you manage your unique situations, making you more effective than simply following cookie‑cutter behaviors.

So far on the Management Theory Toolbox, we've been on a journey learning about—well, learning in an organizational context, of course. We've talked about how the agility and competitive advantage of an organization are inseparable from the learning and development of employees in episodes 9 and 10.

We've also covered multiple aspects of psychology, especially focused on operant conditioning. In our last episode, we talked with neuroscientist Dr. Sara De Felice about how social environments, like those in an organization, can affect the learning process—giving us some ideas for how managers and leaders can better design learning environments. But there are four additional conditions for learning that we haven't yet discussed in depth.

First, people need to know why they're learning what they're learning.
A growing body of research has discovered, not surprisingly, that people are motivated to learn when they understand why what they're learning is important—something that was emphasized by Robert Lopez in episode seven. Not only that, but employees learn best when they use their own experiences as the basis for learning; that is, when they can tie their past experiences to the new knowledge. Furthermore, people need to practice what they've learned. If you don't practice something, you tend to forget it. And lastly, a vast body of research has found that feedback is critical to the learning process.
So, four additional factors improve, facilitate, or are perhaps even required for efficient and effective learning to occur. People need to know the why, use their own experiences as a basis for learning, practice, and get feedback.

So let's imagine a world where all these elements coalesce, shall we? A world where the L&D department ticks every box. From their windowless office, they churn out training session after training session.
You sit down at your computer for the latest required corporate training—coffee in hand, mustering up the last ounce of motivation to hit the play button—and you're greeted with a monotone lecture about a topic you may or may not ever use again.
Even if you need this someday, you're not exactly bookmarking it for a refresher, you muse, reveling in that quiet sense of rebellion. Let's face it, after starting the lecture video, you probably minimize the window, letting it drone on in the background while you try to get started with your day. Then comes the surprise quiz—a nod to the idea that practice is key. You sigh as you read the first question, realizing you missed that obscure detail the lecture barely even mentioned.
This is a world where L&D has really risen to the occasion. Not. We all know that effective learning doesn't come from one‑size‑fits‑all training videos and impersonal quizzes.

So what does? That's where Employee Generated Learning (EGL) comes into play—empowering employees to shape their own learning experiences. Not a sterile, top‑down delivery, but one that is driven by real‑world experience and genuine engagement. And today, we're fortunate enough to have with us Kasper Spiro, co‑founder and Chief Learning Strategist of EasyGenerator, a company which specializes in employee‑generated learning solutions.
Hi Casper, and welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Before we get started, go ahead and tell us a bit about your background and your work.

I'm Casper Spiro. I'm the Chief Learning Strategist at EasyGenerator.
I started out as a teacher, and I've worked in the world of learning and learning technology for a long time. I've been with EasyGenerator now for 13 years—the first 11 as CEO. Now I have a free‑format role where I'm responsible for the mission, vision, and direction of the company. I recently published a book, Employee Generated Learning: How to Develop Training that Drives Performance. I'm based in the Netherlands, and I'm really happy to be here on your show today.

Excellent, and thank you for joining us. In recent episodes, we've talked about learning through consequences—operant conditioning—as well as observing others, like in social cognitive theory. But more recent research has noted some additional conditions that help facilitate adult learning. I think your new book and your employee‑generated learning model are dialed into those conditions. Before we dive into those, could you explain the employee‑generated learning model and how it fundamentally differs from traditional corporate learning approaches?

