How To Drive A Culture of Learning With Training
Recent research indicates that sustainable and successful cultures of learning stem from well-strategized training functions. Discover advice from practicing training professionals on how to build a culture of learning in your organization.
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The importance of learning within organizations across industries cannot be understated. No matter your employees’ level of expertise, there is always more to learn in order to keep your organization operating at its maximum capacity and your employees satisfied in their roles.
According to the 2019 L&D reports from the professional development search engines, findcourses.co.uk, learning and development (L&D) training has a demonstrable impact on employee satisfaction, retention rates, and the year-on-year financial growth of your business.
The report found that companies spending above average on training and developing their employees were twice as likely to have more satisfied employees. 42% of employees cited professional development as their most valuable perk. Whether you have an existing training function or are looking to build one from the bottom up, start your journey by building a culture of learning amongst employees and management to see your organization flourish.
Straightforward techniques like tying learning to internal promotion, emphasizing training for leaders to inspire change, and accountability across organizational hierarchies will encourage a culture of learning and increase your business’ success. Read on to discover how to make it happen!
Learn and Promote In-House
It’s not a necessarily intuitive connection, but by tying internal promotion to L&D companies are 22% more likely to report higher satisfied employees and higher retention rates. In a report from Training Journal, they found that by introducing opportunities for learning to employees from their first day on the job, they’ll be able to envision their own room for growth within your organization and be less likely turnover in their positions.
Creating a link between training and internal promotion (and making it explicit to all) will help employees understand that your organization values their development and that they can grow within the company by developing themselves personally and professionally.
Given that the cost of turnover has the potential to kill your business and lower employee morale, it comes as no surprise that companies with reported growth in the last year are three times more likely to report an increase in their L&D budgets.
A well-functioning L&D program that develops employees professionally and within their roles can reduce those turnover risks and keep morale high and productive.
Well-Trained Leaders Are Impactful Change Makers
While employees can and should take ownership of their own development, implementing a culture of learning needs to start from leaders in order to maximize its potential for change.
In the report, leadership and management training was the top priority for a whopping 41% of companies surveyed. The need for quality and well-trained leadership is clear. But what can well-trained leadership accomplish more specifically?
According to the 2019 L&D report from findcourses.com, companies with executives highly engaged in L&D were 3x more likely to say their company had a culture of innovation. Engaged leaders are more likely to inspire learning from the top down, and increase their organization’s capability to embrace new and innovative ideas.
No matter if you have multitudes of training options available to your employees if leadership isn’t involved in encouraging and promoting opportunities for learning, or participating in learning themselves – it will be harder for your employees to understand its value.
For leadership to create an effective and sustainable learning culture, training industry.com recommends that leaders should:
- Formalize training and development plans;
- Give recognition to learning;
- Get feedback;
- Promote from within; and
- Develop knowledge and information sharing into a formal process.
With a few straightforward and simple steps, you can use your position as a leader to create impactful change for your employees, that will really stick.
Accountability Across Organizational Hierarchies
Following trainingindustry.com’s example, formalizing your organization’s learning process as a leader is an important step in ensuring that your burgeoning culture of learning will stick.
Tying learning to internal promotion is one way to formalize learning, but the list doesn’t have to end there! Making training a requirement is a strategy to ensure that all employees will benefit from learning within your organization. If you’re going down that route, ensure that you make your training bespoke to your employees’ specific needs – to drive home the value of learning at work.
Be specific about the impact of what you’re hoping your employees will get from training endeavors at the outset, allowing employees to take ownership of their learning experience, and ensure accountability on all sides.
With employees engaged from the getgo, leadership encouraging a culture of learning from the top down, and processes in place to deliver tailored and impactful training across the board, everyone within your organization will be accountable for their own experience, with the tools and support they need to maximize their success.
