In recent years, the “Great Resignation” has had an impact on numerous teams and businesses in some way. We have all felt the impact of the staggering statistics of employees resigning. At the same time, businesses are pressured to find and retain the best talent for the future. In order for businesses to successfully implement new strategies and remain competitive in this work environment, they must purposefully cultivate cultures that attract, develop, and retain talent. And, the first step is to sow the seeds of a culture that will flourish – the Learning culture.
Let’s read the full article to understand the definition of learning culture, how it works in the company and how to create it.
What is a Learning Culture?
One of the other add-in company cultures we are mentioning is “Learning Culture”. Specifically, The term “learning culture” was made up by Peter Senge in 1990. He wrote the book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. He said that learning cultures are “organisations that encourage adaptive and generative learning, encouraging their employees to think outside the box and work with other employees to find the best solution to any problem.”
An organisation with Learning culture emphasises getting its members to understand its values, practices, beliefs, skill sets, and rules. This helps employees learn the skills and knowledge they need to do their best work, better serve their customers, and help their businesses grow.
Bloomfire also stated that when it comes to building a learning culture, this structure is made up of 5 key elements:
- Systems thinking: recognising that organisations are made up of smaller, more complex systems and taking the time to understand the whole and each part.
- Personal mastery: giving team members the tools they need to become the best at what they do by giving them chances to learn more and improve their skills.
- Mental models: recognising the assumptions and generalisations that affect decisions and putting them aside to make room for progress and new ideas.
- Shared vision: instead of telling people what to do, dialogue, enthusiasm, and commitment drive the action.
- Team learning: getting things done by working together and being creative instead of following the crowd.
How does a Learning Culture work in a Company?
Peter Senge also claimed that the learning culture framework would create an environment where “new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are constantly learning how to learn together.” Having a culture like this is not only suitable for your employees but also fosters a genuine desire for growth.
Most organisations have more than one culture, but one corporate culture usually dominates and defines the whole environment.
Hence, a Learning culture can significantly boost your bottom-line creativity since a successful, innovative business thrives on the solutions its employees come up with. However, companies rarely do well if their workers don’t ask questions, learn new things, and challenge themselves and each other. Companies and their workers need to focus on learning how to learn, which means putting together people, departments, and management styles that work well together.
Learning culture doesn’t always stick to the old way of learning just such as “that’s how it’s always been done.” Instead, they create an environment where people can talk and give feedback freely. Why does that matter so much?
Your employees are your most valuable resource. And helping them understand it brings a whole new set of benefits.
Benefits of Having a Learning Culture
When a company changes to become a learning culture, it can get five huge benefits:
1. Improved Innovation
Innovation can’t be forced, but the right environment can help it grow.
For example, Karen Jaw-Madson, a management consultant at Co.-Design of Work Experience and the author of Culture Your Culture: Innovating Experiences, says, “To create the right conditions for disruption, the right mix of culture, leadership, talent, and approach must work together.” She uses Design of Work Experience by Culture Your Culture as an example of a co-design framework that focuses on learning while building culture. “Such a framework could bring about changes we want and help us innovate even more simultaneously.”
Some of the most successful learning culture companies in the world, like Google and Facebook, got to where they are by giving their employees the time and space to learn, explore, and pitch their ideas (no matter how off-the-wall or unconventional they might be.) Employees will develop more ideas and work together across departments when new ideas are welcomed and encouraged. Leadership will eventually hear about the proactive, not reactive, ideas they come up with, turning creative ideas into a profitable reality.
2. Sharing what you know
It’s not a coincidence that the five pillars of a learning culture are all about getting information to the right people. Teams need to learn what’s happening when information stays in departments or the boardroom without knowing the other team’s goals and problems. When you give your employees access to the information they need, they can fully understand the challenges and objectives of the company. This ensures everyone is on the same page and knows what to do to improve.
3. Problem Solving
“Tasks get done when people work together,” as the old saying goes. When many people work together to reach the same goal, the chances of success go up. Each person brings their own experience and point of view, which is especially helpful when your organisation is trying to solve a challenging problem.
People are more likely to find solutions when they talk about their problems. By starting a conversation and asking for creative ideas from everyone in your company, you can use the brainpower of the whole organisation. And you might find that the best answers come from places you would never have thought to look.
4. Made the community stronger
When employees’ ideas are valued, and their feedback is taken seriously, their confidence and motivation go up. However, a sense of contribution doesn’t just make workers feel better about themselves. It might also make them feel better about where they work. And that is what’s good for everyone in the long run. When employees have a say in what goes on behind the scenes, they are more likely to care about the company and its long-term success.
When employees see how their work affects their company’s ability to reach its goals, they feel a sense of accomplishment, personal investment, and a sense of duty to keep that success going in the future.
5. Better use of time
Teams can become very smart and powerful when they have a collaborative mindset and programs that put learning first. Businesses don’t have to hire outside firms (outsourcing) to solve problems. A motivated team would be quicker and more efficient, and they’ll be able to tell when something is going wrong (the ability to correct things before they cause problems.)