Yeah. So, if learning content is created in a corporation, it's usually done by instructional designers who work in the L&D department. Most courses are business‑related, so they don't have that deep subject knowledge. They need to interview supplementary experts to get that knowledge, and they have to go back and forth—check, double‑check, and resolve any conflicting information. That takes a lot of time and is very expensive.
But even more importantly, once the course is finally created, the instructional designer is also responsible for its maintenance. That's a big problem because they are not connected to the business; they don't know when something has changed. That means courses are often outdated or become outdated really fast.
We create a lot of learning content, but in fact, what we're doing is spending a lot of time and money teaching people outdated stuff. And that is the initial problem we want to solve. The solution is pretty simple: make the experts responsible for creating that content. Instead of having the instructional designer transfer that information, the people in the business should be responsible for creating the content. In this model, the role of the instructional designer is much more supportive—and because employees are creating the content, we call it Employee Generated Learning (EGL) for short.
The essence is really simple: people in the business create learning content. At our company, we've developed a method to support this approach, and we also offer software that people can use. It's interesting to put that in a bigger perspective: initially, in corporate learning, if you go back to the medieval guilds, you had a master‑apprentice model where, if you were new in a certain role, you would work for a master. In that apprentice role, you would learn from the master how to do the job. When the industrial revolution started, learning got institutionalized and we moved away from the master‑apprentice model to more formal classroom training.
There were all kinds of academies—first face‑to‑face, then later online. But that formal learning model has been shifting back to a more bottom‑up approach. Instead of the L&D department solely responsible for creating formal learning content, we now facilitate employees to create learning content themselves.
They start by creating courses in collaboration with instructional designers, and we see more and more that in addition to course content, employees also create performance support content—really practical information. We believe that in the future, those creating this content could also take on a role as a mentor. In that way, you move back to a traditional master‑apprentice system, where you don't only share your knowledge in writing or in an e‑learning course, but as a mentor you bring a lot more to the table. That completes the circle from a historical perspective.

Now, in your book you discuss the shift from top‑down to bottom‑up learning. How does understanding the “why” behind learning content—as mentioned in the conditions of learning—play into this shift? In other words, how does employee‑generated learning help associates understand the importance of what they're learning?

I would actually phrase it a bit differently because the moment somebody doesn't understand the why behind learning, you have a problem. Somebody tells you, "You have to learn this." It's not an internal need; it's something imposed on you. That can be the case in a few instances—compliance training, security training, or even learning about the company's vision and mission, where certification is required. In those cases, the why is very simple.
Our customers tell us that such content is a small portion of total learning—maybe less than 5%. The vast majority of the content, 95%, is what people need to do their job. That means the initiative comes from the individual, and that is really crucial. When learning is initiated by the worker, they are motivated, and you don't have that issue.

Now, you also touch on social learning theories in the context of situated workplace learning. How do you see the importance of associates using their own experiences as a basis for learning fitting into these theories?

Yeah. There's a whole range of social learning theories, and many prove that learning based on experience is the most effective way to learn—like the 70-20-10 approach, which says that 10 percent is formal learning. Everything you learn from kindergarten to university, as well as all face‑to‑face training, adds up to maybe 10 percent of what you need to know to be a sufficient and efficient worker. Then, 20 percent is learned from peers by collaborating, and 70 percent is learned by doing.
This simple model indicates that experience is the most important foundation for learning. You also have what I think is a really cool theory—the five moments of learning need. When you're new to something, it's fine to go into training mode, attend a classroom session, and absorb extra information. But when you're working, you don't want to stop and go into a classroom or a learning management system. You just want to find the answer, implement it, and continue working. That's a really different mindset.

Great. And that leads us into the next question: it's also important for associates to practice what they've learned. I'm curious—how does EGL, especially in large enterprises, ensure that employees get ample opportunities to practice and overlearn?

Yeah. EGL is really about who creates the content. If you look at the future of learning, traditional learning management systems and learning experience platforms are becoming outdated. What you need is information at your fingertips—and technology is increasingly making that possible.
The knowledge part becomes less important because you can find knowledge within seconds if you need it. What really matters is that you have the skills, and for that, you need to train on the job. You need to practice. You don't become a great salesperson by just reading a book or taking a course, though that might provide a foundation.
You can do role plays to practice, but to be a great salesperson, you have to sell a thousand times—you have to practice, experience failure, learn from it, and get better while understanding all the small details. I think practice is even more important than learning. People who do practice without any education will probably get further along than people who do just learning and no practice.

