Creating a learning culture in six digitally disruptive steps

According to recent research by the Learning and Performance Institute, creating a learning culture is now the number one challenge for learning leaders – 11% of companies have it, but we want 100% to have it. This is followed by providing modern digital skills to their teams. There are huge macro industry drivers that are making these challenges strategic, and putting them on the radar of most CEOs.

Macro digital disruption

At the macro level, almost every organisation is continuously being disrupted by digital trends. Retail behemoths like Amazon have shaken up the retail industry. While in the automotive space, Tesla is constantly raising the bar for other players in the market by designing technology-first cars, where data from these cars is creating the differentiator. And the rise of Fintechs in the finance sector is putting pressure on traditional players to move faster and innovate quicker in order to stay relevant and competitive. 

The speed of innovation is unparalleled; and as organisations race to keep up with the constant change, there is a need to codify the breakthrough learnings within our organisations. As products from mobile banking apps to our cars are improved via software updates while we sleep, it also gives rise to a broader need to educate our customers, and our channel. Technology is allowing companies to constantly re-invent themselves, which means there is a need for learning to be designed in tune with this new paradigm.

The impact on the learning industry

Almost every role in every company is now evolving as boundaries are being pushed, broken and reformed month on month, year on year. As the learning industry moves from predominantly analogue classroom delivery to predominantly digital delivery, it (and the traditional roles within it) is not immune to this disruption either. This means that L&D doesn’t just need to focus on teaching new skills in a course (with the hope that the role doesn’t change), but that there needs to be a fundamental shift to a different way of learning that recognises the continuous evolution of those roles and skills.

To ensure that this shift can happen, a digitally enabled learning culture absolutely needs to be at the heart of every organisation. And learning professionals should be utilising new skillsets and capabilities that support this new world of learning. The key, but by no means only, benefits of having a digitally enabled learning culture, include:

Increased business value – Learning tech is now able to have the same transformative effect on organisations that marketing tech had before it. This is because it allows progressive learning leaders to make sure all their learning programs and experiences are designed and created for maximum business impact. We can already see the amazing feedback from the likes of Daniel Wellington in Sweden, Celcom in Malaysia and Alliance Residential in the US, as they have developed their digitally enhanced learning culture. Their best practice is digitally captured and shared instantly across the world, from the people who are breaking new ground to the people learning from them.

Improved retention and attraction – Smart learning leaders like Siri Wikander and Lena Bjurner at Scandic, made the realisation a few years ago that learning technology could be used to help create a digital learning culture. And, as the IMD business case on Scandic shows, this has a direct impact on attracting people to the organisation.

But performance-designed learning also helps create happier employees, which indirectly impacts retention. We saw one organisation where they split and measured their inductees’ engagement with learning by putting them into four quadrants. They were ranked by daily learning engagement, with those in the highest quadrant accessing digital learning once a day, versus the bottom, accessing it an average of once a month. Using 12 months of business data, the analysis showed that during the six-week onboarding period, the top two quadrants achieved an average 83% NPS (net promoter score) score versus the bottom two quadrants with 13% NPS – that’s a huge difference. It’s not hard to forecast the retention rate of the people at the top versus the bottom quadrants. If people feel they are achieving more in their job then they are more likely to stay.

The six big things to create a digitally enhanced learning culture

I’ve been lucky enough to work with a few hundred companies over my career, and I have seen some businesses that are exceptional and others that are becoming extraordinary. But, from my observations there are six common things the best companies do: 

1.    Content strategy

Every company with a great learning culture that I have seen, has modernised its content strategy. They have moved away from a focus on high cost, low value content to low cost, high value content. Traditionally, e-learning content came in two forms: expensive to create and clunky e-learning (normally scorm) courses, and generic libraries of foundational knowledge courses - which cover things like how to use Photoshop, the 101 of leadership, etc. While these can be a useful foundation for people changing careers and creating a compliant organisation, they are not the most effective way to create a learning culture.

Companies with high engagement levels now see the majority of their engagement come from both user generated content; and most importantly, the digitisation of the tacit knowledge of their trusted experts across the business.

