Experiential Learning Approaches with Janis Cooper
Have you heard of leadership development programs that include horses? If not, you are about to! Join Ashish and Janis Cooper in an engaging discussion about building learner experiences that stick. We primarily tackle:
Why is corporate learning often perceived as boring, and what makes a learning program ineffective? The discussion begins by addressing the common perception that corporate learning is dull, often involving lectures, videos, and quizzes that fail to engage participants. Janis notes that traditional learning often assumes everyone learns the same way, crams too much content in, and lacks engagement. In contrast, a good learning experience is strategic, addresses pain points, is relevant to the user, and is engaging.
How does experiential learning, particularly equine facilitated learning (EFL), offer a unique approach to leadership development? Ashish and Janis explore the concept of experiential learning and introduces EFL as a highly engaging and effective method. Equine facilitated learning involves working with horses in ground-based activities designed to reflect workplace dynamics. The program is used to develop skills such as communication, empathy, and trust, and can be tailored to specific needs. It’s a learner experience that’s both memorable and fun, and can be highly effective in achieving a high return on investment for the organization.
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Meet the Speaker!
Janis Cooper is Director, Leadership and Staff Development at Best Friends Animal Society, the largest animal sanctuary in the U.S., including remote locations, works to create and deliver the organization’s Management Development Program and staff development needs to more than 900 employees.
How can you design learning experiences to foster genuine engagement?
To create engaging learning experiences, it’s important to move away from traditional, boring methods like lectures and instead focus on strategies that actively involve the learner. As we saw in the discussion with Janis and Ashish, you should:
Start with a clear strategy: A good learning experience starts with understanding the goals and objectives of the training, the audience, and any barriers they might be facing. This means that you have to address the pain points and make the learning relevant to the user by using relatable examples.
Make it relevant and relatable: Learning should be relevant to the learner’s experiences and use examples they can relate to. You can use stories to make learning more relevant.
Incorporate engagement: Learning experiences should engage the audience frequently. Using technology can make learning engaging with elements like personalization.
Check for understanding: It’s important to check for understanding and provide opportunities to apply what’s been learned immediately, to improve retention. Research indicates that a significant amount of content taught in training classes is lost within a week if not applied.
Focus on experiential learning: Experiential learning engages all of a person’s senses and can be more profound and memorable. It can support change quickly and provide a good return on investment. One specific example is equine facilitated learning, which uses horses to help people learn about leadership and teamwork. In EFL, people work with horses to accomplish tasks, and how they approach these tasks often reflects how they do things in the workplace. The horses’ sensitivity to people’s body language and emotions provide immediate feedback, which can bring underlying issues to the surface.
Consider the environment and culture: The culture of an organization can impact the effectiveness of training. A growth mindset and a culture that values employee development are conducive to successful learning programs. In addition, the right setting, technology, resources, programs and processes to support learning are also important.
Be willing to take risks: Be willing to try something different, starting small, and grow it if it’s successful.
By focusing on these aspects, you will be able to create learning and development strategies with programs that are engaging, relevant, and have a lasting impact on learners
How does Janis Cooper’s experiential learning approach utilize horses?
Janice Cooper’s experiential learning program, also called equine facilitated learning, utilizes horses to provide a direct, engaging experience that promotes learning and change. A few principles that she keeps in mind are:
Groundwork, not riding: Participants do not ride the horses; all activities are done on the ground. The focus is on interacting with the horses, not on equestrian skills.
Partnership in activities: Participants work in partnership with a horse to accomplish specifically designed activities. The activities are tailored to the learning objectives or the challenges a team or individual is facing.
Horses as mirrors: How participants approach and complete the tasks with the horse is often a reflection of how they approach situations in the workplace. Horses are very sensitive to people’s body language and emotions, and they react immediately and honestly. This helps participants see their behaviors and their impact in a way they may not have noticed before.
Immediate feedback: Horses provide immediate, unbiased feedback because they react to what people are giving off, not just to the words they use. If there’s a lack of alignment between a person’s thoughts and their physiological state, the horses will notice and react to it. This is particularly impactful for leaders who may not realize the effect they have on others.
Developing leadership skills: The program is used to develop leadership skills such as communication, trust, empathy, and boundary setting.
Unveiling underlying issues: Sometimes, the program brings to the surface underlying issues that haven’t been discussed. For example, a lack of trust or other relational challenges within a team may surface in how the team interacts with a horse.
Ego reduction: Horses don’t care about titles, status or other external markers of success. They respond to the person’s true self and the energy they are giving off. This helps leaders see themselves and their behaviors more authentically, which creates a level playing field for all participants.