(Interesting. And maybe I'll push back on that just a bit.) One of my undergrad degrees is in music, and I remember one of my professors often challenging the saying "practice makes perfect." They'd say, "practice makes permanent." The idea was that if you practice something the wrong way, you're just reinforcing it.
I can imagine that if sales associates practice over and over without any formal tools or education, they might end up reinforcing bad sales habits that hinder their progress.

No, I agree with that. When you're a new salesperson, formal training with the required rules and models is taught to make you competent, and you need to practice them. But it also connects to the fact that you can't become an accomplished worker without proper guidance. You do need a mentor—somebody who listens in on your conversations, gives you tips and tricks, and tells you, "Wait a minute, you're doing this, but you shouldn't do that." You need three things: a theoretical foundation, practice through trial and error, and a coach who tells you where you're failing and how to improve.

That leads us directly into our next question: how does the EGL model facilitate feedback, especially in a democratized learning environment? Are there specific tools or strategies that you recommend to ensure constructive feedback in an EGL setting?

Yeah, absolutely. It starts with the creation of the content—because creating learning content isn’t done by one person; it's a group effort. Often, experts on a certain topic work together to create a course. Once something is created, you need feedback on it. Your peers are asked if it’s correct and if it can be improved. Feedback for the learner also comes from coworkers and mentors, and data can be used for that purpose.
We used to have a way to track and trace learning results called SCORM, which is really old‑school and outdated. Now we have a new system called XAPI—an open way to track and trace learning results (X stands for experience). It's not just about checking whether you succeeded in your course; it can track and trace what and how you're learning. You get a result database called the Learning Record Store. Many companies now upload that information and combine it with performance data—productivity, success rates, and so on—to compare your learning effort with your job performance. Technology, as well as people, plays a role in that feedback loop.

Now, I want to discuss two potential pitfalls. The first is the quality of the teaching. I've attended several employee-generated learning sessions—and if any of my colleagues are listening, I'm not talking about yours—where, even if the content is solid, the person delivering it hasn't been trained in any teaching methods. They’re only doing this occasionally, so their presentation skills might not be up to par, which can really hold back the learning process. Can you share your thoughts on this pitfall and how you address it?

Yeah. I think it's the most common objection we hear from learning managers.
What if the quality is really bad? It's not about the quality of subject matter experts (SMEs) per se—you can have reviews to check that—but it's about the didactical quality of the learning content. There are a couple of things we can add. For example, at EasyGenerator, we have a support tool built into our platform so you can ask questions on how to do things. We are, step by step, building that capability into the software.
If you think about it, even if instructional design and didactics can be complex, it's much simpler to build a tool with instructional design knowledge to help an SME shape their content than to teach an instructional designer how the business works. For example, we have something we call the Learning Objective Maker—based on Bloom's taxonomy (though the author might not even know that). We ask a series of questions before they start, then help them generate a course outline. We ask the author to come up with examples of what people will actually learn and what behaviors they will show, and then determine what kind of content is needed.
We’re adding artificial intelligence to provide even more support. Combining software capabilities with our view on good learning, you get a really robust support environment. That is half of the equation; the other half is the quality required.

An example: 20 or 25 years ago, creating a video for learning was extremely expensive—you needed a whole crew, cameras, directors, actors, scripts, etc. Now, thanks to platforms like YouTube, it's effective to just use your phone to shoot a video on the job for learning content. The quality might be lower, but it's still really effective—and sometimes even more effective. So the question is, what kind of quality do you need?

Great. Thank you for that. Now, another potential pitfall that comes to mind—and this goes back to what you were saying initially—is that one of the downfalls of the traditional method is that you end up with a lot of outdated course content. In my experience, I've seen that with employee-generated learning as well. When the learning is generated by engineers, for example, their main job is generating profit for the company—getting the next project, the next product developed—and creating course content is almost always an afterthought. The result is decades' worth of very old training that we still use because nobody has had time to create new, updated training.

