The 4 Types of Learning Situations Employees Find Themselves In and How to Use Them To Drive Learning

Learning is increasingly critical for the workplace as technology innovation constantly redefines and creates jobs. But how do we effectively promote learning at organizations? And more importantly, how do we motivate our employees to learn?

We recently conducted research to more deeply understand what prompts people to learn in the first place. Why do they decide to enroll in a course or pick up a book? This is important because how we motivate and encourage employees to learn depends upon where they are on the learning journey and why they need to acquire new skills. It reminded me of the “5 Moments of Need” by Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher and when it’s right to initiate push or pull learning tactics.

We ended up uncovering varying reasons for why people learn, but have distilled our findings into four of the most common learning situations that occur in the workplace. Ensuring that your organization offers a learning solution to is able to address these different situations is key to driving a culture of learning and helping your employees succeed at your company.

1. The new skills learner. These learners usually need to and want to acquire new skills for a specific project or a job. They're excited and ready to learn. For example, a new hire may want to learn how to use the company's marketing automation platform or understand your firm’s compliance training in order to perform in his or her job role at the onset. This learning situation is similar to the first of the “5 Moments of Need”—learning for the first time—and this type of learning usually is the most effective when it is pushed onto the individual. Once the skill is acquired, this learner usually stops learning and won't begin learning again until it’s necessary.
2. The constant learner. Constant learners have a passion for learning and are internally motivated to improve their skills regularly with an eye on long-term career development. They want to advance at work. There isn’t necessarily an immediate job need or goal, but these learners generally desire to expand their realm of expertise and knowledge on an ongoing basis. For example, an employee may want to learn leadership skills to position themselves for a management position down the road or a mid-career programmer may want to stay up-to-date on the newest coding languages at all times. This learner reflects the second of the “5 Moments of Need” — simply learning more. These learners do best in a pull-learning environment. They need and want access to all kinds of engaging informal learning experiences such as on-demand videos, which they can consume while commuting or during their free time on evenings and weekends.
3. The anxious learner. These learners are anxious because they are often thrown into a new work environment where they aren’t familiar with the tools, frameworks, or technology in front of them. These learners have to learn something new in order to perform in their job, and while they are anxious, they want to overcome their challenges through learning. This learning situation is similar to the third and fifth “5 Moments of Need” — something new has presented itself in their work environment, and the best way to address the issue is by acquiring a new skill or learning a new concept. For example, it might be that someone needs to use new software like Excel (for the first time) to solve a specific problem or complete a project. These learners want to learn and will need a combination of push and pull learning tactics. Access to quick and easy “pull” learning embedded into their workflow should be readily available when they need it. But they will also need encouragement and guidance from their manager on what to learn.
4. The change learner. Change learners usually are forced to learn due to an external change in technology or change in the organization. Examples include organizations migrating to the cloud that require up-skilling the IT team or a government medical regulatory change that means re-training healthcare workers. This learning situation mirrors the fifth Moment of Need when change prompts learning. These learners need more targeted “push” learning to get onboard with new skillsets via set learning paths and manager guidance. This situation also benefits from a combination of both formal and informal training tactics and programs. Ensuring these new skills stick and are applied will also be important.

These are just some of the learning situations that exist in the workplace. Nuances do occur, however we’ve found that most learners find themselves in one of these learning situations more often than others. From time to time, we’ve also found that learners cross over into different learning situations depending on the context.

What we can take away from all of this is how to best motivate employees and what kind of learning strategy, whether push or pull, will encourage people to engage in learning activities at work. As you craft your organization’s learning strategy for 2017, we encourage you to think about these learning situations. How is your learning technology stacked up to address these situations? How can you use these learning situations to build a culture of learning at your company?