Creating a continuous learning culture

A knowledge-hungry culture starts from the top. Training initiatives should be modelled by senior leadership and put in place by management. Given that they’re responsible for people’s performance and growth, and shape the whole team’s experience, people managers are your secret skill-building tool and key to driving employee learning. Research shows that personalised support, combined with online resources, is more effective in upskilling managers than traditional formal programs. Mentors are great for problem-solving sessions and peer-to-peer learning is an effective way for people to share knowledge/resources and support one another.

Dive into your data and find out how your managers currently make use of your existing resources. Think about what’s working and what’s not, and change it up to refresh your training materials. With better, self-driven, self-paced training, managers will engage in higher-quality career progression conversations with their direct reports, helping them support and guide their teams more effectively.⁶

Get people to stay connected by making the learning experience fun and sociable. Community-based learning is a more active approach which connects learners to co-workers, peers and experts, and inspires skill building and drives higher engagement. Embrace the smart social features
of digital platforms such as messaging and online groups to encourage questions and lively discussions during virtual instructor-led training.

Did you know that since the beginning of the pandemic, LinkedIn witnessed an incredible 1,100% surge in people joining Learning Groups, a 225% increase in courses shared with learners’ professional networks, and a remarkable 121% boost in course Q&A participation?!⁷ People are now fully onboard with online social gatherings, so why not reflect this in our learning culture, making it motivating, fun and sociable.

According to Accenture’s The Future of Work report, 83% of people believe that a hybrid work model is the ultimate sweet spot. So putting in place a culture of continuous learning means getting creative with your approach. It needs to work just as effectively from the office as well as from home. This means coming up with an interesting mix of learning formats that keep people engaged and interested.

It’s all about the experience. You could launch your programme with an interactive livestream workshop, maximising dialogue and connectivity between team members. Follow-up with more intensive eLearning modules that offer in-depth training before wrapping up with a motivating office-based learning day. By mixing up the content and delivery methods, you’ll keep people fully engaged and create equal learning opportunities, wherever they’re working.

Check out our previous article on blended learning for some inspiration.

Everyone has something to learn and something to teach. Get collaborative by creating a collective curriculum that empowers your people to contribute. You could host a skill swap session where everyone brings unique insights to the table and learns from each other.⁸ Or a peer-to-peer coaching ecosystem which is proven to drive higher success rates and boost confidence.⁹

Take inspiration from Google’s playbook — the Googler-to-Googler (g2g) program. Over 7,000+ Google employees are happy to dedicate their time to help their peers learn and grow. It’s a win-win situation where knowledge flows freely and the business builds a culture of continuous learning as well as a stronger, and more connected team.

In an information-heavy world, keep learning content clear and relevant. Make it easy for your employees to find, follow and focus on learning that reflects their interests. Take into account generational differences. Research shows that older learners typically want to focus on soft skills like communication and leadership whereas a younger Gen Z workforce lean more toward hard skills like business and tech basics.⁷

People learn better when it’s personalised and practical. So get to know your people’s learning needs. Host ideation sessions, send out surveys, talk to people. Dig deep and find out what they really want to learn. Crucially, people learn best when they have to learn. By knowing what team members want and staying on top of sector trends, you can build a future-proof learning culture that drives individual and collective success.¹⁰

Continuous learning can be fun. It’s about encouraging your employees to explore and experiment, and use their creativity to make a meaningful impact within your company. Change it up! Make experiments an everyday thing. Try different tools to boost the interactivity of virtual presentations or test camera-on versus camera-off meetings.

At Quadmark, we decided to shake up our team structure, breaking down larger teams into smaller and more focused groups. This was a good move, increasing efficiency and agility as well as giving us an opportunity to make the most of each team member’s expertise. As a global business with teams in three time zones, we’re used to experimenting with communication and efficiency. Keep track of your team’s experiments and the lessons they’re learning along the way. It’s good to remember that an important part of any experiment is learning from failures and accepting mistakes as stepping stones to success.