Ask any organization about their most important asset, and you’ll likely hear the same response: their people. An engaged and skilled workforce is the foundation to business success, making employee experience, learning and satisfaction all top-of-mind priorities for business leaders.
With employees today viewing learning and development opportunities as a key benefit of their job — and willing to vote with their feet if those opportunities are not existent or meaningful —organizations must embrace and deliver on a culture of learning to attract and retain employees. The alternative is costly. Here are five ways to foster a learning culture in your organization.
Make learning a stated company value. To successfully foster a learning culture, it must be embedded in all areas of the organization. Employees need to feel that leadership actively encourages them to seek out new ways to grow and provides them with the opportunities to do so. This means that buy-in and modeling behavior starts at the executive level.
Business leaders should consider listing learning among their organizations’ core values. By making it a pillar of what the organization stands for, they demonstrate how integral both growth and development are for day-to-day operations and long-term success. Including learning as a stated company value ensures that when decisions are made, investments in L&D will not be an afterthought or seen as dispensable.
Personalize L&D initiatives. Each of your employees has a unique set of skills, knowledge and experience that contribute to the overall success of your organization, as well as their own ambitions. The L&D programs they pursue must reflect different starting places and different trajectories. As such, L&D initiatives need to embrace a culture of learning that isn’t always one-size-fits-all. Some training leads to preparing for new responsibilities that meet the company’s needs, while others will inevitably lead people to opportunities outside the organization. In either scenario, investments in learning for incumbent workers lead to longer retention, higher productivity and customer happiness, so companies should be eager to commit.
Continually and consistently measure outcomes. Implementing L&D programs without measuring their outcomes is like a proverbial tree falling in a quiet forest. One effective and highly strategic way to track outcomes is by using a common language for skills across all learning experiences. Many organizations are now ensuring the completion of every learning experience is tagged with a consistent skill taxonomy and other contextual data like competency level, connection to industry standards or the assessment type employed.
Using a consistent framework for describing the skills and knowledge acquired pays dividends when tracking impact. Consistent data provides valuable insight for making better and more strategic human capital decisions. And with full visibility into your talent pool, there is potential for people to move to new roles that better align with their skills and help their career trajectory.
Recognize employees for their achievements. It’s human nature to want to be acknowledged for our hard work and meaningful accomplishments. Adding a recognition element to your L&D strategy amplifies the importance that your organization places on growth and makes your employees feel valued when they reach new milestones. Acknowledgment can take many forms. On the informal end of the spectrum are shoutouts at team and company meetings, but recognition programs can also be more official, structured and closely aligned with your organization’s learning programs and company values.
One of the most impactful ways to consistently recognize employees is to offer portable digital credentials that assert their accomplishments and skills, for both internal and external stakeholders. When an employee completes a course or program, a digital credential showcases the validation of their new knowledge and abilities. Earned credentials act like currency, helping connect each person to the right professional opportunities and projects. They even help reduce attrition, boost sales and increase employee engagement.
Make sure feedback is a two-way street. Feedback is a gift, which should be shared generously, across all industries and roles. And meaningful and constructive feedback fosters a culture of learning. Many realize that feedback is a tool to help employees improve and develop, but in an organization that values learning, feedback is a two-way street that also helps the overall culture improve as well.
Employees must feel empowered to offer feedback to executives and managers as freely as they would their peers. When learning is embedded in the company culture, everyone understands there is always an opportunity and an expectation to improve. Business leaders should establish an environment where feedback is welcome by setting aside time to connect with all employees and have candid conversations that uncover areas for improvement within the organization.
If you want to nurture employees’ thirst for knowledge, start by making learning a core focus for your organization. Ensure your employees have the tools and resources they need to jumpstart their development and reinforce their achievements with recognition where it’s due. By placing importance on growth at all levels of the organization, you can successfully foster a learning culture that serves your people and helps your business grow.
