Commitment to continuous learning – A two-way street

From an employee’s point of view, a commitment to continuous learning is the desire to continually improve one’s skillset by gathering new knowledge. Those who aspire to continuous learning naturally take the initiative to learn and implement new ideas. They understand that there is always more to know, and have a practical commitment to increasing aptitude.

Tomorrow’s leaders must embrace continuous learning as both a personal and an organisational value in order to create a culture of growth and innovation.

From an employer’s point of view, successfully fostering a culture of continuous learning is a critical success factor.  Continuous learning at work has never been more important. In fact, it’s not just important, it’s imperative if you want to grow as a business.  It helps organisations tap into the full potential of its employees, but it also helps them tap into their full potential as individuals. For employees, studying the latest trends, keeping up with technological advances, undertaking research and constantly learning new skills allows them to come up with new and innovative ideas which should collectively translate into a competitive edge for the business.

We are all familiar with the term “Death-by-PowerPoint”.  Being confined to a boardroom for two days, completing a mandatory in-house training session, the content of which has not been updated in more than two years!  Hopefully these training sessions are being phased out and the content being re-purposed as we speak!

All employers are familiar with this situation. There’s a training course that you need to put your staff through, but it’s proving impossible to find a time that works for every member of your team. Often, this can lead to inconvenient compromises made in order to conduct a course and can put a roadblock on actually moving forward with training.

So, what’s a good way to get around this? Increasingly, employers are turning to the online sector to find innovative solutions to their training needs. The most common form is e-learning i.e. the use of online technology to access learning material outside of a traditional classroom or office, incorporating elements such as video, quizzes, gamification, infographics and more.

As the percentage of the tech-savvy millennials rises in the workforce, the reliance on e-learning tools should increase commensurately.

However, this is not the only reason why e-learning tools are important for staff training.  Here are just a few advantages that e-learning tools bring to workforce training:

• More cost-effective
• Geographical independence
• Flexibility of scheduling suitable time for learning
• Better learning outcomes and engagement
• Existing training material can be repurposed
• Can be managed in-house or outsourced

E-learning has also opened the door to some of the most reputable educational institutions in the world, bringing their world-class courses, developed by world-class educators, right into your living room or office. You are able to schedule time for studying at times convenient to you, at your own pace, while still having access to the support of qualified tutors or lecturers should you need it.  Ultimately, one can complete a multitude of short-courses or attain a world-class qualification without ever having to set foot in a lecture hall.

Some employees have the means and drive to further their education on their own steam and budget, but they will be the exception to the rule.  They can be very valuable in driving your organisation’s culture of learning.  If you have been successful in nurturing a culture of continuous learning in your organisation, you need to make sure that there is no lack of content and variety in your arsenal of learning opportunities.

Ultimately, employers need to make relevant continuous learning opportunities available to their employees and hopefully more and more organisations will realise that e-learning is one of the most successful and cost-effective ways to do that.  Establishing a culture of continuous learning within an organisation will go a long way in ensuring that employees grab these learning opportunities with both hands and find ways to implement what they have learnt to the advantage of the organisation.

Have a look at some of our Learning-on-Demand Short Courses related to People!