Our world has shifted to a new paradigm that requires life long learning to thrive or at least deal with the rate of accelerated change. Whether you are an individual or an organization learning how to deal with uncertainties is a daily reality for all.
As a result, organizations like humans are finding it necessary to rethink their current change management strategies in order to: attract qualified talents, innovate, deliver on expected earnings as well as stay ahead of competition.
Embracing a culture of life long learning is thus an imperative in today’s precarious world.
A study by LinkedIn shows that learning underscores the need for organizations to up-skilling and reskilling talent as part of their change management strategy. The Learning and Development (L&D) leaders surveyed agree that L&D has become critical in post pandemic era than ever before. Among the surved,“74 % of the L&D leaders agree that L&D has become more cross-functional, 87 % had some to a great deal of involvement in helping their organizations adapt to change. 72% agree that L&D has become a more strategic function at their organization, and 62% agree that L&D is focused on rebuilding or reshaping their organization in 2022.”
Life Long Learning
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” –Alvin Toffler
Life long learning is the process of engaging in constant learning or simply, living a life where learning is a lifestyle for the individual, and an imperative culture for organization.
Life long learning is synonymous to Continuous learning –the process of acquiring new capabilities, knowledge and skills on an ongoing basis.
In the past once one graduated from college they were hirable right away, and if one chose to continue on with education, advance their career and/or get a raise, or a promotion from the same employer; they either went back to college for a graduate degree or changed jobs or even industries to realize their desired outcome.
Today’s ever changing world of work and the workforce expects more. Explaining why organizations that pivot to address these needs will continue to have an edge over the market competition. After all, we live in a much different reality—the knowledge economy where information, data and skill are the ultimate currency.
Globalization, technological advancements, geopolitics, pandemics, data and digital proliferation means that organizations must become more agile, flexible, adaptable, and embrace a culture of learning in order to keep up with the current rate of accelerated change.
Since the pandemic, virtual work became inevitable. Organizations that pivoted quickly and seamlessly continue to thrive, succeed and have a competitive edge.
For example, McKinsey deployed and tasked chief learning officers with key learning goals to ensure their global workforce development learning competences.
The goal was to not only develop learning capabilities internally, but also to equip their employees with broader skills beyond career e.g. increased satisfaction and wellbeing. In addition, they packaged these learning resources as a set of offerings that they can take advantage—like leadership development programs for internal and external courses purposes.
Why Continuous Learning is the single most driver of your organizations’ ROI
At the heart of every organizational success is talent. People’s decisions drive your organizational activities. This is why it’s most compelling to develop and train your talent if you expect exponential returns in the long haul.
Nevertheless, measuring learning can be elusive in quantitative terms. However, the gains are evident and undisputed in the overtime. Imagine, what the possibilities in growth could be if every member of your organization learning increased marginally by at least 1% to 2% daily?
A study by Pluralsight showed a 295% return on investment, (ROI) on continuous learning; with paycheck realized in less than 6 months for those who upskilled and retrained.
The Benefits of Continuous Learning
Knowledge is power right? Power to make better decisions based on the information and knowledge acquired. For organizations embracing a culture of learning, the overall productivity increase is at least by 10% in business value.
Organizations that foster a culture of learning boasts extensive gains beyond career development for their talents: improved quality of wellbeing and brain health, psychological safety, increased innovation, high employee engagement and employee satisfaction, resilience, curiosity —all directly related to learning.
Report by IBM underscores the benefits of a skilled workforce and learning solutions. The most irrefutable gains are:
“16% increase in customer satisfaction among companies using learning technology. Skill levels linked to business value, $70,000 in annual savings and 10% increase in productivity when teams are well trained. 35% reduction in time spent searching for sales content, 22% faster rollouts of products and processes. 75-80% of managers believe effective training is critical to project success and meeting project deadlines.”
Growth is exciting for many, but it helps to point out that growth: organizational or otherwise is impossible unless a growth mindset is the prevailing paradigm.
So, what is the growth mindset, and how might you or your organization develop it?
Growth Mindset: An Imperative for Life Long learning
It is clear that learning, relearning and learning how to learn are what constitute the new paradigm—the growth mindset.
Coined by Carol Dweck, a growth mindset refers to the idea that capabilities for an individual or an organization can be learned as needed. For those who embody this school of thought, they thrive in challenges, enjoy learning and consistently pursue opportunities to develop new skills.
Conversely, the opposite is true of individuals or organizations with fixed mindset—they believe skills and talents are fixed and innate, and that there is no amount of learning, effort or feedback that can change or boost their current level of knowledge.
How organizations cultivate a culture of continuous learning
Learning by nature is ubiquitous and constant—it’s the way we learn to adapt to new situations intentionally or otherwise.
Lets face it, there are things our subconscious mind learned in childhood that have become a lifestyle or at worse are bad habits and thus hard to break.
However, the kind of learning that advances, future proofs and positions you or any organization successfully is at best deliberate—and acknowledges that learning takes time, not to mention no two people learn the same.
Here are 4 ways organizations are deploying in up-skilling and reskilling their workforce.
- Creative Learning Environments
A culture of learning is where it all starts. Inspire curiosity, spark interest and offer incentives that foster learning and make it enjoyable. Reimagine learning similar to how children learn.
- Peer-To-Peer Learning
Create learning models that encourage your workforce to learn from each other. After all we are social animals that influence habit forming e.g. mentoring, coaching, feedback and accountability are great avenues for learning.
- Budget allocation
Put your money where your L&D is. Arm your learning officers with the right resources, defined goals with clear objective key results (OKRs) that are measurable.
- Leverage Data
Data is ubiquitous these days. Great data is critical in designing, developing and delivering learning programs customized to meet your workforce needs. By curating learning journey and skills stack profiles that are measurable.
- Reward Learning
Learning takes time, energy and focus. Therefore, by acknowledging and rewarding you are setting the tone and cultivating a positive organizational mindset—one that inspires grit in the long haul.
Conclusion
In an ever-changing world or work, organizations and individuals who work for them must choose to either grow or die! Organizations that lead change remain competitive by leveraging crisis to realize lurking opportunities. Evidently, growth is consistent and exponential as these organizations rethink skill building—connecting skills to internal mobility and retention.
Bibliography
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/continuous-learning
https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/career/roi-on-training
https://www.ibm.com/training/pdfs/IBMTraining-TheValueofTraining.pdf
https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/
https://hbr.org/2022/04/6-strategies-to-upskill-your-workforce
https://joshbersin.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2010_LEARNING_CULTURE.pdf