Relatability: The experiences with the horses are memorable and relatable. Janis has seene that the participants will often refer back to the lessons they learned through working with a specific horse when they see similar behaviors at work.
Addressing fear: Some participants may be apprehensive about working with horses at the start of the program. However, these fears can be a learning opportunity for both the individuals and for the team.
Promoting change: The program is designed to create profound, memorable experiences that support change. It helps participants become more aware of their behaviors and how those behaviors impact others, ultimately leading to more effective interactions.
In summary, the experiential learning program that Janis runs with her team uses horses as a way to provide a direct experience that is focused on reflection, and it is designed to help people develop skills, gain insights, and understand themselves better in a way that can translate to the workplace.
Further reading: Horse Leadership Training: A New Approach to Leadership Development
Meet the Host!
Ashish is an entrepreneur tackling workplace development challenges through Risely, an AI copilot that helps managers and leaders build essential people skills.
Drawing on his experience in technology and organizational behavior, he’s passionate about creating scalable solutions that transform how companies develop their talent. His mission is to empower leaders to build thriving teams and sustainable organizational success.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss why creating fantastic learner experiences is crucial for learning and development success at work. We’ll also discuss what could go wrong if it is overlooked and offer some tips on how L&D professionals can develop effective strategies to ensure every student has a positive journey through education.
Let’s explore ways we can give our employees top-notch educational experiences at work
Learner experience refers to the holistic journey that your team undergoes throughout an educational course or training as part of learning and development initiatives. It includes all the touch points and moments of interaction, from the small ones, like the look-and-feel of an online quiz, to the bigger, more visible factors, like a classroom lecture’s atmosphere. These learner experiences are critical in ensuring the transfer and application of knowledge.
Learner experience (LX) design is all about making learning experiences that really change how learners see things. It’s when you plan and make learning activities with a clear goal in mind, focusing on the learner to keep them interested and help them learn better. LX design takes bits from instructional design, user experience (UX) design, and cognitive psychology to ensure these learning experiences are not only effective but also meaningful.
Why do Your Learner’s Experiences Matter?
Does your organization invest in creating a meaningful learner experience? If not, you are missing out. The learning experience is not just a vanity metric; it carries a valuable impact that can often be hard to notice. First up, learner experience is vital to the success of learning and development efforts. Picture it yourself: where would you enjoy learning more, in a boring recorded video lecture or with a subject matter expert seeking your questions?
A well-designed learner experience enhances knowledge retention and skill acquisition. Learners who are engaged and find the learning process intuitive and enjoyable are more likely to absorb and apply new information effectively. This undoubtedly means that your ROI for training is better when the LX is solid.
Plus, there are secondary benefits to investing in training experiences at work. With a good learner experience, your teams are happier, and you can curb turnover because your employees see your company’s investment in their long-term growth. Over time, this adds up to a competitive advantage.
Show you positive impact on employee satisfaction and engagement
Make internal mobility and career progressions easier
The role of engagement in the success of learning cannot be underestimated. Research shows that up to 75% of learning is lost within the next six days, as Janis Cooper highlighted in our conversation. This phenomenon, tracked well by the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, leads us to the core question—what’s a good learner experience, and how can we build one?
How are Delightful Learning Experiences Made?
Corporate learning = boring. That’s a common enough perception. And not one without reason.
According to a Forbes article, nearly half (47%) of workers are dissatisfied with the training they receive at work. Corporate learning experiences are often dull, disconnected from real-life applications, and sometimes distracting from deadlines. The area is in for a rehaul.
In conversation with Janis Cooper (VP, HR at Best Friends of Animal Society), we uncover how they make corporate training effective by focusing on experiences. The secret ingredient? Horses. Equine-facilitated learning is ushering in a new realm of leadership training for many companies.
Experiential learning engages the learner directly in an incident that focuses on a particular area, such as leadership skills. The experience is profound and memorable for the employees. For the team, it offers a quick ROI because learners need to collaborate with the horses to accomplish specific activities designed for them, as Janis explains.
What else adds up to good learner experience? Let’s narrow down on the essentials –
6 Factors of Good Learner Experiences
Multiple ingredients shape a solid learner experience:
Addressing existing pain points
Do you want to create a good learning experience? Why don’t you start by understanding what is making it bad? Addressing the existing pain points in a learning journey is key to creating an experience that the team loves. For example, simplifying complex navigation in e-learning platforms or providing clearer instructions for assignments. Addressing pain points shows learners that their needs are understood and valued. This feeling of being heard already adds to positive workplace experiences.
