How do you make your employees love learning?

Making employees love learning is all about creating an environment where curiosity thrives. Start by offering learning options that aren't just about work but tap into their personal interests too which should be interactive and hands-on. You need to encourage a culture where it's okay to try new things and maybe stumble a bit – that's where the real growth happens! It's also important to show how learning ties into their career growth, showing that each new skill or knowledge isn't just a checkbox but a step toward their future success. Learning must be fun, fulfilling and rewarding.

I've discovered that linking learning to personal growth is far more motivating than simply tying it to goals. Goals can sometimes feel like checkboxes, but my vision of growth and future career success is a far more compelling driver. Learning becomes the path to achieving that success, keeping me fully engaged. Leaders, take note: it's essential to exemplify, encourage and guide employees toward a growth mindset. This means viewing learning not only in their goals but also in their mistakes and challenges.

I've seen that people learn much better and faster when: 1. Learning in teams (collaborative learning), and 2. Learning with practical application whether it is a technical track or a core skill that we're trying to teach them. If they're coming out of the exercise happy, then rest assured that they're learning.

Make learning collaborative, frame learning in context of organizational or professional goals, and enable informal learning. Also, one underutilized method to encourage learning is to share stories of leaders or individuals who learned a new skill to change the trajectory of their career. Stories are powerful. Use them to inspire.

When I demonstrate how specific learning can enhance individual careers, employees become more engaged and focused. Aligning employee career goals with company objectives significantly enhances employee motivation and focus towards learning.

Yes, choice and flexibility is absolutely crucial here! Some like to learn alone, while others like to learn in groups. Speaking directly about coaching, it is important to have multiple different programs available for your people to tap into. 1:1, Group, Hybrid, Coaching Sprints, 3 month - 12 month engagements, etc. They key here is making sure that you are listening to your people and adapting to the generations you are leading!

Provide a wide range of learning resources, from online courses to podcasts, books, and videos, ensuring employees have options to suit their preferences.

Choice and flexibility in learning is very important and crucial in this Netflix era. Learners expect and appreciate choice when it comes to modalities of learning, level of proficiency and duration of the learning intervention. From my experience, moving to an eLearning content aggregator from a single-source content library made a massive impact on the consumption of learning. However, I do see a renewed interest in the original social-learning format, the good old classroom where collaborative learning happens organically.

Choices with a flexibility to explore, feeding curiosity of "what happens if this goes wrong?", Ability to build and create something even if partial on their own can help make learning appealing and realistic to learners.

Time is of the essence-organisations wanting to create and encourage a culture of learning need to factor this into an employees workload. We are working harder and faster than ever before and employees should be encouraged to take time to learn- during “office hours”, between “projects” and living their best life. Combine that with flexibility, mode of delivery, and adaptive learning you’ve got a winner!

Creating a collaborative learning environment that keeps employees engaged is effort intensive and not sustainable unless the environment is supported by self-help resources and toolkits along with a robust community-driven framework that accommodates various learning styles.

Early in my career my boss/mentor saw my hunger to learn in specific areas. He invited me to spend 2 hours a month with him to discuss subjects in an area from books he assigned for my reading. The experience was incredible. A few years later, after I had advanced in my career, I created small groups of leaders in our organization and did the exact same thing...2 hours once a month of discussion of what we learned from assigned books. Everyones leadership soared from these informal settings.

I think there is nothing more powerful than peer learning through peer coaching, group discussions, study groups, etc. I have a few letters behind my name thanks to group learning, in fact, I was once in a class where we collectively agreed the instructor was useless LOL and we were HR pros! We instead met once a week and I probably learned more from the than the curriculum ever intended. That is the power of adult learning, it's highly social and collective knowledge is a win, always.

The role of L&D is always evolving — and it's great to see it go from rolling out courses with some social learning included, to actively facilitating collaborative learning 'by design'. This includes championing user-generated content, creating space for reflection and self-awareness, and helping the organisation to value learning as an essential skill. By redefining L&D's role in this way, social and collaborative learning environments build themselves, ultimately creating cultures where people really love to learn.

You don't "make" anyone love something. Start there first. Be inquisitive about how they learn and where it's possible, create an environment conducive to that learning style

While gamified elements can certainly add an element of fun and motivation, they should be integrated thoughtfully and aligned with the learning goals. Overemphasizing gamification may inadvertently shift the focus from the substance of the learning content to the game itself, potentially diluting the educational value. Balancing gamification with other strategies that foster intrinsic motivation and a genuine love for learning is key to creating a well-rounded approach.

We need to consider when it comes to learning: "What is the takeaway?" We often want to add gamification and explain theoretical concepts and lose the practicality of "What can I do with this?". One of the things that I have come to ask myself when structuring any learning program is, "So what?" if I cannot answer that question, I have lost the intended purpose of the particular learning.

