A learning culture is practiced to inspire, motivate and support employees; it also gives them the ability to gain new skills.
The responsibility of driving the culture of learning lies with both the employee and employer. Employees must recognise that improving themselves regularly by gaining new knowledge is a pre-requisite for improved performance in their workplace.
A key essential to organisational growth is for employers to provide opportunities for employees to learn. Companies should have a formal mentoring programme, job rotation, and job shadowing; these opportunities must be among their priorities. They should also use learning as a means of staff retention.
To successfully drive the learning culture in your organisation, you should implement the following:
Establish correlation between learning and achieving business objectives: It should be made known to members of staff that continuous learning and development is required to achieve business objectives and desired performance at work. Learning, achieving, and assessment are the three parts of a successful plan. Find out the major components of your learning programme, implement them, and assess them to measure performance. Learning is not a one-off thing, it should be daily and continuous — a core part of the company’s culture.
Provide modern content: For a youthful workforce, it is necessary to provide modern content they can relate to easily so they do not get bored and lose interest. Instead of using bulky paperbacks, learning resources like Youtube, audiobooks, and eBooks would be more appropriate for this category of people. The learning plans should be flexible and personalised to suit each employee’s preference and schedule. Doing these will encourage and inspire them because it shows their interests are being taken in to consideration.
Sustainment is important: The main aim of instituting a learning culture is to make employees better equipped to grow the company. It would, therefore, be a waste of time and resources if all that is learnt is not implemented. Make sure employees are able to apply what they learn on the job. Once the correlation between learning and achieving business objectives is established, heads of departments/managers should assess if the learning aligns with performance. Measurement should also be carried out to evaluate any changes and improvement. Impromptu assessments should be carried out frequently to ensure the newfound knowledge is retained and not forgotten. Employees need consistent opportunities to build on the skills and knowledge they have garnered after any training is over. Setting up assessments and study groups after training can help employees retain what they have learnt, thereby increasing their engagement and productivity.
Investing in your employees’ future by providing learning opportunities will set the stage for the company’s long-term success.