Building relevance
If you have ever been part of bad training, you know this question eventually pops up: Why am I here? A good learner experience answers it effectively. Within the learning path, build relevance for the user. Using real-world, relatable examples helps learners connect new information to their existing knowledge and work context. It could involve industry-specific case studies or scenarios that mirror common workplace situations, making the learning more applicable and memorable for your employees.
Explore custom learning journeys on Risely.
Don’t jam as much content as possible
Unsurprisingly, no one likes being bombarded with content. That’s plain old cognitive overload. A good learner experience considers this and creates balance. It focuses on high quality and the right quantity of inputs so that the learners can retain and apply ideas effectively.
Adapts to user needs
It’s a no-brainer that learning styles, needs, and moods differ. What suits you may not suit another. However, being stuck in rigid learning experiences designed without considering unique needs is frustrating. Adaptability saves from this by tailoring content, pace, and difficulty to individual learners. It could involve allowing learners to choose their learning path or using AI to adjust content based on performance. Adaptivity ensures that learning is neither too easy nor too challenging.
Checking for understanding
Pushing content constantly without seeing if it is getting understood or useful for the end-user is unhelpful. After all, how do you measure impact here? Effective learner experiences have elements that reinforce whether the user has understood or not. Regular knowledge checks, quizzes, or interactive elements help here. Based on this, you can ensure that learning gaps get detected and filled rather than overlooked.
Your organization’s culture
Learning does not happen in isolation. Even the best programs could be a waste of time if senior leadership declares them so. This has been felt in the failure of leadership development programs over the years. Your team’s culture is critical in motivating people, shaping their attitude toward learning, making opportunities accessible, and even providing the support a learner receives in addition to the content they consume.
Now that we know what shapes a good learner experience, let’s dive a bit better into the making of learning experiences.
Free Learning and Development Strategy Template
A complete framework by Risely to evaluate and re-energize your organization’s growth.
To make learning really work, it’s all about planning carefully and designing with thought. Here are a few key steps that you should take to ensure it all goes well. First, let’s design the experience for our learners. For simplicity, we have broken it down into four steps.
Analysis
Everything starts by understanding where you are and where you are headed. So, think of the current learner experience. What does it look like? Try to evaluate against the factors we saw listed above.
Further, take a look at your learning and development objectives. Learner experiences differ based on what goals you are moving toward. You will also need to understand your target audience.
For example, what’s the best way of teaching a new skill to ten teams of developers? Create a uniform and structured course with standardized assessments. But what about the team leads who need to work with a new tech? Help them build a growth mindset that opens them up to continuous learning with the help of one-on-one leadership coaching.
Design
In step two, identify the building blocks of a solid learning experience. Start with a broad outline (read more about learning and development strategies). Next, finalize the components. What are those? Think of training methods, training delivery modes, subject-specific modules, and so on. Remember that we spoke of checking to understand to ensure LX’s success? We will need assessments, too!
At the end of this step, you have all these placed along a clear roadmap.
Development
In the third step of building learning experiences comes developing the training materials and methods we spoke of earlier. This is where you can create the most impact by focusing on the small details like:
Use good UI practices to create helpful learning pathways.
Mix in media and interactive elements to cut down monotony in learning material.
Use an understanding of psychology to plan lessons better. You might need to equip the trainers with resources and training, too.
Keep the schedules and priorities of learners in mind to ensure that you are not overburdening them.
Build a digital and physical learning environment, including setting up the LMS and the culture that supports growth
Update training materials and assessments to reflect the latest know-how and boost your team’s expertise.
Implementation and evaluation
Now comes the real deal. Put your plans into action and observe the rollout. It is the right time to ask yourself how much you score on the factors of a good LX we saw earlier.
Grab the template here and conduct a before-and-after evaluation of your organization’s learning experience with your employees.
But this is just one side of the equation! Learner experience has a broader impact that must be evaluated. Where can you find that?
Look for performance changes. Improvements in regular reviews with direct managers are a good way to track the impact. A few one-on-one discussions can further help you gain clarity on the early patterns you might notice.
Search for behavioral changes, too, such as meeting more deadlines or handling conflicts better.
Assess against the learning objectives. You can do this using in-house assessments or external resources like Risely’s leadership skill assessments.
Based on these inputs, you can identify areas of improvement to feed back into the broader L&D strategy. With all this done, think ROI because that’s ultimately where L&D teams have a battle to fight.
A healthier learning experience enhances learners’ interest in participating in training (you might observe these in higher completion and participation rates, more detailed answers during focus interviews, interest toward more learning opportunities, not needing to send multiple reminders, etc.), which show a more significant positive business impact.
