How to create a learning culture through skills development
Posted on the June 4th, 2024
Creating a robust learning culture within an organisation is essential for maintaining a competitive edge and ensuring the continuous growth and development of your employees. Our latest blog explores the key strategies for developing a high-performing learning culture, with a focus on skills development helping you to achieve this.
This was discussed at length in our recent webinar, ‘How to align people, purpose and performance,’ featuring Teresa Rose, award-winning learning and performance consultant and founder of ConsultHer, Joe Hill-Wilson, Chief Commercial Officer at Learn Amp and Gavin Woods, Managing Director at Aurion Learning.
We will delve deeper into the importance of aligning skills with organisational goals, the role of technology, and best practices for sustaining skills development initiatives.
The importance of skills-based transformation
Skills-based transformation is the cornerstone of aligning people, purpose, and performance within an organisation. By focusing on skills development, organisations unlock significant benefits such as enhanced employee engagement, increased productivity, and higher staff retention rates. Here are some of the key points discussed during the webinar:
- Alignment of skills with organisational goals: Skills development should be aligned with an organisation’s broader HR and L&D initiatives to avoid working in silos and to ensure that every employee’s development journey is coherent and purposeful. This ensures that every learning initiative contributes directly to the business's strategic objectives. When employees see a clear connection between their skill development and the company's success, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated.
- Technology integration: Leveraging the correct technology (such as a learning management system) is crucial for gathering data and facilitating the alignment of skills. It helps to create a clear language for career progression and development, fostering self-driven growth among employees. Technology also enables organisations to track progress, identify skill gaps and tailor training programmes to individual needs across the workforce. This data-driven approach ultimately ensures that resources are used efficiently and effectively.
- Holistic approach: A comprehensive approach to skills development considers the entire employee experience, providing clarity of purpose, the necessary tools and an enjoyable work environment. It’s essential to integrate skills development into the organisational culture, making it a continuous process rather than a one-time event. This approach ensures that employees are always growing and adapting to new learning challenges.
Challenges in skills-based transformation
Despite the benefits, many organisations face challenges when attempting to build a skills-based transformation:
Motivating employees to learn: One of the biggest hurdles for L&D professionals is trying to engage employees in learning activities, and demonstrating the tangible business impact of these initiatives. Employees can often resist change, especially if they do not see immediate benefit. Therefore, it is crucial to communicate the long-term advantages of skills development for both the individual and the organisation.
Common pitfalls: Common mistakes made when trying to becoming skills-based include underestimating the complexity of change, staff teams working in silos and not gathering or utilising internal data effectively. Organisations often fail to take a holistic view of their skills development programmes, leading to fragmented efforts that do not achieve the desired outcomes. It is important to have a clear strategy and to coordinate efforts across different departments.
Experimentation and adaptation: Organisations often fail to test and experiment with different skills-based approaches, which can lead to ineffective skills-building initiatives. Flexibility and adaptability are key; what works for one organisation may not work for another. Continuous feedback and iteration are necessary to refine and improve the overall process.
Building a skills-based organisation
To successfully build a skills-based organisation, it is crucial to integrate skills development into every aspect of the employee journey:
Recruitment to development: Skills should be woven into the recruitment process and continue through to ongoing development, ensuring a seamless employee journey. From the outset, candidates should be evaluated not only on their current competencies but also on their potential to develop new skills. This forward-thinking approach ensures that any organisation can build a workforce that can grow and adapt over time.
Role-specific skills: Identifying the skills needed for each role helps to provide clear training and development opportunities, enhancing performance conversations. Managers and HR professionals should work together to define the specific skills required for success in each position. This clarity helps employees understand what is expected of them and how they can advance in their careers, helping both themselves and their employers.
Alignment with business goals: Business goals and visions should be translated into individual roles and learning activities, creating a clear connection between learning outcomes and organisational objectives. This alignment helps to ensure that skills development is not just a checkbox activity, but a strategic driver of business success.
Implementing a skills development framework
A skills development framework provides a structured approach to identifying, developing, and utilising skills within an organisation. Teresa Rose has developed a 12-step infographic to integrate skills frameworks into your workflow. We have summarised some of the key points from the discussion and Teresa’s infographic here:
Skills mapping: Begin by mapping out the skills required for various roles within your organisation. This involves analysing job descriptions, consulting with managers, and gathering input from your employees. Skills mapping helps to identify skill gaps and to prioritise development efforts.
Training programmes: Develop training programmes tailored to the specific needs of the organisation. These programmes can include workshops, eLearning courses, mentoring, and on-the-job training. A mix of training methods ensures employees have multiple ways to learn and apply new skills.
Evaluation and feedback: Implement regular evaluation and feedback mechanisms to assess the effectiveness of training programmes and their relationship with company KPIs/OKRs. Use metrics such as employee performance, retention rates, and satisfaction surveys to gauge success. Continuous feedback allows for ongoing improvement and adaptation of training initiatives.
The role of technology in skills development
Technology plays a pivotal role in modern skills development strategies:
Facilitating reflective learning: Technology can facilitate reflective learning and meaningful conversations between employees and managers. Tools such as learning management systems (LMS) and learning platforms like Learn Amp enable employees to access training materials anytime, anywhere. This flexibility supports continuous learning and development.
