Last time, we discussed how a good company culture means having a strong culture of learning—and a culture of learning helps boost employee engagement and retention.
What does a culture of learning actually look like? There are five critical elements:
- Facilitate performance feedback from managers to employees.
- Promote managers from within more often than hire from outside the company.
- Make knowledge and information sharing a part of company culture.
- Formalize training and development processes.
- Recognize or compensate employees for their learning.
Our survey showed that most companies emphasize just a few of these elements. Which industries have the strongest learning cultures?
It turns out that finance (31.6 percent of respondents) and healthcare (28.3 percent) showed the highest rates of working for a company with a strong culture of learning. Industries with an average culture of learning include retail and sales (21.8 percent) and SaaS/tech (20.9 percent).
Companies with a strong culture of learning also offered more opportunities for face-to-face, hands-on, on-demand, mobile-friendly, self-directed, and audio/video learning. Most people surveyed feel that both traditional and digital learning tools are important—and most of them (80.1 percent) want hands-on, real-world learning.
More Opportunities for Growth
Ninety-seven point eight percent of companies with a strong culture of learning offered opportunities for growth, compared to 86.8 percent of average companies. Employees at companies with strong learning cultures also attended more training sessions (4.5) than at average companies (3.5).
Your Training Menu Needs Variety
While it’s important to provide the training employees want, effective training design is just as important. A strong training environment should provide materials relevant to employees’ jobs and learning aids focused on recalling content.
When workplaces have a strong culture of learning, employees receive a more effective learning experience and are more likely to be engaged.
6 Effective Training Designs to Adopt
Want to improve your company’s learning culture but having difficulty getting started? Here are some training designs to consider adopting:
- Use e-learning technology to help employees organize and recall content.
- Make training programs simple and effective.
- Use e-learning technology to engage employees.
- Give managers data on employee learning.
- Offer training in smaller, time-saving units.
- Create training content that is intuitive with examples and exercises that are relevant to the job.
Why is company culture so important? Our findings show that company culture directly impacts financial performance: A strong culture of learning, productivity, and company growth are all significantly related.
Also, top talent demands good culture. If your workforce has the strong culture of learning they need, they will be ready and willing to contribute to your organization’s success—and that impacts their loyalty.
How has loyalty in the workplace changed? We’ll look into that next time.
This post was adapted from Bridge’s e-book, Strong Culture, Strong Leaders. Download the full e-book here.