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Continuous learning is essential to helping employees grow as it teaches hard and soft skills they will use at work.
Knowledge and training also prepares employees to take on different roles within the company and is a good way to build an internal leadership pipeline.
In this blog article are some tips to encourage your employees’ continuing education and development.
Offering opportunities that aren’t necessarily related to work is an excellent way to pique employees’ initial interest in learning and continuing education and cultivate a culture of learning. This might sound counterintuitive, but offering access to courses that are personally interesting to employees shows that you encourage continual learning on a holistic level.
You can also let employees know you support their endeavors outside of work, which is generally good for your corporate culture.
Employees are more likely to be interested in participating in continuing education opportunities that align with the real challenges and situations they face on the job.
An excellent way to start building a robust continuing education program is to assess your organization’s skill gaps and specifically build education around those gaps.
Most employees are likely to be engaged with training opportunities that make their lives easier, and using a skills gap as a starting point is an excellent way to do that.
If you aren’t sure where skills gaps exist, you can start by asking your employees for feedback on where they feel they could learn to improve job performance. Make this all part of a larger plan to help foster individual employee development and chart their improvements over time to show them the real, measurable effects of continual learning and development.
Everyone is unique, and this includes how they learn. Some people may learn better when information is presented in different formats and when they have flexibility in accessing materials and information.
Provide as many options as you reasonably can so employees have choices. For example, with a learning management system, you can offer self-paced modules, video learning, and written materials. People can learn at a pace that works for them and access information on how they best retain it.
Many employers shy away from a culture that embraces learning because they think it has to be expensive and time-consuming. They often visualize expensive off-site, instructor-led training, which is not necessary and is not what employees prefer in most cases.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t provide opportunities for off-site learning and even conferences, but it doesn’t have to be the focal point of your education program.
To retain employees, you must show that you’re willing to invest in them and their future within the organization in every way. Pair learning programs with mentorship to encourage them to participate in continuing education and constantly evolve.
Employees with a mentor will feel more connected, engaged, and likely happier at work, which is essential for retention and innovation.
Employees need to feel incentivized for everything they do in the workplace, including continuing education and development. There are different ways to incentivize learning. You can make it fun with gamification, but you can also make it an integral part of promotions and moving upward in the company.
Make explicit connections with employees that show them how continuing education can bring them to the next level of their careers.
Don’t just say it—put it in action. Advancement should be heavily based on who is willing to learn new skills and who is part of a learning culture, and employees should be able to see this in action. This is also a win for you because, as mentioned, you’re building and cultivating your talent pipeline rather than always looking outside the organization.