Developing a learning culture

- [Instructor] Something that I mentioned earlier in the course in passing that I want to talk about a little bit more is the idea of developing and fostering a learning culture in your organization. Now, I'm a training guy, so I'm biased, but there are very clear reasons why this is a good thing for the ongoing health and growth of an organization. Reason number one, employee satisfaction and retention. Numerous studies have been done showing that when employees feel they have the ability to develop and grow their careers, they are happier, more engaged and more likely to remain in place. Providing resources to them that makes this possible and encouraging them to take advantage of those resources is a clear way to foster this. Reason two, more rapid onboarding becomes possible when there is a comprehensive knowledge base available to new employees. Yes, it needs to be kept up to date and it needs to be easy to find and use, but it can be invaluable in getting new workers up to speed more quickly. A good knowledge base also helps cut down on support requests when the answers to most often asked questions are available in an effectively set up repository, people will be able to answer a lot of their questions themselves without getting support staff involved. Another reason, and one that I think is one of the most important, giving people access to resources that will let them learn new things, new techniques and tools can create a larger pool of workers who will be ready for future developments. There are people who really like staying on top of new trends who will be investigating and learning about them before there's a need. And once there is a need, they'll already be in place in your organization lessening the delay and hassle in staffing. As a corollary to that, as people learn about new things, they may start seeing ways that they can be applied to the organization to improve existing conditions. And eventually, wind up being a great way of feeding new goals into an ongoing transformation effort. Depending on the size of the organization, it may be smart to invest in a good learning management system, or LMS. An LMS can act not only as a repository of information, it can also be set up to direct people to different knowledge tracks to suggest learning or set up a required set of training, that people have to follow either company-wide or for specific roles. Most LMS systems can also direct users to outside training materials, which is important. Realistically, most organizations are not going to be able to develop learning materials for everything, or be able to provide direct training to everyone. This is why when I was a global training manager for a certain Fortune 500 Company, I was so excited to be able to partner with LinkedIn Learning. It instantly made thousands of training courses on hundreds of topics available to everyone. Once again, I'm obviously biased towards LinkedIn Learning, but there are a number of other options available at a wide range of costs. Options like Khan Academy, Udemy, edX and others can be more affordable than LinkedIn. In some cases, even free. However, there can be quite a range in course quality along with the price. Many of these platforms don't have a system for vetting instructors, which means anybody can load content online whether they're qualified or not. You need to be a bit judicious about where you're sending people if you want quality education. But honestly, I think the benefits of encouraging ongoing learning within the organization are clear. And I strongly believe that companies that make it a priority are positioning themselves for ongoing success.