Workplace Culture is the character and personality of your organisation. It’s what makes your business unique and is the sum of its values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviours, and attitudes. Every organisation has some type of culture, but there is now a move toward creating a culture that’s related to learning and development.

The role of learning is to maximise the potential of your organisation by maximising the potential of all the people in it. We take a look at what it means to create a culture of workplace learning in your business, what the benefits are, and what you can do to ensure your business is ahead of the pack as an employer of choice.

Benefits to a culture of workplace learning

There are many advantages to building a workplace learning culture in your organisation. These include, but are not in limitation to:

Increased engagement: Employees thrive when they are working in an environment that focuses on making them more valuable assets within the organisation they work.

Reduce staff turnover: Engaged and motivated team members are less likely to stagnate in their roles and seek career satisfaction with another organisation.

Highly skilled workforce: Ongoing investment in learning and development results in highly skilled teams within your organisation.

Recruit from within: A highly skilled workforces give your organisation the ongoing opportunity to recruit from within. This will save both time and money in the recruitment process.

For workplace learning to be effective, the knowledge must be related to the business. Additionally, individuals in the business should be working together to achieve the culture. Shared learning enables companies to increase their staff quicker and solve problems more efficiently.

Practical ways to create a culture of workplace learning:

Instilling a workplace learning culture in your organisation won’t happen overnight. There are, however, so actionable steps your business can take to help you get there:

1 – Lead by example

Leaders at all levels of an organisation are in an influential position. Ensure you invest in your own learning and development because it reinforces a learning culture. You can achieve this by setting your own learning goals, talk about training you’ve taken, be willing and open to corrections and feedback, and reflect on mistakes made.

2 – Set an early expectation

Discuss your organisation’s learning culture during the recruitment process. Make it part of the onboarding process, workplace induction, and probationary review.

3 – Apply training in real work scenarios

No one likes to do something just to tick a box. Applying the learning to work will show how valuable the training is to their day to day. Integrating learning into daily operations ensures that learning isn’t just a one-off event but rather a core part of the culture.

4 – Reward and recognition

When introduced correctly, rewards can go a long way in supporting building a learning culture. Therefore, employees who are successfully learning new skills and abilities should gain recognition – this can encourage others to follow suit. Include learning when evaluating performance, create a merit board, and show your teams how important their development is to the business.

5 – Personalise the training

Implement Learning Pathways for each employee to ensure the training is the right training for them. Therefore, by setting individual learning goals and developing a plan to achieve them, your employees will be more engaged in the process of learning. In other words, it is no longer about completing a course. Instead, it’s about the big picture and supporting your employees to help them reach their goals.

7 – Ask for feedback

The best way to improve anything is to gather feedback because you want to know how your employees feel about their learning and development. Is the training relevant to them? Is it a utility in their day to day? What can you do to improve?

Learning isn’t something that needs to be scheduled, instead, it’s an ongoing commitment to recognise opportunity, knowledge gaps, and reflection. It then requires action to convert that to a learning moment. Having this philosophy as part of your built-in organisational learning culture can ensure long term success for both your business and employees.

In conclusion, to learn more about how dita Solutions can assist you in creating a culture of workplace learning in your business, start your free trial of dita Learning today.