What is worse? Not receiving sufficient training for the role you have been hired for or realising that after a number of years working in an organisation, your knowledge and skills have not progressed?

Both indicate that an organisation has not taken the time to embed a culture that encourages, and provides access to, ongoing learning for all staff. Neither option gives employees an opportunity to seek mastery in the work they are doing and stifles their confidence and growth, which causes job satisfaction, productivity and motivation to swiftly decline.

What is a learning culture and why is it important to implement one?

A learning culture is one that embeds the pursuit of knowledge, skills and the application of learning for all employees into the organisation’s values, systems and processes.

The culture is full of people with a growth mindset. They have an individual and collective desire to learn, grow and develop and do so because they are in alignment with the shared vision of the organisation and the impact their continuous learning will have.

According to the global Employee Wellbeing Report by Glint, out of the top ten drivers of a great work culture 2020, learning was at the top [ranked #9 only two years prior]:

1. Opportunities to learn and grow

2. Belonging

3. Organisational values

4. Support for well-being

5. Collaboration

6. Change adaption

7. Initiative

8. Customer focus

9. Continuous improvement

10. Performance feedback

Your learning culture, or lack of one, impacts your entire business from profitability to productivity. In a learning workplace report by LinkedIn, it was revealed, employees who feel their skills are not being put to good use in their current job are 10x more likely to be looking for a new job, indicating that a lack of opportunities to learn and grow can impact employee retention and increase HR costs, where 80% of L&D professionals in the UK agree: It’s less expensive to reskill a current employee than to hire a new one.

A learning culture will enable your staff to feel engaged, motivated, empowered, trusted and confident enough to share what is or isn’t working within the organisation.

"The success you want to create in the world starts from the success you create in your mind."

Anthea Armar

Ultimately, your staff want opportunities to be better, share their newfound knowledge and create more success for the organisation, so why not give it to them? If having a strong learning culture is a key driver to becoming a high performing organisation, then it is critical to prioritise it.

How can you develop a learning culture in your workplace?

According to the Chartered Institute of People Development (CIPD) (2020) Creating learning cultures: assessing the evidence. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a learning culture is “one that embeds learning into how things are done at an individual, team and organisational level.”

Successfully embedding a learning culture in your organisation will be possible by addressing each of these areas separately. Use these three tips to start encouraging a growth mindset across all levels of your organisation:

1. Organisational learning

Review the systems and structures you currently have to support learning and knowledge management and understand whether these are communicated and easy to access. It will be important to change the narrative for both ‘mandatory training’ and ‘nice to have’ learning to one of continuous growth.

It will be important to understand the flow of learning within the organisation and whether there are appropriate feedback loops from individual and teams learning that are clearly documented and used for informed decision-making.

Bringing the appropriate stakeholders together for uniformity in the support of learning will encourage and empower teams to pursue and share knowledge in the workplace, with clear pathways for two-way communication about their implementation.

As part of Learning at Work Week, which aims to put a spotlight on the importance and benefits of continual learning and development, there are plenty of activities that can be utilised to build learning cultures at work.

2. Team learning

Managers will need to be responsible for ensuring their teams are offered the appropriate learning opportunities for role progression.

Providing clarity on formal and informal learning that is available and how they align to team and organisational objectives will encourage staff to prioritise learning.

As leadership can have time and resource constraints, it will be essential to ensure they have the time for their own learning in learning and management development programmes, to role model the intended behaviour, as well as understanding the learning needs for their staff.

3. Individual learning

Sufficient opportunities to discuss individual learning needs and learning pathways, whilst aligning them to individual and organisational performance provides staff with a clear understanding of what, why and how to seek and apply knowledge in their role. Feeling supported whilst seeking mastery will increase confidence and willingness to improve.

It will be important to communicate boundaries around the time available for learning and giving an element of autonomy to staff to select what they feel is most appropriate for their development and ability to meet their individual objectives. Creating spaces to reflect and share new perspectives, thoughts, learning and skills will help determine additional formal training that may be beneficial.

It should be clear what learning is available and offer varied styles and topics of learning to appeal to learners with different styles, interests and objectives.

"Growth occurs the moment you believe you can learn to be anything. Even if you've never done it before."

Anthea Armar

Your Learning Culture Development Checklist

This will be a three-pronged approach starting with a clear organisational vision for learning and transformation and how that filters down to an individual level:

• Organisational learning - evaluate the current environment, define the desired learning environment and put appropriate systems and processes in place to bridge the gap. Focusing on buy-in from key stakeholders and embedding opportunities for feedback to apply that learning into the systems and process will promote organisational growth.

• Team learning - supporting leaders to role model the learning culture in the leadership and management programmes they participate in demonstrates the importance of learning in all roles. Opening dialogue to share learning, reflection and feedback for teams will help teams receive the support they need to meet team and organisational objectives.

• Individual learning - clearly communicate learning as part of the individual journey to meeting staff objectives. Provide a wide variety of learning to appeal to learners varied styles and interests, whilst giving them a level of autonomy in what they choose to undertake will instil confidence and commitment.

Conclusion

A learning culture isn’t just about individuals, but the organisation as a whole and is encouraged by leadership in their behaviour, their relationships and their willingness to listen.

Putting the relevant systems and processes in place to prioritise learning will begin to shift the culture towards one of growth, empowerment and high performance.

Where possible, offer both formal training and more informal learning opportunities that encourage sharing perspectives, self-awareness and reflection. These promote collaboration, communication and application.

Make the offering broad enough to empower individuals to take control of their own learning journey, whilst ensuring they are equipped with the necessary skills to meet team and organisational objectives.

Want to dive deeper?

Amarkai Group offers a variety of wellbeing in the workplace workshops that challenge perspectives, educate and encourage reflection and action. Our intention is to align the workshops to the challenges in your organisation and encourage each individual to identify the action they can take to resolve them.

Our focus is on creating awareness of some of the challenges, signs and beliefs being experienced in the workplace that are preventing individuals, teams and organisations on the whole from achieving their full potential.

Decide to become a high performing organisation. Contact us today to learn more about coaching or workshops to improve communication in your organisation.

Other resources to help you promote a learning culture

Download this free resource to get six quick tips for how to promote continuous learning in your workplace [no registration required].