A fat paycheck? Yes, but not always.
The corner office within the next five years? Yes sure, but what about now?
401(k) plan. Health and dental insurance. Paid vacation. Well, these would be nice.
What do you think is the single biggest factor that motivates employees to work at a company? According to Bersin by Deloitte’s research with Glassdoor, learning, and career opportunities are mentioned as the highest priorities by employees.
Employees know that in an ever-changing and volatile workplace, there is only ONE way to make oneself indispensable. Keep growing. Keep learning. Innovate consistently.
Companies like Yahoo, BlackBerry, and Blockbuster failed to keep up with the times. The result: they continued to lag till the day when they were forced to give up.
Innovation is the game-changer. It is true not only for organizations but also for individuals. This is why companies are able to lure valuable employees away from their rivals with the promise of training opportunities.
As an HR or training professional, you have to keep your employees engaged in working for the company by providing them with ample learning opportunities. They need to improve their skills, increase productivity, and be on top of their game, so your business can out-innovate its rivals, tide over disruptions, and respond to market changes.
Here are three ideas on how your company can turn employees into lifelong learners:
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is to assume that employees don’t need to repeat what they have learned. Organizations often take away access to online training courses after rolling these out once.
But employees may want to revisit these courses at will. Some of them may not get a chance to apply the learning just after they take the course; they would want to retake the assessment module or go through a simulation activity to keep up the practice.
Organizations MUST ensure that they provide employees easy access to asynchronous learning. Here are the benefits for employees:
And what's in it for companies? They are spared the expense and hassle of organizing classroom training sessions. Companies with products that undergo frequent upgrades are spared the expense and hassle of organizing classroom training sessions, paying for the time of subject matter experts, and tweaking the schedules of employees from various departments to accommodate the sessions.
Do cooks learn only from books and TV shows? No, they learn best when they actually cook and apply what they learned from books and shows.
As they cook, they learn to play around with ingredients and come up with quirky tastes and innovative combinations. They learn to make do and still come up with finger-licking good food when ingredients are scarce. They learn to create recipes.
Nothing reinforces learning more than application. It is when they put learning into practice that people learn to interpret facts and definitions in context, synthesize learning with experiences, and figure out troubleshooting tips and tricks.
But there cannot be too much lag between learning and application; else employees will forget crucial pieces of information. The best training happens when “learning is the work,” according to Harold Jarche.
Here are some compelling statistics:
L&D expert Charles Jennings calls this also “Embedded Learning” and he considers it the best training strategy. It puts learning closer to the context and establishes relevance.
Your employees are familiar with Netflix. They look up natural remedies and DIY fixes on Pinterest or their favorite blogs. They make travel plans at Airbnb. They take an Uber to the office. So it is natural that they feel most comfortable wielding technology to meet their training needs.
Here are some ways in which you can use technology to integrate learning into your everyday workflow:
According to a Deloitte report, about 80 percent of learning on the job occurs through interactions with co-workers. But it is only recently that peer-to-peer learning has come to be recognized as an effective training strategy.
It is not for nothing that Google has created a peer-to-peer training culture where about 55 percent of the company’s L&D needs are met by a network of over 2,000 peer learners.
Here’s why peer-to-peer learning is gaining acceptance in companies across the world:
As an HR manager, facilitate peer-to-peer learning through:
Also read: How To Adapt & Evolve Your eLearning Courses For for Modern Learners
As an HR or training professional, it is your job to bring out the best in your employees. Adult learners are sensible people; they realize and appreciate it when they are valued. Creating a vibrant and sustainable learning environment in your organization helps employees keep up-to-date on relevant skills. When you show them that you have their best interests in mind, your employees reciprocate by sticking around and giving their best at the workplace.
REFERENCES:
Workplace Learning: Adding, Embedding & Extracting http://charles-jennings.blogspot.com/2013/10/workplace-learning-adding-embedding.html
Embedding Learning in the Flow of Work http://www.slideshare.net/janehart/embedding-learning-in-the-flow-of-work/30-wwwC4LPTcouk_The_Social_Learning_Revoluon
The power of peer-to-peer learning https://www.learnevents.com/blog/2015/07/10/the-power-of-peer-to-peer-learning/
The Top 10 Benefits Of Ongoing Staff Training And Development http://www.saxonsgroup.com.au/blog/human-resources/top-10-benefits-of-ongoing-staff-training-development/
To Stay Relevant, Your Company and Employees Must Keep Learning https://hbr.org/2016/03/to-stay-relevant-your-company-and-employees-must-keep-learning
5 practical ideas for Embedding learning into the workflow http://towardsmaturity.org/shop/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/In-focus-Embedding-learning-into-the-workflow-1.pdf
Six Ways to Improve Millennial Employee Learning https://www.cebglobal.com/blogs/six-quick-wins-for-improving-millennial-employee-learning/