Yeah. I think that if you are doing something like employee-generated learning and making employees responsible for sharing their knowledge, it's part of a change in the learning culture. People need to feel—or be made—responsible for it. For example, we have a large hospital with around 20,000 people, and the doctors and nurses are creating a large part of the learning content. They found that these courses perform way better than those created by the L&D department because people trust their peers.
They see higher completion rates and success rates, and it's easier to create a feedback loop because it's clear which employee or group created the content. That acts as quality assurance—when their name is attached, they want to be seen as the expert, not the failure. If something is outdated or incorrect, it gets corrected quickly.

Let me just summarize what I'm hearing about the pitfalls. The word I would use is "intentional." If employee-generated learning is left solely to the organic process of people sharing knowledge, you'll end up with problems like varying quality and outdated courses. But if the L&D department and company culture are designed around employee-generated learning as a core value, those issues can be smoothed out.

Yeah. Maybe I can give a different example. I'm living in the countryside with a pretty big garden—vegetable gardens, a greenhouse, fruit trees, all that. If I didn't like gardening, someone would have to remind me to pull the weeds because my garden is growing and my vegetables are ready. I work in my garden every day because I love it. There's no need for reminders; it's second nature—just like working.
Knowledge sharing needs to become second nature. I started out as a teacher, and I only taught adults because kids are hard to motivate. It's challenging to teach them stuff that doesn't connect with what they're thinking or believing. I truly believe proper learning only happens when you're motivated to learn—when it's second nature.

Now, you mentioned artificial intelligence earlier. As you look ahead, how do you envision the future of employee-generated learning, especially with technologies like AI?

Yeah. I think today a lot of companies are changing the way they create learning content. Another trend we see with many larger customers is that they simply don't have the capacity to create all the learning that's requested. Often, learning requests are very specific—"Can you create a course for this specific group on that specific topic?" The impact of such learning is so small that there's no return on investment for creating it.
So the second use case for employee-generated learning that we see growing fast is those small, specific courses for a particular country or group of experts that L&D just can't create. We have customers where thousands of people are creating courses, and with that, you capture a large part of the company's knowledge.
With AI, it becomes possible to make that knowledge available. There's a quote from Louis Platt, a former CEO of HP: "If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive." That is so true and powerful because if someone in your company has a question, probably someone else has the answer—but that information is stored in their brain. What we want to do is expand that database with all the learning and performance support content into what we call a corporate brain. You can do this by uploading documents, and AI can play a huge role.
A corporate brain serves a couple of functions. First, it aids in knowledge retention—especially as more people leave companies these days. Second, if you've experienced ChatGPT, you know the difference between an old‑school search engine and ChatGPT: with a search engine, you type a question, get a link, and have to read through to find your answer; with ChatGPT, you type a question and get the answer immediately. I think learning will follow a similar model. Instead of traditional learning management systems that work like Google, imagine an AI‑prompt interface on your corporate brain: you type in your question or problem, get an instant answer or solution, and continue with your work. This shift means we no longer have to teach knowledge—it becomes about finding and applying it. That's a really big change.

Great. Well, this was a fascinating conversation. Thank you for joining us before we sign off. Can you tell our listeners how they can find you and your work?

Yeah. They can, of course, read the book Employee‑Generated Learning, published by Kogan Page. I also speak at many conferences, and you can visit our corporate website at easygenerator.com, where we have a lot of articles, information, and white papers explaining the employee‑generated learning approach.

Great. Well, thank you very much—I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, Travis.

Thank you.

So what do you think? Does employee‑generated learning hit all four of the additional conditions for learning that we talked about? Personally, I think it does very well. You've got an emphasis on the why—why is this content or topic important? People inherently use their own experiences as a basis for learning in EGL. Practice is facilitated because the learning happens much closer to the actual work being done. And lastly, there's a focus on feedback, both for the learner and the instructional designer.

This week, take some time to review the values in your organization or team. Is learning—especially knowledge sharing among employees—an integral, valued, even mandatory part of the culture?

With that, thank you for joining me on another episode of the Management Theory Toolbox. Stay tuned until next time when we discuss training, productivity, and technology. Until then, keep learning, keep growing, and keep adding to your management toolbox.