AI and personalisation: While AI can assist in making personalised development suggestions, it should be used with human oversight to ensure a balanced approach. AI can analyse large amounts of data to identify patterns and recommend personalised learning paths. However, human oversight is necessary to ensure that these recommendations align with an organisation’s goals and the needs of its employees.
Blended learning: A mix of L&D-driven content, user-generated content and external resources creates a rich learning ecosystem that caters to various learning styles and needs. Blended learning combines online and offline methods, offering a comprehensive approach to skills development.
Best practices to empower your team
Empowering employees through skills development involves more than just providing training opportunities. It requires creating an environment where learning is encouraged and supported:
- Encourage self-driven growth: Foster a culture where employees take ownership of their own development. Provide resources and support, but also encourage employees to seek out learning opportunities and set their own goals.
- Recognition and rewards: Recognise and reward employees for their efforts in skills development. This can include formal recognition programmes, promotions, or other incentives. Recognising achievements motivates employees to continue their development efforts.
- Support from leadership: Leadership support is crucial for the success of skills development initiatives. Leaders should model a commitment to learning and provide the necessary resources and support for employees to grow.
Sustaining skills development initiatives
For skills development initiatives to be sustainable, ongoing governance and regular evaluation is essential:
Governance and ownership: Ensuring there is ownership and prioritisation of skills development within the organisation helps in maintaining focus and accountability across teams and the overall workforce. Establishing a governance structure that includes representatives from different departments ensures that skills development remains a priority.
Agile feedback systems: Moving away from annual appraisals to more agile feedback systems allow for constant evaluation and adjustment of skills development initiatives. Regular check-ins and feedback loops enable organisations to respond quickly to changing needs and priorities.
Continuous improvement: Regular business conversations about skills and incorporating feedback loops ensure that the organisation remains responsive to the evolving needs of its workforce. Continuous improvement involves regularly reviewing and updating skills development programmes to ensure they remain relevant and effective.
Foster a learning culture with Learning Management Systems
A learning management system (LMS) can play a key role in cultivating a learning culture within an organisation, helping to streamline processes and aligning skills development with overall organisational goals.
Here’s 5 ways how Learn Amp’s ‘People Development Hub’, recently named the ‘Best Enterprise Learning System 2023-2024’ by The Craig Weiss Group, helps to provide a structured, scalable approach to training and skills development, creating a thriving learning culture for your organisation.
1. Centralised people development hub
With learning, community, skills, and performance development all in one place, Learn Amp allows you to personalise employee development with ease and at scale. This integrated structure makes it easy for employees to find and engage with the learning content they need, promoting continuous learning. Start with Learn, and add Connect, Develop, and more when you're ready.
2. Consistent training and development
Learn Amp helps to empower employees to contribute meaningfully to their company's mission, while paving the way to achieve their own career aspirations through consistent L&D. Skills development is channelled towards areas that contribute directly to an organisation's growth.
Individuals can see a direct connection between their efforts and the company's success through Learn Amp, resulting in enhanced engagement and motivation, vital for fostering a cohesive learning culture.
3. Personalised learning paths
Learn Amp helps to tailor learning paths to the needs, preferences and career goals of individuals at all levels of an organisation. Their people development hub allows you to sequence and streamline learning by providing a clear and dynamic roadmap through high quality learning content.
This encourages individuals to take ownership of their own development, making learning more relevant and engaging.
4. Interactive and engaging content
It is vital for learning content to be interesting to keep people motivated and to sustain a culture of learning.
Learn Amp’s all-in-one learning platform is designed to bring your company culture to life. Add your company branding, videos and assets easily to make your dashboard feel like home. Company updates, digital events and webinars can all be shared in a matter of minutes through their flexible dashboards and widgets.
5. Collaboration and social learning
Learn Amp helps to drive learner engagement across workforces with social and community learning at its heart, essential for a strong learning culture.
Their people development hub helps organisations map clear pathways for its employees, delivering sequences of events and content to get them up to speed and upskilled quickly. Employees can ask questions, share thoughts on specific pieces of content or ask specific experts to guide them through the learning process. All of this is backed up by advanced drill-down reporting capabilities, helping you get the data you need to drive skills development.
In summary
Developing a learning culture through focused skills development is a multifaceted process that requires alignment of organisational goals with employee development and effective use of technology. By adopting a holistic approach and addressing common challenges, organisations can create a dynamic environment where continuous learning and growth are ingrained in the company culture. Embrace the power of skills development and watch your organisation flourish.
To ensure your L&D efforts are aligning with your organisation’s skills development goals, watch our free on-demand webinar ‘How to align people, purpose and performance’ now.
To further explore how to build a skills-based organisation and foster a positive learning culture, book a demo with Aurion Learning and discover how Learn Amp’s People Development Hub can help you achieve these goals. Learn Amp’s all-in-one learning platform is designed to facilitate effective staff training, collaboration and growth - for your business and your people.
Book a demo today and take the first step towards transforming your organisation's learning culture.
