A performance review — with constructive feedback and acknowledgment of excellent work — inspires an employee, engages them, and motivates them to work harder and deliver optimal results.
According to a Gallup study on employee engagement in the workplace, having regular performance reviews with employees is four times more likely to keep them engaged and motivated.
However, ensuring employees are staying relevant and engaged in their jobs is a growing issue today with the worldwide pandemic. Many companies have been working remotely the past year, with plans to continue into the new year ahead.
How should companies ensure that their employees stay relevant and engaged?
What is workplace learning?
Workplace learning is a hot topic for many businesses today. Employees working from home create a need to go digital and transform how learning is disseminated and received. The workplace itself is a significant source of learning where knowledge and skills can be acquired.
Having learning opportunities at work minimizes downtime in operations while ensuring talent optimization and employee engagement. Hence, it is important and crucial for firms to provide learning opportunities while supporting and developing employees to grow and excel in their jobs.
How to implement L&D?
The annual learning trends report conducted by Udemy highlighted some key trends on how workplace learning is becoming more prevalent globally and how organizations can stay relevant.
According to Shelly Osborne, Vice President of Learning at Udemy and author of The Upskilling Imperative, “The trends can help CXOs understand the kind of upskilling and learning agility that is required to keep pace with the ‘new normal.'”
Organizations can provide several learning opportunities for their employees, including in-house training sessions, learning through coaching, and mentoring self-driven continuous learning. The support received by employees would then be translated into their work performance, making it easier to retain talent.
Here are 4 ways organizations can implement workplace learning and to minimize any skill gaps in their organization:
1. Enhancing workplace collaboration
Working in teams is becoming the driving force of organizational performance — and for good reason. By collaborating and working together, employees can learn and adapt faster than working alone. With constant communication, negotiation, problem-solving and critical thinking taking place within teams, employees are more likely to challenge themselves to come up with better solutions, while building up their skills.
Working in teams would also allow employees to learn from each other while fostering a sense of community and creating a sense of attachment towards the organization.
2. Encouraging self-training
Encouraging a bottom-up approach towards learning motivates employees to better themselves. For instance, employees can be rewarded should they choose to upskill in their own time.
This encourages workers to stay curious and always ask questions. Being curious would mean employees are staying up-to-date. Asking questions would demonstrate their worth at work. Simultaneously, there are more opportunities for management to promote their employees while reducing the risk of losing talent to another company.
3. Learning & applying skills on the job
While learning is an ongoing process and is constantly taking place, it may be tricky to dedicate time to learning in the midst of work. As such, organizations may choose to allow employees the flexibility to attend workshops and seminars during work hours. This helps to build employer-employee trust while allowing the rest of the team to gain insights and skills.
At the same time, organizations can highlight to employees how to practice the skills they are learning during work. For instance, simulations can be conducted to allow employees to apply their knowledge, thus increasing information retention.
Time can then be set aside to conduct learning reviews to understand the efficacy of such an approach better. This approach might be more applicable to certain departments, such as sales, where teams can take turns in role-playing customers and representatives to display better customer service.
4. Building a learning culture
Learning should always be happening within an organization so that employees are constantly improving themselves while acquiring knowledge and skills. This is crucial in ensuring talent retention as well.
According to LinkedIn Learning’s 2020 Workplace Learning Report, 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development. Hence, employers should create an environment where learning can happen daily while employees are working. Managers can act as coaches, providing training and on-the-go guidance and feedback.
There are many benefits to workplace learning, no matter how an organization chooses to implement it. Providing employees with an opportunity to learn and grow – personally and professionally — is key to optimizing and retaining talent and ensuring career growth. Organizations should ensure an ecosystem of learning to support their employees so that an engaging learning culture will be developed.
For more solutions on how to improve the structure of workplace learning in your organization while improving the skill sets of your employees, join LEARNTech Asia’s upcoming workplace learning webinar as industry leaders share their valuable insights on the importance of workplace learning.
We’re curious: how is your organization applying workplace learning?
