In 2024, obtaining professional development through one’s employer has never been more important for many employees. Workers desire various learning opportunities, including in-house training, training at off-site facilities, or institutional education programs. Employers who provide these opportunities and encourage a learning culture in the workplace typically find that their employees are more likely to remain engaged with the work, and their retention rates go up. Finding learning culture examples worth emulating can grant you these same benefits.
The world of work has seen several disruptions in recent years. One of the most disruptive factors of all is technology. Workers who are in the process of continuously learning are better able to compete and lead as technologies change. Having engaged and capable workers also provides companies with a competitive edge, a growth mindset, and fertile ground for innovation. What is a learning culture in the workplace, and how do you foster it?
Consider these seven learning culture examples and see which ones you can mirror in your own organization.
1. Create a strategy for learning
Instituting a training and development program is not something that you simply do. There is a lot of planning and preparation that goes into it. As explained in an article published on MIT Open Learning, buy-in from all levels of leadership is crucial to developing such a program, as it builds cohesion and unity in values and beliefs, and leaders can support learners and help them understand the benefits of these opportunities. Employees should also stay involved in the planning for corporate learning. Encourage them to share their ideas on the types of topics that should be included in training.
Some of the common steps in most learning culture examples to planning for your eLearning employee training program include:
- Evaluating your resources
- Setting a timeline
- Building your LMS implementation team
- Conducting a soft launch
A soft launch will allow you to test the system on fewer individuals and obtain feedback before rolling out the program to the entire organization.
In addition to developing a strategy for the learning program, it is important to set the tone for the learning culture right from the start. As noted in the article, Luke Hobson, the Senior Instructional Designer and Program Manager for MIT xPRO, says the culture of learning should be a subject brought up in interviews when hiring workers. Then, the notion that the employees will play an active role in their own professional growth, as well as the growth of the company, is clear from the start.
It is important to understand that an effective learning culture isn’t a hard sell. A recent HR Trend Report noted that 94 percent of employees would be more likely to stay at a company longer when it offers learning opportunities and the ability to reskill. In fact, surveyed employees rate professional development as a higher priority than health and wellness programs in terms of the benefits they receive from their employment.
2. Place value on learning
Not only do most employees expect to be provided with professional development opportunities, the HR Trend Report noted, but they also want something for their time and effort. As we previously reported in Learning Culture Magazine, Kiehl’s Since 1851 found that engagement in their training sessions improved significantly when they created their advanced certification course for skincare expertise. The certification allowed learners to see the fruits of their labor. Additionally, the company provides physical rewards through its Sustainable Rewards Store when team members complete training or for other achievements.
3. Make it easy to access learning opportunities
As the LinkedIn Talent Blog reported, learning should be an important part of a worker’s performance evaluation. When learners can receive the information they need and demonstrate that they know it by applying it to their jobs, it should be celebrated. When a worker learns a new skill and demonstrates proficiency at it, they should also have the opportunity to teach it to their peers. This creates a collaborative culture of learning.
4. Make learning a shared experience
The best learning culture examples provide unique and customizable experiences. Consider factors such as the workers’ preferred learning style, job position, and career goals. But, while learning should be individualized, it should also be shared. With an LMS like Docebo, workers can access training material directly in Microsoft Teams, allowing for social and collaboration functions and knowledge-sharing capabilities across chats and channels.
Learners can also have the opportunity to:
- Suggest new training topics
- Mentor coworkers
- Help provide the information included in those training sessions
Keeping workers involved in their own learning and the state of learning across the organization fosters new ideas and cohesiveness among work teams.
5. Prioritize continuous learning
As the American Society for Quality (ASQ) explains, “continuous improvement” involves incremental breakthroughs in products, services, or processes. It can also apply to learning and should be a shared value across the organization.
A learning management system like Docebo can help ensure that continuous learning and growth are part of your company’s culture and learning initiatives from the onboarding process through the completion of the training module or certification course. By providing micro-learning tasks with topics developed by your team and adding new tasks over time, the process of upskilling is not only easy, with only ten minutes or so required to complete many of the tasks, but it is also continuous.
6. Ideas are encouraged and embraced
Have you asked your new hires where they envision themselves in a few years? Have you taken the time to learn what they want to know about the company or their job? Do they think the company has a strong learning culture? Are they satisfied with the training they have received, and are there learning culture examples that do it better? To know the answer to these questions, you have to ask them. The LMS is one place where asking questions and receiving the answers can be easy. It offers an opportunity to compose a survey and solicit input.
Planning your employee learning program, implementing new training modules, and determining incentives and other particulars require ideas not only from management but also from employees. Even customer input can be considered when determining learning strategies to help your business grow and improve.
The information your employees provide through surveys in the LMS, one-on-one conversations with management, and other means can be another piece of the puzzle of providing training that increases worker satisfaction, which leads to employee retention and improved productivity.
7. Structure learning as a part of growing
When a workplace has a strong learning culture as one of its core values, knowledge is embraced as a part of growth. There is no status quo answer: “That’s how we’ve always done it.” Instead, there is an attitude: “How can we do it better?” The learning process includes:
- Formal learning opportunities through the LMS
- Hands-on training for new employees
- Other opportunities your organization offers for workers seeking to acquire new knowledge
Evaluating the progress and success of your learning program is a crucial part of building a learning culture. Only slightly more than a quarter of all learning culture examples have a framework for measuring learning success, which means many companies that provide a learning management system cannot accurately determine how successful their program is. To develop this necessary framework, business leaders must:
Set the right goals
What is the purpose of the learning experience? Are you focused on having your workers learn new skill sets and competencies or become more engaged? Are you attempting to spur more innovation among your team? What do your workers want from their training?
Use data
Determine the data needed to determine whether those goals are met and the metrics used to interpret the data. Docebo lets you have the data you need right at your fingertips.
Analyze learning performance
It isn’t enough to have the data. You must also be able to analyze the information over time to understand trends in how workers use the program and the benefits the company is experiencing because of it. Has your retention rate been positively impacted by the learning resources you provide? Have employees reported satisfaction with the control they have over professional development? Have they been able to become more productive at their jobs? The data provided by your LMS enables you to answer these questions.
Show your leaders, partners, and employees success
Carefully evaluate learning culture examples. Once you know what you’re looking for in the program, the data you need to evaluate your success, and the ability to analyze it, it is important to share the results with your team. This helps stakeholders understand the program’s value. It also helps with buy-in and the continuation of ideas and innovation, even in the realm of upskilling.
Harness the power of limitless learning
The success of a business often relies on the skills and productivity of the employees. So, having a learning culture in the workplace is extremely important to increasing employee engagement. Docebo helps organizations by providing scalable, hyper-personalized learning to their workers. These efforts can boost retention and engagement. Ensure access to a learning environment that helps them build the skill sets they need to grow in their careers. Book a demo to see Docebo in action with clear learning culture examples before building your own L&D programs.