Create A Culture Of Learning In Your Workplace

As a leader, are you absolutely convinced of the need to create a culture of learning? Or do you think it’s a waste of time? Maybe employees must just get on and do the job they are paid for? Why should you have to help them learn new skills. Perhaps you did this course to see what the fuss is about – everyone is talking about learning culture? This lesson will convince you that change is real and your team absolutely needs you to lead by example in creating a culture of learning.

The advertising industry is grappling with disruptive forces and I was privileged to spend some time at GREY South Africa recently, talking about the technologies behind some key trends. The so-called fourth industrial revolution has seen the rise of cyber-physical systems like Tilley Lockey’s new bionc arm and a host of new capabilities that are rapidly changing the way we live and work. Some of the change is painful, especially for large companies, according to Accenture’s CEO Pierre Nanterne, “Digital is the main reason just over half the companies on the Fortune 500 have disappeared since the year 2000.” This a scary thought for established business models, even in advertising, a highly creative and innovative industry that have new challenges keeping brands leading in ever more disruptive and competitive markets.

Throughout this course we will celebrate your progress at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. I really want you to succeed but you need to take action and keep going so look forward to these milestones of progress. I will see you there and cheer you on as you keep going from one milestone to the next >>

I recently presented at the Raising Boys and Girls 2018 conference at St Stithians; we looked at the latest trends in technology, how they are shaping the world of work and what the likely implications are for education. Formal employment creates demand for skills but if companies are being disrupted and jobs are changing or being automated how do we ensure our children are prepared to enter this fast changing world? Many school leavers and graduates also start their own businesses and create employment opportunities for others, often making use of these same disruptive forces to build high growth companies. Understanding these trends is becoming more important as we enjoy the benefits of technology but also grapple with the fundamental shifts it is causing in the world. This article reviews the key points of the presentation and provides links to all the additional information mentioned.

In this activity, you will be working through some key thought starters: 

Do you really value a culture of learning? Why? Why not? What is your perspective of VUCA / 4IR / Rapid change? Practice leading & influencing through change in the next few days.

As a manager or leader in your workplace, you will have some influence on who is hired and what type of people join your team. Even if you don’t actually make decisions about who is employed, your role is still to create a culture of learning in which perpetual learners are more likely to succeed, and in which such habitual learners are more needed. It used to be that you got a certain qualification, joined a company and then did your job without every worrying about renewing your skills. Now in light of a fast changing world, learning, unlearning and relearning has become an imperative.

In this activity, you will be working through some key thought starters: 

Do you have interviews this week when you can practice assessing people for learning mindsets? New team members coming on board? New projects kicking off? Have a chat with HR / L&D, how will you assess people differently?

I’ve run numerous teams in my 25 year career. One of the techniques I have used every time I set up a new team is to establish “lunch time learning”. You can choose one day per week and you get the team used to meeting up and learning something together. It was always very casual, people could bring their lunch and we tried to protect that time. Either a Thursday or Friday worked well. Once you got it going for a few weeks then it became an established practice – it became part of the culture of the team If one of the team had been on some training then I would ask them to convey some of the insights back to everyone else. If people had been on a conference then I would ask them to talk about what they learned. This actually helped reinforce the learning of the presenter as much as it helped the rest of the team gain new skills and insights.

Throughout this course we will celebrate your progress at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. I really want you to succeed but you need to take action and keep going so look forward to these milestones of progress. I will see you there and cheer you on as you keep going from one milestone to the next >>

In this activity you will take some actions to start creating your learning culture at the team level:

• Set up lunch time learning

• Establish recognition for courses and training

• Understand your team’s motivation for learning

You can’t rely on your HR department to develop your training approach. You need to understand the best practices of training as well as what kinds of training are available. When you are invested in how training works and what options work best for your needs, then your team will see how important it is and even just this behavioural change can help drive a culture of learning. There’s a couple of different types of training you can send your people on. It could be a classroom based training, which is live an in person and its set up for a limited group of people who need to book and attend during this period.

In this activity you will give some thought to what you have learned about the key training methods:

• Classroom / in-person

• Online / digital

• Live / self-paced

• Ask for feedback on different types

You will also spend some time to find out what your L&D recommends

As a manager you will have a budget for training and development. It’s usually included in how cost centres are managed but it’s usually not based on actual plans for the coming year. It’s very important that you understand what budget you have available for training in your environment or you could be limited in what formal training your team can do. It’s important that you are able to motivate why you need budget for training. You must be able to demonstrate a return on investment or ROI for training.

In this activity you will think about what you have learned and apply new ways of doing things in key areas that help drive a learning culture:

• Budgets and approval

• ROI / Cost savings

• Revenue Uplift

• Stakeholders / buy-in

• Employee engagement

• Development conversations

I worked at Accenture for 10 years and experienced first hand the world class learning culture that has propelled this firm's success. The management consulting career requires continuous learning to be able to solve client problems and Accenture has developed unique practices for their learning culture. Understand why the set aside a significant portion of revenue every year for a range of different types of training.

Throughout this course we will celebrate your progress at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. I really want you to succeed but you need to take action and keep going so look forward to these milestones of progress. I will see you there and cheer you on as you keep going from one milestone to the next >>

In this case study lesson you will learn about best practices at PayPal for creating learning cultures. They run learning fairs, brand their training and saw a huge surge in their online learning portal during 2020. Learn from PayPal so that you can apply the same in your organisation as you strive for the same results.

Microsoft experienced a significant cultural shift when Satya Nadella became CEO. He established a learning culture from the top of the organisation and inspired his staff to be perpetual learners. The new "learn it all" culture was a stark change from the "know it all" culture under the previous CEO Steve Ballmer. Learn best practices from Microsoft for creating a learning culture in your organisation.

In my PhD I studied Agile teams in 25 organisations around the world. I found a strong correlation between positive team sentiment and strong learning cultures. In this lesson I explain the sentiment scale I developed in my PhD and how this creates a framework for managers to explain team sentiment and develop a learning culture. I provide a number of examples of interview data and quotes from my research participants talking about learning culture and Agile team sentiment.

Are you studying and need help? ??? Do you need a breakthrough in a specific area of your degree? Join thousands of my other students that have learnt to: write, plan, reference, get motivated, organise their time and benefit from so many more tips and techniques. ?Achieve your goals! Write better, research better, finish your reports! Study harder, go further, get your degree and make your contribution. My name is Peter Alkema and I am your online student success coach. I have a PhD and I've helped thousands of my students achieve their goals, like Flora Makgale: "What an amazing course! After finishing this course, I have confidence. Thank so much Dr Peter Alkema" Tulongeni Shilunga: "This is exactly the jump-start I needed. Very clear and concise." Lebogang Tswelapele: "This is what I have been longing for" Paskalia Ndapandula: "Peter speaks with so much clarity" Werner van Wyk: "Thank you Peter, once again your lesson and course have given me so much knowledge and understanding" Yvonne Rudolph "I really look forward to take everything i learned in action" Josephine Mahlangu: "exactly what I needed to know, absolutely valuable and helpful for my personal growth"

Throughout this course we will celebrate your progress at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. I really want you to succeed but you need to take action and keep going so look forward to these milestones of progress. I will see you there and cheer you on as you keep going from one milestone to the next >>