How do you get adults excited about learning initiatives at your organization or in your professional community? This is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately, so I did my research and reflected upon my 15+ years of experience in education and training to come up with the following key strategies:
- Learn about your unique audience: Meet with your learners and get to know their goals and what motivates them! This shows you value their opinions and are considering their needs as you design programs. A lot of training initiatives that I have seen are prescribed by people at the top and handed down to employees with no analysis phase to explore what they would find meaningful. By immersing yourself in the thought process of your audience members, you can more effectively develop programming that is learner-centered, meaningful, and engaging.
- Personalize development plans: Professional development plans are often non-existent or one-size-fits-all. Leaders are often overstretched and unable to provide effective training to their team; I have been in this situation both as an employee and a well-meaning but overstretched manager. In the years since these experiences, I have learned that having someone work with me to create a development plan based on my goals and learning preferences is extremely motivating. It shows that the organization values my growth, and I value the organization more in return.
- Check in regularly: Collect consistent feedback and respond to it. Communicate with your learners to share what you have learned from the evaluation of training programs and what your planned response is. It is okay to share that you made mistakes and are working to improve them; consistently evaluating and improving programs is a huge part of the process when creating a robust professional development framework. Make it well-known that you want to work with your learners to create a vibrant training ecosystem and that you want to avoid a top-down approach (where learners often have little say in their learning).
- Build in time for professional development opportunities: Block off time for your employees to pursue professional development opportunities. Avoid having them do so outside of work hours, if possible. Committing time in this way shows an employee that their organization’s leaders are championing their learning, encouraging their growth, and respecting their free time. This encourages a healthy work-life balance as well, which will contribute to employee well-being and help you retain talent.
- Implement the 3-to-1 Model of Learning & Development: You may have heard of the 70:20:10 model of L&D, which has been around for decades. The idea behind it is that 70% of learning in the workplace should be on-the-job training, 20% should come from collaborating with peers, and 10% from formal trainings like workshops. As outlined in this eye-opening article, the implementation of this model is hard to measure and it may be better off to focus on the 3-to-1 model. This model emphasizes that for every formal training experience there are 3 on-the-job training experiences, which could involve shadowing experiences, peer-to-peer mentorship, and practice simulations just to name a few ideas. You can learn about more on-the-job training experiences here.
- Celebrate successes: Find out what would be meaningful for your learners and develop ways to celebrate their successes based on that input. Have some fun! Go here to discover several exciting ways that you can celebrate your team that you may not have considered (my personal favorites are #3, #7, and #8 on the list).
What gets you on board with learning initiatives in your professional community? Reach out to me if you think I should add anything to the list. I am always learning more, and I welcome your input!