What are the keys to becoming a learning organization?

First of all, as a small business, why would you want to become a ‘learning organization’? When things are financially tight, investment in learning and development for staff is one of the last priorities. This strategy, however, might not be the best way forward in an era of tight competition. Especially for small business.

Reasons for investing in learning and development:

1. Employee attrition is expensive - Did you know that when you do the math, an employee salaried at $60,000 will cost the company anywhere from $30,000 to $45,000 to hire and train a replacement.

2. Enhance operational efficiency - the faster that your team can do their work, the more they can do. Productivity is increased with a higher skill level. In addition, greater consistency leads to higher efficiency and improved quality.

3. Build your reputation - in a saturated market, any advantage you can get will help propel you and set you apart from the competition.

Learning and development needn’t be as expensive as you think! There are many low-cost options to give you the benefit of training without compromising on quality.

Informal Learning

Learning happens ‘on the job’ by fumbling through, asking co-workers and simply by doing the job. One of the keys to successful learning is not through formal training, but rather with rapid on-the-job learning. That can happen through coaching, mentoring, and on-demand training. By allowing time and resources for employees to learning while they work. Training doesn’t belong to HR, rather the training team should be putting content and context around learning opportunities to create small chunks of information that can be consumed rapidly.

• Build in time in the week for your team to learn - seems simple, but sometimes that is all people need. Often people don’t prioritize their own learning and won’t make time for it, so help them along!

• Create a community of learning - provide space for your team to share stories and learn from each other’s experiences. Be careful not to create an atmosphere of complaint, but rather encourage stories of how they dealt with a particular challenge. Hint: it also doesn’t need to happen in the boardroom - take it outside or to the local eatery.

• Storytelling - Do you remember Show-and-Tell in school? It was your opportunity to tell a story. When the team shares stories and listen to others, they will learn from each other.

Unleash the power within

You’ll often find that the best people to do the training are those actually doing the job. They are the ones who are faced day-to-day with actual challenges and have figured out how to be the most efficient and solving them. Take advantage of this wealth of knowledge and skill by promoting and encouraging expertise of more senior practitioners.

• Mentoring - Encourage mentorship among senior and junior workers.

• Job Shadowing - Sometimes observing someone one-on-one can be a great way to learn about the nuances of particular tasks

• Power users - designate individuals who have expertise and give them incentive to share their knowledge and skills

• Forum - there are lots of online tools available that allow the team to connect with others and share resources. Slack is one of my favourites!

Harness mobile technology

I’d argue that very few people (if anyone!) today don’t have access to a mobile device. Empower your team to use technology and encourage employee developed training opportunities. They can create short videos that explain a task that they encounter in their regular workday. Check out how the Cheesecake Factory did just that! Create a library of resources and make it accessible to everyone. Another option is to create an employee blog. Task each person with adding a topic weekly. It could be in the form of a video or text. Before long, you will have build a valuable library of content that can be updated and shared with everyone. There are lots of free options available for blog creation: Wix and Wordpress are both popular options...and you don’t even need to know about website creation.