U.S. companies spent over $100 billion on training and employee development efforts in 2022, but many organizations continue to fall short on their training efforts. In a previous post, we explained what a culture of learning is and how it can help organizations make the most of their learning and development training investments. In this post, we’ll discuss some basic tips and strategies for creating this type of culture.
Careful and Thoughtful Planning
Any corporate culture change requires careful planning and thoughtful implementation. Too many organizations have grandiose visions of widespread cultural change but don’t appreciate the size and complexity of such efforts.
The first step in the process is appreciating the magnitude of the challenge and planning accordingly. It’s important to set clear objectives for building a culture of learning and articulate what success looks like and what metrics can be used to track that success.
Cultivating Organizational Buy-In
Any cultural change should be a team effort and involve different stakeholders from across the organization, such as management, HR, and employees.
This is important for a couple of reasons.
For one, groups that feel left out of the process will feel like the new culture is being imposed on them and may be less willing to participate in the change, even if it benefits them. Second, companies can miss out on a huge amount of useful stakeholder feedback if they fail to engage all stakeholders early in the process.
Building an Arsenal of Learning
One of the keys to a successful culture of learning is making a wide variety of learning resources in multiple formats readily available to trainees. This includes access to live, in-person training sessions; interactive webinars; on-demand lectures; and self-guided, interactive training exercises.
In addition, companies should offer access to mentorship opportunities and ample feedback on employee performance. Creating an environment that is supportive and that encourages learning can also be beneficial to employee morale and productivity.
Creating a culture of learning in the workplace is essential for employee learning and development, as it can help foster creativity, collaboration, and communication within an organization. By empowering staff to drive their own training plans, a culture of learning also encourages employees to take ownership of their work, ultimately leading to better performance and more successful outcomes.
By building a culture of learning, organizations make an investment in their employees—one that pays off for both the company and its employees. Organizations that adopt a culture of learning will find it leads to increased employee engagement, improved performance, and higher success rates.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.