Webinar round up: What makes a high-impact learning culture?

Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a high-impact learning culture (HILC) within your organization? Are you still struggling to get your company to invest in learning? 

In our recent webinar series, Emerald Works’ Senior Researcher, Gent Ahmetaj, and Head of L&D Community Practice, Nahdia Khan, discussed the impact that L&D teams have at top-performing companies. As well as evidence as to why it’s smarter to invest in culture over digital. 

During the two sessions Gent and Nahdia took attendees through the past, present and future of learning and development.
 

• The last decade – Investment in tech rose by 3% in 2020. But only 15% of learning leaders grew their business through innovation. (That’s 3% lower than in 2019). We explored why.  

• Today – In 2020, we find that 71% of HILCs involve learners at the design stage. (Compared to an overall average of 21%.) We showed how they do it.  

• The next decade – Learning leaders at HILCs are 10 times more likely to see sustainable growth, transformation, productivity and profitability. We showed what they do differently. 

These insights were all taken from our annual research report – Back to the future: why tomorrow’s workforce needs a learning culture.

The webinars also provided an opportunity for us to tap into the mindset of current L&D practitioners, by asking a series of interactive questions. Here’s what we asked and what they had to say...

1. What are your current pain points in L&D? ​

The answers to this question followed a consistent theme, with the most common being able to prove return on investment to business stakeholders. Without proof of ROI, many L&D practitioners were struggling to make a case for learning and development within their organization. And the main cause of this was a lack of data and metrics to refer to. 

Time and resources were also seen as critical pain points, as there are limited budgets available to support the tools and content the organization needs to build a self-directed culture. 

Many attendees thought L&D was regarded as a ‘nice to have’ within the organization, rather than a serious business need. They also felt they were viewed as ‘order takers’ rather than solution providers, but ideally would like to be strategic business partners.

2. What do you know about your consumer learners and how they like to learn?

Consumer learners partake in self-directed learning at any time, on any device, in the same way that they would learn outside of work. 

Attendees generally seem aware of this pattern and the need to transition from traditional face-to-face training to learning online, by changing the culture within the organization. 

They see consumer learners as forward-looking, wanting to continuously improve and add value to their organizations. 

There’s a widespread understanding that building a self-directed culture across an organization is critical to meet these needs. 

Some attendees also identified that this culture should start with buy-in at the top, through the senior management team. 

3. What does L&D need to do today to increase impact in the future?

Attendees talked about automation and the impact this will have as blended learning continues to evolve. 

Offering just-in-time and on-demand learning were also seen as important, as was being able to keep up with the pace of consumer learners.  

Some attendees explained that to jumpstart change within their organization they have had to actively prove the effectiveness of moving from traditional classroom training to online learning. 

Ultimately, the most responses to this question were around changing the culture and mindsets within the organization. To make a real impact on the future, you shouldn’t focus solely on the learners or convincing stakeholders; you need to get everyone in the organization on board to help them move forward.

Find out more 

You can download Back to the future: why tomorrow’s workforce needs a learning culture for free on our reports page. It’s packed with insights and data that helped drive this discussion. While you’re there, why not check out more of our insight-led research on the latest L&D trends, and get practical tips to drive performance in your organization?

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Keep up-to-date with our webinars, events and other company news, here. We’re also continuing to run a series of live demos throughout May and June. So, save your seat and find out how our performance solutions can inspire your people to work smarter, improve their wellbeing and enrich their careers.