Ongoing staff education is the lifeblood of any business, particularly in a competitive industry such as property management. The acquisition of new knowledge and skills makes your employees an even more valuable asset and can help position your firm as an industry front-runner. One of the most effective ways to help your team learn and grow is through social engagement. Here are five ways to integrate social into your training strategy.

Establish Learning Groups

When students support each other in their learning, everyone benefits. This is why upper-tier universities and post-graduate degree students frequently leverage study groups. You can create learning groups based on a variety of factors, such as roles, peers or regions. Each group should also have at least one person in leadership who can jump in to encourage members and lend his or her own expertise into the mix.

Encourage Learning Circles

Similar to learning groups, there’s also a social engagement strategy known as learning circles. These enable participants to gain transparency into what others are learning, how they’re progressing and how they personally measure up on a daily or weekly basis. By drawing a comparison to their peers, employees will gain more motivation to push themselves further and ultimately excel in their own learning initiatives.

Promote Mentorship

For the majority of employees in your property management company, there is someone higher up the food chain whose experience and knowledge can be instrumental in acquiring new skills. By promoting mentorship, you can establish and foster these highly beneficial relationships. Keep in mind, a mentorship program doesn’t have to exist within the same office, either. If you’ve got multiple locations or are a remote team, the Internet can become the perfect conduit for these connections.

Start a Book Club

It may sound cliché, but reading circles can do wonders, not only for imparting new knowledge on participants by encouraging critical thinking, but also in building solidarity amongst your team. Choose a new book on a quarterly or semi-annual basis that relates to your company’s core values or the property management industry as a whole. Host discussions, in person or online, and reward employees for their participation.

Hold Interactive Round-Tables

Another great way to inject more social engagement into your workplace learning is to host interactive round-table discussions. This can help to identify common challenges or sources of confusion that may need to be addressed. The subject matter of these discussions can cover anything from internal policies to customer service issues to compliance and property management industry trends. Again, these meetings can be held in-person or online.

Continuing education can work wonders for keeping your staff motivated and performing at their highest level, and social engagement is a great tool for driving those learning initiatives. Start with the list above and then take some time to brainstorm other ideas for how you could use social to make your property management training more impactful.