How Strong is Your Organisation’s Learning Culture?
Learning culture refers to the development of such an environment that encourages the employees to develop relevant knowledge that can help them enhance their competence in the market. The learning culture is developed through a series of events, organisational conventions, processes, and values that can promote the idea of continuous learning and improvement in the company.
Under the learning culture with your organisation, the system to influence each other is followed. The intellectual growth and development in skills of each employee are the key concept of the learning culture through which not only the employee grows as an individual, but also helps to push the organisation towards progress.
The successful examples of an adaptive and healthy learning culture can be seen in various top-notch companies. Giants such as Google follow the policy of continuous innovation. Not only it helps them bring better and more updated products and services, but it has also established them as a company with the most positive environment for the employees.
Culture of learning does not only mean that your employees build a skillset. It also refers to adoption to change that is undergoing in the market. Through a culture of learning, the organisations can ensure that they improve employees as their assets. Thus, the employees, and in turn, the company itself, remains updated with the current developments and trends followed in their industry. Such a practice helps the company to stay ahead in the market.
Why is a Well-Developed Learning Culture Essential for Your Company?
By providing ample learning opportunities and resources to your employees, you can kickstart a healthy learning culture at your company. Here are the most prominent benefits that you can get from the development of a learning culture.
Competitive Advantage
The marketplace offers tough competition with continuous technological advancement and the ever-changing demands of the consumers. The companies need to ensure that they stay updated regarding the industry-related technology as well as the preferences of customers. By implementing the practice of learning and improving continuously, the organisation can gain a significant competitive advantage.
While creating learning culture, you can create a team of employees that embrace quick learning and are flexible workers. It also enables the employees to develop new, innovative ideas that can provide better solutions to the customers.
Better Employee Engagement
When your organisation becomes a place that supports a continuous learning cycle, it directly affects employee engagement. When the company invests in the improvement and development of the employee, the employees feel valued. New learning opportunities promote the employee to perform better at work.
Along with that, having a well-developed and multi-faceted learning culture can attract employees to your workplace who like to learn and develop continuously. It can help the company garner new and better skills and motivate other employees to develop better skills.
Better Productivity
Employees who are provided with a culture of learning are 32% more likely to be the first ones to introduce an innovation in the market. Along with that, they are 34% more likely to address the customers needs to satisfy them.
A learning culture with your company can create a pool of motivated employees who are continuously pursuing the path of improving their knowledge base and skillset. Such employees apply the best practices to achieve better results in their projects. It also encourages them to take responsibility to make the project they are working on a success.
What are the Essential Aspects that a Learning Culture Should Include?
While implementing practices and events that can promote the culture of learning at your workplace, one must make sure that it includes the following characteristics. Inclusion of these characteristics can ensure that your learning culture is strong and provides positive results.
Effective Communication
In a learning culture, communication can be one of the most essential skills required. Communication skills are not only essential to create a healthy relationship with other employees, it is the best way to satisfy the needs of the customers as well. During the learning culture training sessions, the communication skills should be focused on building trust among the customers, assess and understand the needs of the consumers, making effective telephonic conversations, creating, and using emails, and facing and resolving conflicts that occur within the organisation or with customers.
Systematic Approach
The learning culture should detail how the employees can develop a system to manage any of their responsibilities. The system should include all the steps that are required to make a project successful. Adopting a systematic approach to tackle any responsibility can ensure that better and more effective results are provided.
Collaboration
A successful learning culture can only be developed when it involves everyone’s collaboration. Everyone should have a defined role in the framework of the culture. With the collaboration of each employee in the learning process, the company will be able to gather more ideas while respecting and honouring the views of the employees as well.
Lifelong Learning
Any learning process should not be considered a one-time event. When developing a culture of learning, one should adopt the ideology of lifelong learning. Through continuous growth, the company will be able to focus on inculcating practical skills and knowledge. The employees, on the other hand, can apply these skills to real-life problems and record the feedback for further improvements.
Innovation
The leaders and employees should have a system through which they can self-evaluate and assess their present ideas and skills. Through the reassessment, they will be able to understand the limits that the current system has and how they can overcome these drawbacks to improve their skills and the successful results of the company. Along with that, re-evaluation will also help the employees to develop new theories that can provide them better results. Thus, it provides room for innovation and allows the employees to take risks. Such an ideology ensures continuous improvement of the organisation and its practices.
Updated Leadership
The leaders that guide and develop a healthy learning culture should be dedicated to the process. Their encouragement and enthusiasm are essential for the employees to be invested in the culture. The leaders must set an example to the other employees by adopting self-reflection, accepting challenges, and promoting innovation.
Employing new technologies such as live webinars, online discussions, blogs, social media, etc., while creating culture of learning can showcase that the leaders are well updated with the current trend and technology. It also provides a window for the employees to be actively engaged in the learning culture.
How to Determine the Strength and Efficiency of Your Learning Culture?
Once you have developed a culture of learning at your workplace, the process of its development and improvement should continue alongside the learning practices as well. The learning culture should be rewarding to the employees as well as the team for it to be effective. Gathering feedback from the employees can be a great way to assess whether the practices that are implemented for the learning culture reach their goal or not.
Here is a comprehensive questionnaire that can help you evaluate the learning culture at your workplace to ensure that it is aligned with the current needs of your employees and the trends followed in the market.
Questions to Assess the Views and Perception of the Employees towards the Learning Culture Practices
- What motivates you to learn at and for work?
- What form of learning or which methods you want to be employed in the learning culture at the workplace and which learning processes are currently being followed?
- Can you communicate with your leaders regarding your views about the learning culture?
- Which person has the most involvement in the creation and maintenance of the workplace learning methods?
- Do you feel that you are trusted by your managers and seniors to manage your own learning methods?
- Do you implement or share the information gained from the learning methods in real life often?
- Do you think that you and your employees learn from each other? If yes, then through which way or method?
- Do you engage in personal and self-paced learning on your own that is not included in the personal development plan created under the company’s learning culture? If yes, then how often?
- Which methods are the best and worst in the current learning culture?
Questions to Assess the Approach of the Company towards Culture of Learning
- Does the manager keep themselves updated with the process that the employees make throughout the processes of learning culture?
- How much input do you provide in the development and management of the learning culture?
- How much do you contact and discuss the culture of learning at work with your peers and employees at the Learning and Development Department?
- Does the manager provide detailed instructions regarding the expectations they have from an employee after completing any learning method?
- What are the challenges faced during the implementation and maintenance of the learning culture at the workplace?
- Do the leaders and managers understand how the development of the company and progress in the learning culture are connected?
Continuous feedback and uninterrupted communication with the employees are some of the most effective ways to ensure that the learning culture is continuously developed and improved. It is a practical way to assess the effectiveness of the methods employed under the learning culture and understand the needs and expectations of the employees.
Reassess your companies culture of learning based on these characteristics and questions. How strong will the learning methods be rated?
