Organizational culture is a way of life that constitutes various beliefs, values, and norms. The culture of an organization varies from one organization to another as it is created by the organization itself.
A learning culture refers to a culture where learners use their knowledge and skills to solve key problems. A good learning culture offers ample opportunities to grow and achieve goals. It establishes an open communication system and removes the fear of failure from employees’ minds.
Here are 5 ways that organizations can develop a learning culture in the workplace:
1. Encourage Active Learning
It is essential that organizations support and promote active learning in the workplace. If employees are aware and constantly reminded that they should be learning, growing, and performing every day, they will be more likely to start dwelling on learning activities. For this, you need to initiate informal discussions about skills that employees already possess and should learn to excel in their careers and contribute to organizational growth. You need to tell them about various eLearning courses that are specially designed and developed for them.
Inspire and reassure the employees to look for personalized learning approaches and encourage them to implement and test their learning at work. Let them know how important these skills can be. Having the right motivation they will be eager to learn through self-paced learning courses and improve their skills.
2. Make it a daily activity
Creating various avenues for employees to learn on the job every day is very important. Sharing knowledge and discussing project decisions are all a form of learning itself. Offering assessments and assignments on other tasks by eLearning professionals help create a learning environment and ensures employee growth as well.
It’s important that employees too, should take some initiative and work hard to complete online training. They should seek guidance from senior employees and be open to communicating with colleagues and eLearning professionals. They should take an active part in their learning instead of being passive participants who are totally dependent on organizations.
3. Incorporate fun and social learning
Our brain sometimes controls us, and when we have something really important to do, the brain keeps making excuses that distract us and stop us from learning. The brain responds in this manner only when eLearning courses and content are boring. But as an organization’s leader, you need to make sure that employees don’t turn away and complete their training on time. For this, you need to spot the reasons for the lackadaisical attitude of employees and make a strategy to make learning more fun and entertaining.
You can incorporate fun elements into your training programs, like incorporating mini-games that help employees improve their skills. For instance, you can make a quiz-based game testing employees’ knowledge and application of learned skills. At the end of the game, employees can be rewarded with badges that give them a sense of accomplishment.
Another important tip for creating a good learning culture is to make social learning an intrinsic and integral part of training. Just because employees and eLearning professionals are physically apart, doesn’t mean they cannot connect and communicate. Using a learning management system, you can establish a platform where employees can openly talk with the members. Chat rooms and video conferencing are tools that make social interaction happen.
A sense of fun and social learning can create a huge difference in the workplace. Make sure, the activities are casual and friendly interactions take place between all the members of the organization. This will make learning less of a formality and burden and employees will take some interest in learning with great enthusiasm.
4. Offer employee training through LMS
One of the most important ways to create a learning culture is by designing and developing various and diverse online training programs for all employees in the organization. An organization should strive to create eLearning courses and content that are in demand and are important from the market point of view. The courses and content should be made available to employees, at all times irrespective of the space and time zone they are in.
An LMS has certain features that help in creating a good learning culture at the workplace. For example:
Using microlearning, eLearning professionals can create bite-sized content that can be easily understood by employees. The smaller the content, the higher will be the retention.
Using mobile learning, employees can access their training resources from their mobile devices. All they’ve to do is, simply login to their account and surf materials they want to read, and surf assessments they want to write. Provide them with small assignments that can bring more clarity to a particular topic.
Using an LMS, personalized learning can be provided to employees. This means employees become the leaders of their own learning and hence learn without being dependent on their eLearning professionals. It gives them the freedom and power to make choices and decisions.
An LMS helps in providing training to employees effectively. There is a variety of learning management systems available in the market, but you need to be a little cautious when you invest in an LMS. You need to do proper research and cost-benefit analysis and see which LMS would best suit your organization’s needs.
5. Celebrate Failure
No two employees are alike and hence you should not treat them in the same manner. Just because one employee failed to perform well in online training assessments, doesn’t mean he/she is incapable or lacks knowledge. There can be various factors for the poor performance of the employees. Maybe you as an organization failed to monitor the performance and ignored early warning signs; maybe your content lacks quality; maybe the eLearning professionals aren’t able to teach well; maybe employees are unable to strike a balance between work and training; maybe they’re overloaded with work.
Regardless of what the reason is, you need to acknowledge employees for their performance, whether good or bad and prevent any negative emotions from creeping into their minds. You should not let their failures overpower them. You need to take a step forward and help them find their way. You need to remove their fear of failure and assist them so that they can improve.
This is why you need to celebrate employees’ failures instead of intimidating or punishing them. You can celebrate their failures by telling them what are their strong points, instead of condemning them. Softly convey to them their weakness, what areas they need to focus on, how frequently they should write online training assessments, and how they should be revising their resources.
Conclusion:
A good learning culture can make employees feel wanted and valued. When you establish open communication and address the queries of employees, they’re more likely to engage in their training. Remember, a good learning culture cannot be created overnight; it takes time and demands patience and dedication on your part.