Tacit knowledge is best created in a digital first capture, and output as bite-sized content which can be re-used in discovery and workplace searches. This ability to ‘capture and create’ is a new skillset for L&D to facilitate. But without it, the digitally enabled learning culture will never happen. Tellingly, our data shows that the top five companies with the most learner engagement (measured through weekly and monthly user engagement - which is similar to how Facebook and YouTube measure engagement) get more than 95% of their engagement from content in the latter two categories. 

2.    Modern learning design

As discussed earlier, designing an effective learning strategy should always start with the definition of a problem; and the creation of a hypothesis on how success can be measured against this problem. Rather than designing a course and thinking of how to measure it afterwards. L&D professionals should also design their learning solution with a clear idea of what no longer needs to be taught formally through a course, but should be designed to be available at point of need. And a consideration of what knowledge is formed of tasks and activities that need to be transferred to habits and behaviours. Designing backwards from the outcome rather than forward from outputs is a small change. But it allows every individual to get closer to achieving their potential and moves them towards naturally becoming continuous learners. 

3.    Data and analytics

Big data and advanced analytics have finally come to L&D, and the tools that the martech and fintech industry have been using for the last few years are now being embedded as standard into learning platforms. In their simplest form this allows us to understand what is working and what isn’t, so we can do more of the things that are successful, and less of the things that aren’t.

Older learning tech required L&D professionals to have advanced data and Excel skills. Because without it, they wouldn’t be able to find the answer to a simple question like: what makes the biggest difference to the learning culture within our organisation? Newer technology, on the other hand, uses advanced analytics in a simple interface to allow us to create hypotheses and work out the answers to questions such as:

• Which line managers have the biggest influence, both positive and negative, on team learning?
• Whether divisions of the business with leadership actively engaged in our learning strategy have a stronger learning culture than those that aren’t engaged?
• Whether engaged learners perform better, and stay longer, than less engaged learners?
• Whether open-minded people make better continuous learners, and we should actively recruit for open-mindedness?
• Did the investment in giving our trainers more social and digital skills create greater engagement?

Asking and answering these (and many other) questions, using millions of data points, is now possible within seconds.

4.    New skill-sets

What got us here won’t take us into the future. A few years ago, I highlighted six new skillsets that are key for L&D to master, including the ability to be a: video storyteller, visualiser, learning data analyst, community engagement manager (part of the new trainer skillset), performance consultant and learning experience designer. I still believe those six skillsets are the core to moving our industry forward. But as is the case across every industry, what is good today will be basic tomorrow as these roles are evolving fast.

5.    Enabling Technology

Good learning technology is what enables us to create a truly digitally-enabled learning culture. The world here is confusing with labels such as LMS, LXP, NGLE and the likes. But in essence, I think it comes down to technologies that are LMS first, and those that were born as something else, in some cases, to be the enabler of a digitally enhanced learning culture. And ultimately whether organisations want to stitch together and independently manage a suite of core learning platforms such as LMS, LXP, LRS, social learning, learning content management or have one Integrated Learning Platform to be the digital enabler of the learning culture.

6.    Learning Leadership

There is no doubt that without great learning leaders like Rachel Walter Hutchinson, Tivonnia Harvey, Brian Murphy, Simon Brown and Donna Johnston, none of the above steps will create a digitally enabled learning culture. Leadership, and the willingness to be open minded to digital change, is critical. And those people who work with and for these types of leaders, get the opportunity to create and be part of something that gives them great meaning. Without the mindset that these leaders share it’s almost impossible to move the dial towards a digitally enabled learning culture.

The above may seem like a lot of change from where people are today, but that's what digital transformation is all about. And for those L&D professionals who are open minded (and don’t just welcome but drive change) this is the most exciting time to be in our industry and see L&D transform into a true strategic partner of the business. For those already part of the tribe, we are so grateful for the opportunity to work with you, and redefine the future of our industry together. For those of you who are curious for more, feel free to message me for a chat so we can share our experiences, or if you want to see Fuse technology in action and how it’s enabling digitally enhanced learning cultures, click here to book a conversation with someone from my team.