Building a Culture of Learning

Companies around the U.S. spent over $100 billion on training and employee development efforts in 2022 . However, many organizations continue to fall short on their training efforts despite throwing money at the problem. In a previous post, we explained what a culture of learning is and how it can help organizations make the most of their L&D training investments. In this post, we discuss some basic tips and strategies for creating a culture of learning.







Careful and Thoughtful Planning



Any changing corporate culture requires careful planning and thoughtful implementation. Too many organizations have grandiose visions of widespread cultural change they want to make with their companies but don’t appreciate the size and complexity of such efforts.



The first step in the process is appreciating the magnitude of the challenge and planning accordingly. It is important to set clear objectives for building a culture of learning and articulate what success looks like and what metrics can be used to track that success.



Cultivating Organizational Buy-In



Any cultural change should be a team effort and involve different stakeholders from across the organization, such as management, HR, and employees.



This is important for a couple of reasons.



For one, groups who feel left out of the process will feel like the new culture is being imposed on them and may be less likely to be willing participants in the change, even if it objectively benefits them. Second, companies can miss out on a huge amount of useful stakeholder feedback if they fail to engage all stakeholders early in the process.



Building an Arsenal of Learning



One of the keys to a successful culture of learning is having a wide variety of learning resources in multiple formats readily available to trainees. This includes access to live, in-person training sessions, interactive webinars, on-demand lectures, and self-guided, interactive training exercises.



In addition, companies should offer access to mentorship opportunities and ample feedback on employee performance. Creating an environment that is supportive and encourages learning can also be beneficial to employee morale and productivity.



Creating a culture of learning in the workplace is essential for employee learning and development. Developing a culture of learning can help foster creativity, collaboration, and communication within an organization. By empowering staff to help drive their own training plans, a culture of learning also encourages employees to take ownership over their work, which ultimately leads to better performance and more successful outcomes.



By building a culture of learning in the workplace, organizations are making an investment in their employees—one which pays off for both the organization and its employees. Organizations that adopt a culture of learning will find that it leads to increased employee engagement, improved performance and ultimately, higher success rates.



Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.
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