A workforce continuously learning and applying new skills is necessary for business survival today. Yet, despite years of attempts, most organizations struggle to achieve these results. Traditional learning and development approaches simply aren’t cutting it.

To bridge the gap, a deeper shift is needed—one that fundamentally reframes what it means to learn and how organizations facilitate L&D.

Focus on a learning culture, not training

Historically, L&D has focused on providing employees access to relevant training materials. Training programs emphasize delivering content and generally measure success in scale (e.g., number of participants, hours consumed, courses available). However, just because an employee is exposed to training materials doesn’t mean they understand it, know how to implement it or recognize situations to apply it.

Skill development goes far beyond access to relevant material. To truly learn, employees need to attend to the new information, actively connect it to prior knowledge, practice applying it in a variety of realistic contexts, reflect and improve, seek feedback and so on. Luckily, there is science to getting people to learn.

See also: Inclusion is a ‘journey’—and continuous learning must be a key driver

Apply Theory One for a learning culture

David Perkins, a renowned Harvard University researcher, distilled decades of research into a single statement he called Theory One: “People will learn much of what they have the reasonable opportunity and motivation to learn.” Applying Theory One is key to creating a continuous learning culture.

First, individuals need reasonable opportunities for skill development—clear learning objectives, relevant content and experiences, opportunities for practice and reflection, and informative feedback. However, opportunity alone is insufficient; employees must want to learn and be willing to put in hard work. While intrinsic motivation (driven by internal factors like curiosity and a love of learning) is invaluable, extrinsic motivation (driven by external rewards or consequences) plays a crucial role, particularly in the workplace.

Organizations stumble on both sides of Theory One, but most critically when it comes to creating sufficient motivation. Busy employees, even those with intrinsic motivation, need a reason to prioritize skill development over competing professional and personal obligations. One of the most legitimate and powerful ways to motivate continuous learning is by linking skill attainment to performance management.

Build a pull learning economy

In most organizations, L&D operates in a push economy; training is pushed out with relatively little pick-up from employees. In economic terms, there’s little demand for services.

Using high-quality skill data to inform performance management decisions transforms the learning economy. When employees clearly understand skills required for their current role, future career aspirations and how their skills measure up against those expectations, a powerful extrinsic motivator kicks in.

Most employees want to keep their jobs and grow their career, and if they recognize skills gaps standing in the way, they will demand—or pull—high-impact learning opportunities from L&D. When combined with intrinsic motivators and appropriate support structures, a pull economy is the optimal foundation for continuous learning.

See also: Concerned about retention? Prioritize AI upskilling

Expand and improve learning opportunities

Transformation to a pull learning economy is a highly complex, multi-year, whole-organization endeavor that cannot be achieved by HR/learning professionals alone, even when supported by incredible technology. In the short term, create more opportunities for employees to learn formally and informally, leveraging technology to help scale excellence across the organization.

• Do training better. While access to content isn’t the same as learning, it is a vital foundation. Make it easy and intuitive for employees to quickly find helpful content by leveraging skills data. Learning leaders can also blend training courses with articles, podcasts, books and peer-created mini-modules to diversify content types and perspectives.
• Implement capability academies. Invest in high-impact capability academies for business-critical areas. Work with stakeholders to blend formal training, mentoring, hands-on projects and peer-to-peer experiences with authentic deliverables in programs with demonstrated impact.
• Support and amplify informal learning: Most learning at work doesn’t happen in a formal setting. Work with subject matter experts to identify (or crowdsource!) informal ways for employees to learn before making those opportunities visible, ideally in your LXP. Consider linking to relevant communities of practice, thought leaders, conferences or associations, mentors, extra-miles activities, etc.
• Teach employees how to learn with generative AI. Teach employees how to maximize gen AI tools for learning. Provide prompts for reflection, critical thinking and identifying related concepts. If your organization leverages meeting co-pilots, teach people how to use them for analysis and feedback of interpersonal skills.
• Leverage high-quality learning tech. From AI coaches to automated workshop facilitation to individual content personalization, there are a host of new solutions emerging that afford valuable learning experiences at scale. If you can’t attend conferences, look at the expo attendees and reach out to those who have interesting new products.

A continuous learning culture is essential for modern organizations to flourish but requires a paradigm shift. In addition to advocating for long-term solutioning, L&D professionals can take concrete steps today by reorienting around learning, not training—creating engaging, personalized learning experiences, both formal and informal, and by embracing the power of technology.

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