How to create a strong learning culture without a big budget!
We strongly believe your growth is your own responsibility. In your personal life, if you want to learn something, you go to YouTube, read a book, ask a friend, or find another way.
Rarely will you feel restricted to learn, instead you’ll become creative… if you are truly motivated you’ll find time and a way to learn that new skill. Heck, some of us learn a whole new language in a matter of months when we fall in love with someone who speaks Spanish or French... At work, personal development is always a hot topic. One of the most common responses we see in employee engagement surveys is: "I want more opportunities to grow." And clients often ask us ‘‘How can we create a learning culture.’’
TL:DR: There are always opportunities for growth.
There are always opportunities for growth. If employees want to learn - there are many ways to do so. Ensure they are focused on their skill growth, not purely their salary growth as that is what they often mean when they say ‘I feel stuck and can’t grow’. There is no way people can’t learn unless they don’t want to.
So why, at work, do people suddenly get into a passive mode of "waiting for the company to help me grow"? And why do they think learning equals formal training and requires a budget? Let’s dive in.
Curiosity is probably one of the most important employee traits you can find. Because in the era of people having multiple careers in their lives, and technology changing so quickly - skills learnt at university will quickly be irrelevant. So finding people who actually want to learn is the first step.
Next step is making sure you treat your employees like grown-ups and ensure they understand that they themselves are responsible for learning. They create their own career within or beyond the company. Gone are the days of clear career ladders, or pre-defined tracks. Whole org structures might look different in a few months, it’s all about becoming a more grounded professional and continuously adding to your skills.
Jessica Zwaan 🦢 wrote a nice article on this topic - ‘We are all grownups.’ We should create a parental-free workplace, where employees are not acting like kids waiting for approval or permission. Or for their manager to tell them what to do or what to learn. A learning culture isn’t created by a manager or a CEO, it’s the result of encouraging people to develop. We hear you thinking; duhhhh. The million-dollar question is: HOW? Let us get into that.
The 70-20-10 Framework
You’ve probably heard of the 70/20/10 rule. It's a widely recognized model for learning & development, which suggests that optimal learning occurs through a combination of different experiences:
70% of learning happens on the job or in practice
20% of learning happens through interaction with people
10% of learning comes from formal or planned training
By explaining this model to your team/employees, you teach them that most of their learning will happen on their job, a.k.a., there's a huge potential for them to influence their growth & development in their own role.
⛔️ Often employees think the only way to learn sits in the 10%, and they ask for (or expect) formal paid training to be offered. Our advice is to look at this model with the employee and ask them to consider what they can do first, themselves, in the 70% and 20% space. When they are really motivated to learn something, you’ll often see they have already asked for stretch assignments, found internal people to learn from or sign up for meet-ups.
✅ When they’ve already made such an effort, and they wish to further refine these skills, then offering learning at a cost probably makes sense. When employees have not shown any pro-active interest in learning skills, and simply spend their annual learning budget on an external course… it’s likely a waste of money.
70-20-10 poker ♦️
Learnerbly created a super cool exercise, called 70/20/10 poker.
It helps you explore and incorporate different types of learning methods into your development strategy and plan.
Might want to try this with your team:
7 tips to create a learning culture at work
1️⃣ Turn Performance Reviews into Growth Conversations: Instead of talking only about
performance, focus on talking about their growth. What have they achieved in the past year, where are they now, and most importantly - where do they want to go next?
This doesn’t have to be a big step or career change, make it easy by focusing on 1 or a few skills they need and/or want to develop to get further in their role. This can be growing into their role, moving into a more senior role - or moving into a different role.
2️⃣ Provide Time for Learning: The biggest reason why people say they don’t learn new skills? No time. The first items cancelled from a busy calendar are hours blocked for webinars or online courses. When you allocate specific times during the workweek or month, dedicated to learning activities, this changes. This could be through ‘learning blocks’ where employees can focus on their development without work distractions or feeling guilty. Setting aside an afternoon or a day can ensure that people actually engage in training or finish the books they’ve started.
3️⃣ Be smarter, use Technology: Whilst a learning management system (LMS) might not sound sexy (or affordable) we do recommend using tech to enable learning. You can easily create a centralized place (Notion, Confluence) for training and development resources.
Provide access to a variety of courses, and facilitate blended learning approaches. Consider creating a knowledge library, where employees can contribute and access content on various topics.
4️⃣ Encourage Peer Learning: Promote learning through mentorship programs, peer coaching, buddy systems, regular feedback sessions and cross-functional projects. Encouraging employees to share their knowledge with colleagues fosters a sense of community and collective growth. For example, organise team learning sessions where employees share their expertise. At 7people, we have a monthly session where we share the results of projects, our learnings and tips. It’s probably one of the most valuable meetings we have, and everyone looks forward to it.
5️⃣ Create Development Plans: Have your employees create their own personalized development plans, highlighting their goals, skills they want to learn, their preferred learning methods, and the resources they need. It might sound like a no-brainer, but do you actually have such a plan? When you write down what you want to learn, it makes you more determined and you create focus. Instead of a boring format, try creating a Notion page slide deck, in which you visualize your growth. You can also share this plan with your manager and discuss your progress.
6️⃣ Focus on a Growth Mindset: Encourage a growth mindset by promoting the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication (and sometimes simply hard work). Highlight stories of employees who have successfully expanded their skills and advanced their careers through continuous learning. This can help shift the mindset from waiting for the company to provide growth opportunities to actively seeking them out.
7️⃣ Offer Diverse Learning Opportunities: Provide a variety of learning options, including online courses, in-person workshops, webinars, and on-the-job training.
This caters to different learning preferences and ensures that all employees have access to the resources they need. For instance, offering a mix of formal training and informal learning opportunities like lunch and learn sessions or internal workshops held by other employees who are experts on the topic. (We love our AI expert Romara for this!)
Bonus for HR peeps: 👉🏻 here 👈🏻 is a great list in case you are the curious type
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