HOW TO CREATE A LEARNING CULTURE
PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS : PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE IN GLOBAL CONTEXTS.
( by M.D.E.I.M.Muthugalage - 23042637)
Creating
a learning culture in an organization is a strategic and ethical approach to
bring the organization into its height. Supporting independent learning and
development, encouraging team members to reflect their empathy to grow within
the organization and inculcate a growth mindset are the important points to think
about.
Overview
If,
we raise a question why we need to bother on learning and development (L&D)
of the employees. Why We can’t recruit competent guys into position and run a “Plug
and Play” model.
In
contrast, thinking may evolve into a strategic pattern which helps to develop an
organization into a more vibrant and sustainable level in constantly and fast
changing environment. Thus, organizations need to be initiated to invest in
building a learning culture and implement appropriate measurement to adopt both
management and the subordinates to line up for continuous learning process. Therefore,
these criteria to be embedded to strategic vision of the organization and then
would take a smooth flow to run it’s own.
- Support individuals for learning and transformation. This allows knowledge to shape up for strategy and process.
- Encourage teams to learn and reflect on their work to be proactive, influential, strategical and driven for process ..
- Provide infrastructure to all layers and create a friendly environment for learning and development.
- Provide
professional feedback for learners and appraise their efforts and enthusiasm to
learn and build.
- Recognize
employees who have groomed themselves through internal and external learning
and also ready for transformational changes. Should make a culture for them to their career both in horizontal and vertical in the same organization.
- Much could be taken,
when teams are mixed with out sourced personals with more expertise, knowledge
and skills.
Major
benefits from cultivating a “Learning and development Culture “within an organization.
I.
It improves engagement
and retention
Having built a learning and development
culture, employees start to feel that they are valued and recognized. In turn
it improves their performance and positively affect to the overall performance of
the organization as well. It boosts their motivation and reduce the staff
turnover considerably.
II. Boost creativity
and innovation
The culture develops attitude of employees and
improves the strategical thinking and appetite for risk bearing. Then their creativity
and innovation power would be increased and eventually bring the organization
more lucrative results. That is applicable to both service and manufacturing
sectors and in any organization would be benefited.
Prepares the organization for disruption and change
Positive culture exist would lead the teams to
think passionately and react positively to the changes and all the disruptions.
The knowledge, experience and wider scope built would help them to take
appropriate decisions and change any situation to a doable and not be stuck under
disastrous conditions.
IV. Support for long
term customer satisfaction
With the passionate culture developed within
the organization, would lead to bring ultimate customer satisfaction, build and
grow a sustainable portfolio. Employees will cater their customers with great
pride and enthusiasm and it create a great pleasure for client to obtain solutions
through them. Customer – employee relationship would be an everlasting and eliminate
competitor approach, especially there is no major staff outflow towards
competitors.
Why most of the organizations fail to implement a learning and development culture in their organizations.
1. Blaming culture exist
When a blaming
culture is existed, employees are reluctant to show their weaknesses and don’t want
to admit mistakes and may even conceal them. Even the management see learning
as a sign of weakness or areas that need to improve. This makes a fear within
the employees to adopt for a learning culture.
2. Rigid learning programs
Employees don’t
attract highly structured, scheduled and fixed training programs. And also lengthy
off-site training programs are too not welcomed by the employees and not
productive.
3. Some see learning as irrelevant and
distraction from real work.
A mostly seen
scenario is that people are often busy with routine schedules and they assume training
and grooming schedules are barriers for them. They don’t see the value of training
and development sessions and in such, very difficult to expected culture and
practices in the organization.
4. Not recognized and rewarded
To build a
healthy learning culture, need both recognition and a proper rewarding criteria.
This situation prevents people for being initiative for such a learning culture
as they don’t see any value on this.
5. Learning is not an enjoyable moment.
Organization can’t
motivate employees for a learning culture unless the program is not appeared to
be happy and enjoyable. This is a common factor and even scientific lessons say
Neurological research shows that dopamine, endorphins and oxygen are all
increased during funny moments and it in turn boost the engagement and
learning.
Strategies to overcome barriers
1. Organizations must include L&D strategy
into overall strategical business plan. Certain specialized areas must be developed
with a relevant L&D program. Eg. When company arrange a brand development,
they need to include marketing training in their L&D.
2. L&D should be top task in management initiatives.
Therefore, senior management should be focused, empowered and capable of
providing leadership, funding, resources and direction.
3. A good analysis should be carried out to
recognize the key stake holders and need to understand the concerns of the
stake holders to L&D should be arranged to address the burning issues highlighted
with affairs of stakeholders.
4. Need to build a framework and make the
employees accountable for their key job tasks. KPIs should be clearly
communicated and make a ground to be questionable when fail in results. This
would lead employees to think innovative and go for a L&D culture to improve
themselves and their teams.
Top Companies trusted on L&D.
Toyota.
IBM
Apple
References
Books:
Mindset: “The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S.Dweck.
“The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to
Optimal Performance” by Josh Waitzkin.
Academic Journals:
· “Journal of Workplace Learning”
· “Training and Development Journal”
Blogs
https://corporate.britishcouncil.org/insights/why-learning-culture-vital-success-your-organisation
https://www.apty.io/blog/barriers-to-organizational-learning/
It's inspiring to see the acknowledgment of learning as an ongoing process that goes beyond formal training, encompassing informal knowledge-sharing and experiential learning. Indeed, organizations that prioritize a learning culture empower their employees to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape, contributing to both personal and organizational success. This is a very useful topic to get more knowledge about the subject.
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