Empowering Employees with Digital Learning to Enable Continuous Learning Culture

It is amply clear by now that in 2021 and possibly beyond too, the workforce is likely to remain remote or hybrid. Even as organizations continue to hone their learning ecosystems, it’s time to let employees take charge of their own learning and development to stay relevant in their roles.

During the pandemic, more companies have come forward to equip employees to build the skills that are essential for their growth and development. As per a Mckinsey survey, a majority of respondents (58 percent) have said that plugging in skills gaps in workforces has become a higher priority since the pandemic began.

Digital Training to Equip Employees for Self-Improvement

While L&D teams have consistently focused on designing and delivering effective training programs, the time has come to concentrate more on enabling a continuous learning culture where employees can work on their own development. This is possible by creating digital education environments that leverage technology to offer efficient ways of refining performance through eLearning.

Giving access to the right data and information can empower employees to make the right decisions in terms of improving productivity. Doing so not only helps employees to perform their jobs successfully but also gives them ownership over their learning while fostering a stronger learning culture across the organization.

Adapting L&D Strategy for Performance Improvement

As per the Udemy2021 Workplace Learning Trends report, employees today want a holistic approach to their careers and consider self-mastery an essential skill. Needless to say, it is imperative that L&D is able to optimize their digital training offerings to suit the needs of such a workforce given the current business climate.

There are a number of ways in which L&D can empower employees to increase performance and take charge of their own learning by adapting a robust digital learning strategy. Let’s look at some of them:

1. Identifying Clear Goals

In order to add value to training and development programs, it is necessary to have clear goals and concrete outcomes. They will help define the overall impact on the organization, as well as individual employees. The clarity in employee goals go a long way in contributing to both individual and company success and motivation.

2. Aligning Training Initiatives to Goals

Once proper goals have been identified, the next step is for L&D to design their training programs around these. An important strategy is to create advanced individual employee development plans that are ambitious so that you can push your employees to move out of their comfort zones. It helps to define skills gaps as well as areas that require more actionable and measurable results.

3. Encouraging Collaboration and Transparency

Employees learn better through collaboration by working together and motivating each other to achieve organizational goals. Collaboration helps foster a culture of learning that leads to nurturing of teams that are responsible and reliable. However, in order to bring in collaboration between employees, it is necessary to have a level of transparency in the organization where there is open communication and proper channels of accountability.

4. Boosting Self-Paced Training

For today’s busy workforce, finding time to take training is not easy. It is imperative that training programs incorporate microlearning and digital training methods that allow employees to take charge and ownership of their learning. The need of the hour is just in time, on-demand, accessible learning that is required to boost performance support. Training that is available at the time of need rather than at a fixed schedule augments productivity better.

5. Rewarding Performance

One of the best ways to encourage employees is to reward them for their good performance. A company that nurtures employee growth is in a better position to attract talent and maintain a positive culture. Recognizing and rewarding employees also helps to boost engagement and motivation leading to higher retention rate.

In Conclusion

In terms of learning and development, organizations need to leverage their existing platforms and technologies. The final goal is to enable employees to control their learning and in turn improve their job performance.