Learning is the cornerstone of a good corporate culture. But organising it efficiently still appears to be a challenge. Mien Segers, Professor of Corporate Learning, explains how we can best approach learning in organisations.
How should we ideally approach learning in organisations?
“Learning is based on seven building blocks. First, you need to experience urgency, a subject must be relevant and challenging. Second, you must be in charge of your own learning. Learning about that which you have a say is more effective. Third, team learning is a good idea. Working together is the optimal setting for learning from and with each other. Fourth, you have to share knowledge. You get the best results by sharing knowledge and engaging in discussion. Fifth, purely online learning is often inefficient; hybrid learning works better. Sixth, training programmes must be flexible, so do away with the catalogue. Finally, the assessment must be good. A quiz at the end of the training does not work very well, and there has to be a dialogue to make learning effective.”
What pitfalls do you encounter for workplace learning?
“Learning and development must be given time and space. Many companies still think that more learning time means less production. But that is a very short-term vision. In the long and medium term, it has major consequences. If people cannot continue to develop, your company will fall behind. So your competitive advantage shrinks. There is also a good chance that you will lose young people after a few years. If they don’t get a challenge, they’re gone. And this is understandable, especially in a market like this, where there is a lot of demand for talent. Only innovative companies that give time and space to learning will be able to attract talented people and, above all, retain them.”
What impact does digitalisation have on the need to learn?
“There is a need for reskilling and upskilling. The World Economic Forum states that by 2025, 50% of our workforce will need to be reskilled. If you look around, the dynamics in the labour market are incredible. Many new jobs have been created and you regularly see job titles that did not exist five years ago. The tasks within existing jobs are also changing beyond belief. At the same time, more attention is being paid to big data in learning. Companies possess a lot of data about learning, which in theory can improve the learning process of employees. But Learning & Development departments still don’t use this data enough, and the data that is collected is often of little significance. There is still a lot of work to be done there.”
This is an adapted version of an article from Focus Business Guide, written by Tom Cassauwers.
