We are all guilty of getting stuck in routines or ruts; at Kuka, we’ve found that this is often true of organisations and their approach to learning.
It’s easy for us to keep doing something a certain way because ‘that’s how we’ve always done it’ or because it’s the path of least resistance. Here are a few ideas to shake up your learning approach and see some real benefits in your organisation.
- Review the ‘As Is’
An important step in making a change is to take a candid look at the current state; involve some key people in a workshop, or speak to the general population. The aim is to find out what’s working well, and to identify areas for improvement.
People are likely to have ideas around what they like, and there may well be lots of aspects of how they learn that people value and want to keep. After all, no point throwing the baby out with the bath water. For example. If you’ve got some great content, housed on a terrible LMS (or vice versa) there could be a quick win and efficient way to improve the learning experience by altering just part of the journey.
On the other hand, try to identify a list of things which aren’t so popular. Do you drag colleagues to classroom sessions which aren’t relevant to them? Is training at a convenient time and place for everyone? Can they fit it around their workload? The list goes on.
Working in this way should quickly give you a comprehensive list of ‘things to keep’ and ‘improvements’.
- Let them Choose
The element of choice is immediately engaging for people; it involves the learner and makes them feel valued. Their opinion is valuable to us; the least we can do is to make them feel like it.
‘What works for you?’ ‘How would you like to learn?’ ‘In what ways can we support you?’
These are all things we should be asking to work out both learners’ preferences and the learning styles we have going on. If we involve our learners in taking charge of their careers and developing their skills then we’re much more likely to have an invested audience who believe in what they’re about to undertake.
People feel good if they’re being invested in.
- Tell them about it
We all too often see organisations invest in exciting learning initiatives, only to let them sit in a forgotten folder, dug out once in a blue moon. A key factor in the success of learning (as we have seen) is buy in from your audience – so, when you’ve worked with your staff to build learning which is tailored to their wants and needs, make sure you remember to tell them about it.
Promoting new ways of learning as a positive change for your colleagues can create engagement and excitement. Why not put emphasis on your great work so that your learners know what’s in it for them?