Making learning fun is easier said than done. If all learning was fun, it's possible that it won't be called learning or it may not be taken as seriously as it should. In reality, it's sometimes impossible to make all learning fun, but it's quite possible and plausible to make learning engaging and relevant to learners with suitable instructional design methodologies and practices. My favorite instructional design methodology for instructor led training has been Gagne's nine events. It's easy to apply and always gets me close to a wholistic product. For eLearning and micro-learning, my go to instructional design methodology has been the ARCS model, which never fails to disappoint, no matter what type of learning.

Encouraging employees to love learning involves creating a supportive culture where growth is valued. This includes providing diverse learning opportunities like workshops and online courses, tailored to their interests and goals. Offering incentives, recognition, and opportunities for advancement based on skill development can motivate them further. Promoting a growth mindset and giving regular feedback also help foster a love for learning. By prioritizing employee development, organizations can build a workforce passionate about continuous growth.

Acknowledge and celebrate employees' learning achievements and milestones. Recognize their efforts and progress, and consider incorporating learning outcomes into performance evaluations and career advancement opportunities.

If learning experiences have brain friendly design, are engaging, fun and insightful along with clear objectives and goals people would love them.

Discordo, segundo estudos, a aprendizagem de adultos parte de motivações intrínsecas, não por recompensas externas. Essa forma de motivação é importante em contextos de aprendizagem de adultos, na busca por aprimoramento de habilidades, adquirir novos conhecimentos ou explorar interesses pessoais/profissionais. Na motivação intrínseca, as pessoas tendem a se dedicar mais, mostram maior persistência e experimentam uma sensação de realização pessoal. A motivação intrínseca muitas vezes resulta em aprendizado mais profundo e duradouro, já que os adultos estão mais propensos a se envolver ativamente e a refletir sobre o conteúdo que estão estudando, tornando a experiência de aprendizagem mais significativa e gratificante.

I advocate for role modelling learning behaviours. With every team i have led i've always made sure that we are first and foremost a team which learns. Utilising people from across the business to role model is helpful in driving the culture of learning. Rewarding learning behaviours is something ive struggled with. You want people to learn, but you want them to learn with purpose and if learning is designed well the reward will be the completion of a performance objective or the learner overcoming a challenge

Lessons from children - whenever they learn something new, they want to demonstrate. Whether it is a cartwheel, a stick figure, or playing the guitar. How you react to the demonstration is what determines whether learning continues to be be loved or not. So even at work - don't let it stop at learning. You need to create the opportunities to demonstrate, be encouraging, and applaud shamelessly like a parent not a colleague, trainer or boss.

Be very careful you don’t wrongly assume that your employees don’t already love learning. It’s insulting, and in my experience, the vast majority of people genuinely enjoy learning about things that matter to them. The appearance of not caring about learning is usually a misalignment between what you think is important and what they think is important. Far too often, we wrongly define “loving learning” as climbing into someone else’s box rather than unlocking or amplifying something that already comes naturally. And, don’t think simply telling people “xyz learning” is aligned to their goals will fix it. It won’t. Deconstructing where the misalignment lies is where it gets complicated. However, it’s worth taking the time to diagnose.

Most employees would be happy to stay with the company if it invested in their development. By creating an effective employee development plan, you can recognize the true potential of your team. When managers actively encourage training and reinforcing what employees learn, employee engagement and training effectiveness both increase. With a continuous learning culture, you can train your talents with the right skills to help them meet the company's business goals. Most of the corporate training contains more content than any person can handle. The right format such short, focused modules help employees avoid cognitive overload, which can reduce the effectiveness of training and employee satisfaction.

I’ve never met a person who said “I hate learning new things!” I’ve met lots of people who don’t want to do corporate training. It’s not about them. It’s about us - our ability to provide the tools, resources and environment to facilitate learning and performance. Solve problems. Do it in non-disruptive ways. Help people achieve their goals. They’ll be much happier to hear from L&D. 👍

Sharing newly acquired knowledge greatly boosts self-satisfaction and fuels a desire for further learning. It reinforces your understanding and mastery of the subject. Explaining concepts, teaching others, or engaging in discussions not only solidifies the information in your mind but also allows you to view it from different perspectives. This sharing process can be fulfilling and motivating, encouraging you to seek out more knowledge and deepen your expertise in the particular field or topic. In essence, the more you share what you've learned, the more you enrich your own understanding, ignite curiosity for additional knowledge, and contribute to a vibrant learning environment for yourself and those around you.

For Employee Learning to have a wider impact 👉 🎯 Provide a platform for employees to apply the learning 🎯 Offer support, resources & tools 🎯 Showcase the business outcomes of learning to Management When employees know that their learning efforts matter to the organisation, leads to increased motivation for the future, supports a learning culture, increases engagement & retention