How eLearning Platforms Turn Tacit Knowledge into Tangible Value
- LMSPortals
- May 4
- 6 min read
In today’s knowledge-driven economy, information is everywhere, but insight is rare. Companies increasingly realize their most valuable assets aren’t just the systems they use, but the people who know how to use them. The challenge is that much of what people know — especially the seasoned professionals — is tacit knowledge: the skills, insights, and judgment gained through experience that are hard to explain, let alone codify.
This is where eLearning platforms come in. They’re not just digital classrooms. At their best, they’re systems that capture, scale, and convert tacit knowledge into real, measurable value for organizations.
What Is Tacit Knowledge — And Why It Matters
Tacit knowledge is what people just know without necessarily being able to explain how they know it. It’s intuition, muscle memory, instinct developed over time. Think of a master carpenter adjusting a joint by feel, or a nurse recognizing a problem before machines detect it.
In business, tacit knowledge includes things like:
How to close a deal in a specific market
How to calm a difficult client
How to troubleshoot a process in a way that’s never written down
Unlike explicit knowledge (manuals, PDFs, policies), tacit knowledge lives in people’s heads. If they leave or retire, it often walks out with them.
Why Organizations Struggle to Harness Tacit Knowledge
Capturing tacit knowledge isn’t easy for a few reasons:
It’s hard to articulate. Many experts don’t realize what they know or how they know it.
It’s context-dependent. Tacit knowledge often only makes sense in real-life scenarios.
It takes time and trust. People don’t always share what they know unless they’re encouraged and supported to do so.
Traditional training methods often fail here. Workshops and manuals don’t capture nuance. Mentorship works but doesn’t scale. This is where modern eLearning platforms can play a transformative role.
The Role of eLearning Platforms in Making the Intangible Tangible
Modern eLearning platforms do more than deliver content. They offer dynamic, interactive environments that can extract and scale deep expertise. Here’s how.
1. Microlearning Captures Insights in Real-Time
Microlearning — short, focused learning bursts — allows experts to share small, actionable pieces of knowledge without writing entire courses. For example, a sales director might record a 3-minute tip on handling a common objection, directly from their phone. That clip can then be indexed, shared, and reused across teams.
This turns everyday experience into reusable assets, gradually building a living library of real-world wisdom.
2. Social Learning Mimics Real Workflows
Top eLearning platforms now include community features: discussion boards, video threads, peer reviews, and reactions. These mimic how people actually learn at work — by observing others, asking questions, and getting quick feedback.
For example, junior engineers can post project questions and get responses from more experienced colleagues. These interactions, once invisible, become searchable and persistent — a digital record of how people solve problems.
3. Scenario-Based Learning Builds Context
Simulations and branching scenarios let learners experience complex situations in a risk-free way. An HR manager might face a virtual dilemma around employee conflict. A nurse might walk through an emergency protocol. These experiences tap into tacit decision-making and let it be practiced and refined.
Better still, scenario paths can be built by actual employees — not just instructional designers — letting the people with lived experience shape the learning.
4. AI Helps Surface Hidden Expertise
AI features in eLearning platforms can now analyze user behavior, content interactions, and communication patterns to identify informal experts — the “go-to” people others rely on.
Once identified, these informal leaders can be prompted to share more — whether that’s through quick-recorded videos, tips, or contributing to course creation. AI can also help tag and connect relevant knowledge threads, building richer, interconnected insights.
Turning Knowledge into Measurable Value
Capturing tacit knowledge is only half the equation. The real payoff comes when that knowledge becomes tangible value for the business. Here's how eLearning helps make that happen.
1. Faster Onboarding and Shorter Ramps
When new employees have instant access to practical insights from experienced team members, they get up to speed faster. Instead of reading outdated manuals, they learn how things actually work — from the people doing it.
This reduces onboarding time, minimizes mistakes, and improves early productivity.
2. Consistent Quality Across Locations
In multi-site organizations, practices often vary wildly. A smart eLearning system can collect the most effective approaches from different teams and distribute them company-wide. This turns isolated excellence into standardized best practices.
For example, a customer service technique developed in one call center can be adopted globally within days.
3. Retention of Critical Knowledge
When older workers retire, they take decades of experience with them — unless it’s captured first. eLearning tools give them ways to record their tips, stories, and processes in digestible formats that can train others long after they're gone.
This isn't just about succession planning. It's about preserving institutional memory.
4. Upskilling and Internal Mobility
Tacit knowledge is also what helps people grow into new roles. By embedding internal expertise into learning paths, companies can help workers skill up for more complex or cross-functional roles — without needing external training providers.
This reduces turnover, supports career growth, and keeps talent pipelines strong.
Case Studies: How Companies Are Doing It
IBM: Cultivating Experts-as-Teachers
IBM’s “Think Academy” encourages experts to create and share learning modules based on their own experiences. These aren’t just polished presentations — they include informal tips, personal stories, and contextual insights.
The result? A global repository of practical knowledge created by the people who use it every day.
Nestlé: Peer-Led Learning Communities
Nestlé’s internal learning platform promotes peer-led learning, where employees contribute to courses and discussions. Instead of top-down training, employees across functions teach each other.
This approach helps unlock tacit knowledge that would never make it into a corporate training manual.
Microsoft: Leveraging AI for Learning Curation
Microsoft’s learning platform uses AI to suggest content and connections based on employee behavior. It spots patterns in how people learn, who they interact with, and what knowledge they access — then recommends learning pathways tailored to their needs.
This makes deep expertise more discoverable and encourages a culture of continuous learning.
Best Practices for Organizations
Want to harness tacit knowledge through eLearning? Here are five practical strategies:
1. Incentivize Knowledge Sharing
Make it easy and rewarding for employees to share what they know. Recognize contributors publicly, tie knowledge sharing to performance, or include it in promotion criteria.
2. Blend Formal and Informal Learning
Don’t rely solely on structured courses. Encourage quick tips, Q&A forums, user-generated content, and informal recordings. These lightweight formats often reveal the richest insights.
3. Empower Subject Matter Experts
Train internal experts not just to do, but to teach. Provide simple tools for them to record knowledge in video, audio, or quick-reference formats.
4. Create Feedback Loops
Use surveys, analytics, and discussion threads to see what content works, what’s missing, and how learners are applying what they learn.
5. Keep Knowledge Alive
Tacit knowledge isn’t static. Revisit content regularly. Let learners rate and comment on material. Encourage updates from the field. Make your learning ecosystem a living system.
Summary: The Real ROI of eLearning Is Wisdom, Not Just Content
The biggest value of eLearning platforms isn’t just cost savings or scalability — it’s the ability to capture the unspoken, experience-based insights that usually go unnoticed. When companies turn tacit knowledge into something that can be shared, learned, and built upon, they unlock a powerful source of competitive advantage.
In a world where knowledge workers are the backbone of business, the organizations that learn fastest — and share best — will win.
About LMS Portals
At LMS Portals, we provide our clients and partners with a mobile-responsive, SaaS-based, multi-tenant learning management system that allows you to launch a dedicated training environment (a portal) for each of your unique audiences.
The system includes built-in, SCORM-compliant rapid course development software that provides a drag and drop engine to enable most anyone to build engaging courses quickly and easily.
We also offer a complete library of ready-made courses, covering most every aspect of corporate training and employee development.
If you choose to, you can create Learning Paths to deliver courses in a logical progression and add structure to your training program. The system also supports Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) and provides tools for social learning.
Together, these features make LMS Portals the ideal SaaS-based eLearning platform for our clients and our Reseller partners.
Contact us today to get started or visit our Partner Program pages
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