10 tips for a positive learning culture:

What does learning culture mean?

As part of the corporate culture, the learning culture is an important building block for the development of a company. It encompasses all the values, ways of thinking and acting and framework conditions in a company that affect the transfer of knowledge. This includes not only the opportunities and barriers for acquiring knowledge, but also the conditions that affect the transfer of knowledge within the company. This includes both learning opportunities and access to knowledge as well as established learning habits and the social recognition of learning in the company. The learning culture is therefore an indicator of the importance of learning in a company.

Why is a good learning culture important?

The learning culture has an impact on various areas of the company: a successful learning culture improves collaboration, leads to greater employee satisfaction and increases employee skills and productivity.

Improving cooperation

A positive learning culture improves cooperation between employees. Learning soft skills plays an important role in this context: companies should enable their employees to develop further in this area. This is because soft skills have a positive effect on collaboration and promote a constructive atmosphere in the company.

A good learning culture also means learning from each other: employees learn from their colleagues, which can lead not only to more effective knowledge dissemination but also to better collegiality. Last but not least, it is essential that employees share their own knowledge within the company. On the one hand, they gain visibility and value for the company, and on the other hand, the organization also benefits from this. In this context, the topic of User-generated content is becoming increasingly important.

Increasing employee satisfaction

It is very important for employees to know what content is relevant to them and how they can access this knowledge. In addition, a study found that 94% of employees want to stay with the company longer if the employer invests in their personal development.¹ A good learning culture therefore contributes to employee satisfaction and thus prevents staff turnover.

¹ Source: LinkedIn Learning 2018 Workplace Learning Report

Improving skills and productivity

A successful learning culture also helps to build the knowledge and skills of all employees. In addition to subject-specific learning content, much of this nowadays revolves around the development of digital skills, as well as other topics in which knowledge content is constantly changing. Social and economic trends such as experiential consumption, climate protection and the individualization of products are leading to changes in consumer behaviour and influencing the day-to-day business of many organizations. An active learning culture increases the adaptability to changes and thus the productivity of employees as well as the economic success of the company. This effect was demonstrated in a study conducted by IBM: 84% of employees in the most successful companies receive appropriate training opportunities, while in the least successful companies only 16% receive such opportunities.²

² Source: Study "IBM Training - The Value of Training". 2014.

What makes a good learning culture?

There are several aspects that are essential for establishing a positive learning culture. First of all, it is important that all managers exemplify a positive attitude towards the learning culture. This way, employees not only understand how learning should work in the company, but also that this culture is actually lived. Closely linked to this is the communication of learning measures: learners must understand and accept the learning objectives, content, learning materials and the way in which these are integrated into everyday working life. And last but not least, a suitable, digitalized infrastructure should be implemented so that the learning culture can be put into practice in the best possible way. If these aspects are successfully implemented, the intrinsic motivation of learners and their willingness to learn will increase

10 tips for a successful learning culture

Tip 1: Establish a culture of error

The prerequisite for a successful learning culture is a culture in which errors are tolerated. Only then are employees not afraid to make mistakes and can learn from them.

Tip 2: Identify learning needs

An educational needs analysis is a means of determining the individual educational needs of learners. It helps to define meaningful learning content and objectives for all employees. This can be tested with the help of a pilot group.

Tip 3: Involve employees

Involve employees in the planning of learning strategies and let them set their own learning goals.

Tip 4: Early communication

Communicate the learning measures from the outset in such a way that learners are made aware of them and motivated.

Tip 5: Help them to help themselves

Provide learners with tips for self-learning.

Tip 6: Provide tools

A digital infrastructure with tools that promote learning and make it easy to share knowledge facilitates the learning process and increases the acceptance of learning measures.

Tip 7: Integration into everyday working life

For learning to become part of the culture, it is important to integrate it into everyday working life, so give your employees the opportunity to do so. This way, training is not only completed when required, but learning becomes a matter of course.

Tip 8: Current learning content

The learning content should always be up-to-date and well prepared. This not only improves the learning effect, but also the motivation of the learners. The digitalization of certain content and a good mix of internal and external learning materials are often helpful.

Tip 9: Learn together

In addition to the right learning content, "social learning" is a suitable tool for this: sharing knowledge and learning together can also provide insights into other departments and invite you to think outside the box.

Tip 10: Measure results

To ensure that the learning measures are effective, the results should be measured and the learning measures adjusted accordingly. This is a continuous process.

For more detailed tips on how to increase employee acceptance of e-learning, read the article E-learning acceptance.