How To Turn Your Company Into A Learning Powerhouse

No organization can reach its goals without qualified and dedicated employees. Creating a strong learning environment can help your company attract and retain top talent. Benefits of investing in ongoing learning include improved employee satisfaction and increased productivity.

As new technologies continue to emerge, employee training programs are becoming increasingly useful when it comes to enhancing employees’ practical and soft skills. But learning at the workplace can go beyond formal training. In this article, we’re discussing 6 ways to implement successful training at work that will turn your company into a learning powerhouse.

IMAGE: UNSPLASH

1. Make Learning Part Of Your Company Culture

Continuous learning and development should be seen as an indelible part of your company culture. By setting employee growth as one of your core values, you will motivate your existing employees to pass on their knowledge and skills to others but also attract employees with similar mindsets.

However, you should keep in mind that it can be difficult for people to find the time to work on their skills with their busy schedules, so do everything you can to make the learning process as simple as possible. For instance, you should consider automating certain repetitive tasks in order to give them more time to spend on improving their skills.

Another thing to remember is that creating a culture of learning is a shared responsibility and make sure that your team members feel free to suggest professional and academic development programs.

2. Organize Lunch And Learn Events

Lunch and learn events are the newest buzz on the company culture scene. These 30 to 45-minute presentations or training sessions are organized by the company for the employees during the lunch hour. You may decide to have your lunch and learn in the conference room, the employee cafeteria, or an auditorium.

What sets these events apart is the easy accessibility and less formal structure. Lunch and learn programs are a great way to motivate employees and invest in their development while at the same time creating a workplace of collaboration, communication, and learning.

3. Coach Your Employees

Employee coaching is considered one of the most important steps to improve overall performance. Employee coaching programs are established in order to give members of the staff the opportunity to develop specific skills and, as a result, become more efficient when performing the required tasks and excel within the organization.

These programs offer a number of benefits both for the individuals being coached and the organization. The benefits of setting up an employee coaching program include developing high potential employees, creating a stronger leadership team, developing better communication skills, and so on.

4. Set Up A Mentorship Program

Professional mentorship involves putting together an industry senior (mentor) with a junior (mentee) to work together over a few months in order to help the mentee achieve a set of work-related goals. The mentor can be from the same company as the mentee or it can be someone who is not connected to the industry, but maybe has plenty of experience in general business.

When done properly, mentoring can have a number of benefits, such as diversification of skills, facilitated collaborative learning, sharing of knowledge, increased employee engagement, building future leaders, improved retention rates, and increased productivity.

5. Use Technology To Your Advantage

The days when employees had to sit in a chair listening to someone instructing them for hours are long gone. Nowadays, you need to find ways to make learning more engaging, effective, and fun. And the best way to achieve this is by leveraging technology.

With technology, training modules can easily be transformed into games and questions can be answered promptly with chatbots. Another way to make training more interactive is with the use of VR. VR can be especially beneficial for hazardous jobs where on-site training is not always possible. It can also be useful for training telemarketers and sales teams in how to deal with customers and can help remote workers feel a part of team meetings.

6. Provide Easy Access To Training Resources

In order to get the most out of the training sessions, your employees will need adequate equipment, such as laptops, screens, projectors, etc.

In larger companies, these resources are not always available, which is why it’s very important to ensure easy access. Consider connecting the calendars of these resources to a booking software that allows them to be reserved in advance. Your training sessions can then be scheduled based on the availability of the required equipment.

Final Thoughts

Development and training opportunities can definitely change your workforce and your entire organization for the better. In addition to being more motivated, effective, and productive, your employees will feel more confident, valued, and loyal. At the same time, ongoing learning has a long-lasting positive effect on employee performance, allowing your company to do better than its competitors, which is the ultimate objective of these approaches.

Consider consulting your team members on which professional training programs would be most helpful to them. Online courses, internal mentorships, and lunch-and-learn programs are just a few examples.