Building a learning culture that fuels employee growth

When leaders encourage learning in the workplace, employees have more chances to grow. Companies with great professional development strategies reap the rewards of more engaged, productive teams who feel valued, motivated, and empowered.

But opportunities for learning don’t always come up naturally, and it’s up to organizations to strategically create environments where knowledge-sharing thrives. Employees should be encouraged to experiment, learn from their mistakes, and jump into learning opportunities that will stretch and challenge them. 

How do HR leaders turn errors into opportunities and transform the most routine interactions into teaching moments? They start by building a learning culture and investing in the future of the organization through its people. 

What’s a learning culture? 

A learning culture is an organizational environment where leadership encourages learning, knowledge-sharing, and development. Companies create this type of setting through formal training and continuous feedback loops between leadership and direct reports.

In great learning cultures, there’s a thirst for knowledge that thrives when employees seek out new ways to improve their skills. Together with leadership, teams adopt new tools and practices, openly sharing their knowledge with one another. This fosters a collaborative spirit between coworkers while avoiding competitive information siloing. 

Does your organization lack productive, proactive problem-solvers? Creating a learning culture changes that by connecting employees to their work.

4 core characters of learning culture in the workplace

Strong learning cultures flourish in supportive environments where employees can take risks, assume new responsibilities, make mistakes, and pivot. These encouraging spaces often share the following characteristics.

Psychological safety

Psychological safety is the level of comfort people feel expressing themselves without fear of judgment or punishment from others.

Learning requires taking risks and overcoming setbacks. And in psychologically safe workplaces, team members have the space to turn errors into growth opportunities. In these settings, employees are more confident asking questions or raising concerns to upper management without fear of a negative response.

Continuous opportunities to learn

Learning cultures take an active, constant approach to information sharing with leaders organizing structured trainings and peer-level knowledge exchanges. They also encourage employees to learn on-the-job insights and to grow outside of formal professional development settings. 

Managers support their direct reports by taking on more responsibility and giving constructive feedback when needed. By modeling curiosity and accountability, they set the tone for a fear-free learning environment.

Constructive feedback culture

Feedback culture and learning culture go hand-in-hand. 

Good leaders in learning-focused workplaces regularly provide clear, constructive feedback to their employees. The goal here is to help people get better at their jobs, not to point out their mistakes or shortcomings. 

Leaders actively listen to team members, eager to learn what tools and resources they need to hone their skills. Workleap Officevibe’s anonymous surveys are great for gathering filter-free feedback on employees’ learning and growth experiences; organizations can turn these insights into drivers of positive change.

Recognition of effort and learning

In strong learning cultures, leaders and peers recognize one another’s accomplishments. 

Managers congratulate employees for learning new skills, completing a course, or successfully implementing feedback. Praise is personalized and specific, pinpointing the hard work the employee put in to reach their goal.

A sign of great leadership is trying out different forms of recognition. For example, a manager might set up a one-on-one to offer praise or send a private, thoughtful recognition note to congratulate an employee. Or they may publicly shout out the achievement, encouraging team members to celebrate their colleague’s win. 

Workleap Officevibe’s Good Vibes feature helps teams create a strong culture of employee recognition. Managers and peers can share great work publicly or send private appreciation notes. With Officevibe, no one has to wait for a performance review to hear how great they’re doing.

How to create a learning culture in 5 steps

Learning cultures don’t just happen; organizations create and maintain them. Actively promote education in your organization with the following steps.

1. Assess your current company culture

First, decide if your environment can support a positive learning culture. If your organization stifles innovation and risk-taking or punishes employees for making mistakes, a dedicated learning culture won’t work.

Survey your workforce on the current company culture and how safe they feel asking questions and experimenting. Workleap Officevibe’s anonymous employee surveys lets you gather raw insights on the employee experience so you can create a more learning-friendly workplace.

2. Align learning with organizational goals

While your team members have their own internal motivations for skilling up, they also need external drivers. During trainings, focus on how knowledge pushes organizational goals forward, educating employees on the company’s high-level targets and how each person contributes to a greater purpose.

Employees want to feel like they matter and make a difference in their place of work. They take pride in knowing they played a small part in something bigger and enjoy celebrating company and client milestones. When you link team members’ work to overarching goals, there’s a clearer sense of purpose and meaning, emotionally connecting employees to their work.

3. Empower managers to support growth

Everyone has different learning styles and goals, so it’s important for leaders to stay flexible. Train your managers to actively listen to team members’ professional development objectives and provide unique learning paths for everyone. One colleague may benefit from attending a state-of-the-art conference, while another needs on-site support.

Leaders can also drive growth and encourage confidence by delegating high-level, more challenging tasks. And when team members have trouble adjusting, a manager who pops in with constructive feedback will help them get back on the right track.

4. Promote constant feedback

Feedback loops drive a continuous learning culture, giving employees consistent growth opportunities to learn from their wins and losses. 

Start by tracking employee performance data, determining where individuals thrive or struggle. Workleap Performance’s flexible reviews give leaders real-time progress data and quick insights so you can address learning gaps and create tailored growth pathways. 

But remember that effective feedback goes both ways. Leaders should be comfortable giving constructive criticism and receiving it from their direct reports. When managers understand the skills and knowledge employees are developing, they can better guide and equip them to reach their goals.

5. Celebrate wins

A little recognition goes a long way, and Gallup data proves it: Employees are 45% less likely to leave a company if they receive adequate acknowledgement and praise. They’re even more apt to do so if the feedback is authentic, fair, personalized, and consistent. 

Create opportunities to recognize accomplishments with a mix of big, occasional perks (like bonuses) and meaningful everyday shoutouts. Encourage peers, not just leaders, to celebrate one another with Workleap Good Vibes, where colleagues can virtually pat each other on the back.

Examples of excellent learning cultures

As you grow a strong learning culture at your organization, take cues from companies with standout professional development. Here are three real-life, inspiring learning culture examples.

Bonobos 

Clothing company Bonobos boasts a remarkable learning culture that equips everyone to become a leader. With entry-level employees, the company teaches managerial skills and classes to provide a foundation for future high-ranking roles. The organization also trains team members on better interactions to prepare them for top-tier roles in the sales department. 

Marriott

This international hotel chain offers streamlined growth tracks to rewarding positions in the company. With a unique focus on peer-to-peer collaborative learning, the organization nurtures leadership and other high-value skills. Marriott also cares for its employees by workshopping wellness skills, like how to establish a better work-life balance.

AT&T

AT&T has earned fame in the professional development circuit by offering a unique in-house degree program. Through their partnership with several universities, the company offers online master’s programs for employees to learn higher-level tasks. They also have team-led training programs to drive career development through expanding leadership skills.

Foster continuous growth with Workleap 

Keep growth and learning at the front of your organization’s goals by building a healthy learning culture. Together, your organization and team members can turn feedback, recognition, mentoring, and peer-to-peer education into a constant source of education.

Workleap is here to support your company’s learning and development best practices with real-time analytics on employee strengths, weaknesses, and insights for meaningful pivots. Use Officevibe to drive connection through employee feedback and recognition, pulse surveys, and engagement analysis. Keep the learning going with Performance, using the LMS tool to build courses, organize employees based on learning goals, and analyze real-time feedback.

Start creating the standout learning culture your workforce needs by requesting a demo from Workleap today.