Google is using its success as a world-leading content provider to constantly improve its internal learning and development provisions, the company’s global head of learning technologies has said.

Sudhir Giri told delegates at the Charity Learning Consortium conference yesterday: “We are inspired by what the world is doing – we are trying to take what we’ve seen our products do and create that same sort of feeling within Google itself.”

Google’s search engine now processes one billion searches daily, while 48 hours of content is uploaded to Google-owned YouTube every minute – a platform Giri described as “a phenomenal learning resource”.

Giri told the London attendees that the company – whose workforce now numbers more than 20,000 across 30 countries – was keen to emulate this type of content generation and knowledge sharing across it internal learning platforms.

Google’s goal was to improve its L&D search infrastructure and encourage collaboration, connectivity and content creation among staff, he said.

“We have a great starting point at Google – we have the culture and attitude that breeds innovation,” he told delegates. “Out talent philosophy is if you give people freedom, they will amaze you.”

He explained that the organisation had implemented several strategies based on this principle, including the ‘20 per cent time’ rule – where employees have the equivalent of one day per week to develop Google projects they feel passionate about. This initiative has spawned both Google News and Google Ocean, part of Google Earth.

The L&D team were also able to give support to “anyone to teach a topic of their choice”, so the company “could tap into” staff expertise, said Giri. The organisation now has 300 ‘Gtrainers’, who last month provided 25 courses to other members of staff, known as ‘Googlers’.

An internal Gwhiz tool was developed so staff could connect with one another by searching for employees with relevant expertise. The platform relied on social tagging, although staff could amend their personal profiles and areas of experience, as well as offer themselves as informal mentors, he continued.

Google has also invested in dedicated learning media studios, where films can be shot and produced for uploading to ‘G2G TV’, to be viewed, rated and commented on by other employees.

“If only a few people get excited about it in the company, then that’s enough”, Giri told delegates, when advising how a small number of early adopters or champions could have a successful wider impact.

Giri was delivering his keynote speech yesterday at the first conference hosted by the Charity Learning Consortium – a group of 100 charities who are collaborating to make e-learning more affordable for their organisations through collective procurement and resource sharing.