Does your business foster a learning culture? Have you considered how to develop your employees to drive your business forward?
Covid has accelerated the digital revolution and transformed the way we work. Companies have learned to adapt quickly and embrace new technologies.
In this blog post, we look at the 6 key steps you need to take to create a culture of learning in your business.
What is a culture of learning?
A culture of learning doesn't mean just providing employees with lots of random training opportunities.
A properly developed learning culture instils a “growth mindset” within the company, whereby employees not only want to apply their own learning but are equally excited to share their knowledge with others.
What are the benefits of a culture of learning?
A culture of learning helps employees understand the core values of a company. It’s a key factor in improving business processes and driving innovation. Resulting in:
Increased employee engagement and lower staff turnover
Increased employee motivation and productivity
Better candidate attraction
Better customer service
Increased sales
Better innovation, problem solving and initiative
As you can see, the benefits are undeniable, and a great learning and development strategy can undoubtedly give you a competitive edge. However, it's essential that your employees are as excited about learning and development as you are. So, here are our top tips, that you can implement immediately to create a culture of learning.
How to build a true learning culture
Workplace culture is shaped by the actions of your leadership team. It’s made up of your existing learning and development programs, and the perception of company values, practices, and beliefs.
"the way we do things around here” - Balogun and Johnson
It’s not something that can be changed overnight. Let's take a look at 6 key steps
1. Develop mutual engagement
The wealth of opportunities for both formal and informal learning are at an all-time high, with podcasts, blogs, online courses, video tutorials being freely available to all. So, it’s important that both leadership teams and employees are active participants in the process.
By defining a clear vision and strategic direction for workplace culture, leaders can harness employee’s interests and career goals, and align these to the company needs.
When defining learning as a core value, it means your company is making a commitment to provide all necessary resources to support employee Learning and Development.
Set a precedent from the very start that a culture of learning is essential to your business. Promote this culture from the very grass roots. Talk about your training programs in interviews with candidates, it’s a great way to learn about the growth mindset of any future employee.
2. Create learner-driven experiences
Have you ever had to participate in a training course or conference just because you were told to? If you want your employees' buy-in, you need to speak to them.
If you understand how your employees want to progress their careers, then you can match their training goals to your business goals and address any skills gaps.
For example:
Is there any specific training an employee would like to do, or needs to do to further their careers?
Gain an understanding of how they would prefer to learn.
Would you could consider giving each employee a training budget, so they feel empowered to take responsibility for their own learning.
3. Consider personalised career coaching
Career coaching is a great way to create awareness, generate action, and facilitate growth. Focussing on improving performance, by helping individuals to develop and sustain new perspectives, skills, and behaviours.
You can explore different actions or shift perspectives to understand what the best solution in a situation would be, and to understand the changes that would be seen.
Coaching helps individuals to look at how they can hold themselves accountable for the goals they have set and what support they need to do this.
4. Make training accessible
Previously with all staff in the office, it was relatively easy to organise training days, or to hold mini-training sessions throughout the day; however, if you have some staff members that work off-site, make sure they have the same access to training as everyone else.
Supportive Solutions offer a range of learning options to ensure accessibility for all. We provide face-to-face training, virtual classrooms. Our eLearning platforms can help your employees feel a sense of responsibility for their own learning as well as being accessible from anywhere at any time.
5. Promote learning as a habit
Learning and development shouldn't be seen as a tick box exercise. It should be seen as part of the daily routine.
"The most effective, successful professionals are constantly learning, they take the time to apply what they have learned, and they continually work to improve themselves." – Joel Gardner
Encourage knowledge sharing, both formally and informally. Ensure adequate provision of relevant well-curated materials. Socialise learning, allow people to see what their peers are learning, encourage recommendations. Provide rewards for learning, this could be by publicly recognise learner’s successes or offering financial incentives.
6. Measure progress
It’s important to evaluate the training programs put in place to understand what’s working, and what can be done to further improve and develop a true training culture.
Your approach to evaluation should reflect the evolving dynamic between leadership and employees to develop collaborative partnerships between all stakeholders.
Supportive Solutions’ Approach
Undoubtedly, a robust learning and development strategy will ensure you benefit from a more productive, motivated, innovative business that keeps you ahead of the competition. However, to do it well, you need to actively create a culture of learning and encourage each employee to take responsibility for their own learning.
Contact us to discuss how we can help you build a learning culture in your organisation.