And they can even quickly get information from outside their department to fix inefficiencies and help your customers get better products/services. You are building a learning culture that will give any organisation the same results, no matter what business it is in.
Giving people the tools they need to grow will make the workplace happier and more productive. And that could be the key to making your business the story of success you’ve always wanted to tell.
Strategies to create a Learning Culture
To work toward a learning culture, you need to know that the people in your company are its most important asset. The company’s success requires building a culture that values and helps teams. Try these three ways to make a thriving learning culture that will increase productivity and morale at work.
Managing oneself
Part of making an organisation that learns is encouraging you and your peers to manage themselves or up. This means encouraging people to look into professional training, webinars, or courses independently and enabling personal projects where you can work on managing your time, working with others, thinking strategically, and communicating.
But you should be ready to take those risks and maybe fail. But don’t worry, that’s just part of being a person who wants to grow. Part of a learning culture is letting team members share ideas, talk about different points of view, and use mistakes as opportunities to learn.
Build structure
You can only build a house on shaky ground and thriving a learning culture with a stable team structure. Putting together a helpful team means:
- Giving people the tools and resources they need to do their everyday jobs
- Organizing regular meetings to get feedback
- Giving team members public praise and thanks
- Having empathy and listening actively
- Getting people to look for learning opportunities in every roadblock
When starting new projects, it’s important to help team members understand their roles, responsibilities, and the tools they need to do their jobs well. The most important thing is ensuring everyone is on the same page and knows what’s happening.
Getting along with others
In the end, building a learning culture takes the work of many people. Everyone needs to be involved in putting training into place, giving support, and creating a culture of working together. So, it makes sense to encourage people to work together and as a team. When people work together openly, their values and goals become more aligned. This makes it easier for the group to reach a common goal.
7 Tips for Creating a Learning Culture at Work
Creating a learning culture takes some time and work, but the results are excellent in the long run. Here are our top 7 tips for making your workplace where people like to learn.
1. Reward learning
It’s essential to be noticed. Employees want to know that their time spent learning has been seen. We suggest that your whole company come up with ways to thank your team members for their hard work. These can be small things, like letting someone know how well they did in an email or on Slack. Or, it can be bigger and more motivating, like giving a prize to the employee who finishes the most courses in six months. This will get more people to sign up for your studies and show your employees that you appreciate the work they put into learning.
2. Make it easy to get training
If the process is complex, people won’t want to learn. You have to ensure that it goes as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Choose an LMS that is easy to use if you are teaching through one. It should be easy for your employees to log in and start training. The dashboard should be easy to use, and they should be able to use mobile learning to train whenever and wherever they want.
Accessibility also means knowing where training takes place. When you start a learning program, could you tell your employees about the courses and where they can find them? This will make the whole process as easy for your students as possible.
3. Make time to study
With close deadlines, projects that are still going on, and meetings that never end, it takes time to find time to learn. If you work for a company that wants to create a learning culture, you must strongly support learning time.
Your employees need to know that they are not only allowed to take time out of their day to improve their skills but also encouraged to do so. Some companies have a rule that team members can have two or more hours of training a week, or they ask managers to remind people that it’s okay to focus on learning. In either case, letting everyone know they have the time to learn should encourage them to do so.
4. Start a library of materials
You can put together a set of resources and store them in your LMS so your employees can use them whenever they want. This central place can hold any documents you think will help your students but are optional. They can log into your LMS, look around, and choose a document, video, or slideshow on a topic they want to learn about whenever they want.
5. Get people involved
People enjoy learning with other people. They like to talk about ideas, share information, and listen to different points of view. So, why not encourage this in your business? Your Learning Management System’s forum (LMS forum) feature is one of the best ways to do this. Employees can post topics, ask questions, and talk to each other to make learning more social.
6. Make learning fun
Not all learning culture has to be dry and dull. If you make it fun and exciting for your employees, they’ll likely want to participate and learn.
7. Get feedback
Give employees feedback all the time to get them interested in learning and keep them interested. When they finish a learning session, tell them what they did well and what they could do better. Also, remind them how learning can help them reach their goals. On the other hand, you should also ask your employees for feedback.
Did they think the course was helpful? Does the information fit with their job? Learning culture is a two-way street, and one of the best ways to keep it going is through feedback.
Conclusion
Cultures that encourage learning foster an environment where people feel comfortable asking questions, taking notes, and always looking to improve.
When enough people in an organisation can do this, the business becomes more flexible, innovative, and resistant to disruption.
With the help of traicie’s AI-powered technology, you will be assisted in analysing the intrinsic motivation and value of the NLP method to help company leaders figure out their own company culture.
Besides the four main types of organisational culture in the Competing Values Framework (Adhocracy culture – Create, Clan Culture – Collaborate, Hierarchy Culture – Control, Market Culture – Compete), there are many other enthralling add-in company cultures.