3 Pitfalls to avoid while designing a learner experience at work
We all make mistakes. So let’s prevent some before they happen.
#1 You threw strategy and objectives out the window
Not really, but figuratively, it happens plenty while learning programs are being designed. An essential feature of good learning experiences is that they tie the company together into one. How does that happen? Ensure that learning objectives are derived from strategic ones and that learners’ needs are assessed before they are handed a plan. Not meeting learners where they are is setting your L&D strategy up for failure, as you will not be able to conceive the ideal learning experience.
#2 You did not modernize with time
It’s 2024, and learning is no longer located in tall halls alone. It’s often happening at the moment, in small bursts, and likely through a mobile device. For instance, video is losing momentum across the US as a learning delivery mode. It’s scalable, available on demand, and saves you from arranging schedules. That sounds like a great thing, right? It’s not. Video learning is found to be the least engaging. As the content is pre-recording, there’s no stimulation to perform, and little mechanism to engage with the whole material.
So the question is, what’s in?
AI, hyper-personalization, microlearning, are some of the defining words of learning today. The world of L&D is more focused on the ultimate user, i.e. the employee, than ever.
Similarly, there are new trends in L&D that you need to watch out for. Incorporate microlearning, hyper-personalization, user-centered planning, and the power of AI in learning experiences to make them a class apart.
#3 You ignored the context of the learner
How one perceives the same lesson depends a lot on the context. Thus, it’s a powerful consideration of how a particular experience turns out. You could have designed it with the best intentions, but it can still be a misfit. Sounds confusing? It’s not. Employees need learning that helps them in some way – either empower them, improve their performance, or add to their long-term goals. If it does neither, no fancy illustrations will lead to a great experience. So first, keep their goals in mind.
You also need to consider that they often don’t have three hours to put into learning after work and don’t like working with a mentor who probably gossips about them later. Plus, does your sales manager, with a chaotic team of five, need conflict resolution training? Would delegation skills be a better area to work on? All of this needs to be thought out before being planned out. Thus, the second point is to keep their needs in mind. It creates psychological safety and support, that are needed to learn successfully.
You might not get all of this right in one go. That’s why this process of developing a learning experience for your team is often iterative, with feedback loops allowing for continuous improvement. Many instructional designers use specific models like ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) or SAM (Successive Approximation Model) to guide their process.
Let’s Tie It All Up: How Does Learner Experience Align Within The Wider L&D Strategy?
Learner experience is just one part of the wider L&D strategy. There are more elements in the play. Primarily, learners’ experience is one of the two critical enablers along with the organization’s culture and learner personas developed by the L&D teams.
Learner Personas and Learner Experience
These two work together pretty directly. Learner personas are important in curating learner experiences. They help create user-centric and informed designs that are more helpful and impactful.
As we see in the learner experience platforms, many of them focus on personalized learning journeys, which are designed with personas in mind. In your role, you can use learner personas to make learner experiences more tailored and interactive for particular users. There are many ways to do it:
curating relevant content for the user
using appropriate modes of training delivery
designing the suitable UI and interactions throughout the journey
addressing specific concerns using precise communication and goal alignment
exchanging feedback in the right medium
Now, what about the learning environment?
How does that tie in with learning experiences? Let’s understand this with a simple example:
Environment 1
The team manager wants you to learn. They have pointed you toward some free online resources in your niche. And that’s pretty much it. However, your schedule does not allow for much free time. Plus, another colleague is working in the area you are learning. When it comes up in the performance review, you are marked low for not learning enough.
Environment 2
Your team manager shared some resources that their friend from your professional area vouched for. A week later, they ask you about it. How did it go? Did you get time to surf through the material? The team manager also makes you shadow a colleague working on a project in that area. By the time reviews roll in, you are all set. You have learned and applied it hands-on; your manager knows all this.
Feel the difference?
That’s the influence of a company’s environment on learner experiences. When a proper learning environment is facilitated with the collaboration of L&D, HR, and supervisors, the employees have an easier time handling personal learning goals.
As your employees can find support at the right moments and see others going on similar learning journeys, reinforcement and motivation occur naturally. Overall, it builds psychological safety, allowing your team members to learn by doing and make mistakes when they are at it.
In essence, the learning environment sets the stage for the learner experience. While a great environment doesn’t guarantee a positive experience, it provides the necessary conditions for one. Conversely, a poor learning environment can significantly hinder even the best-designed learning experiences.
To Sum Up
In wrapping things up, remember that it’s super important to put the learner’s experience first when creating workplace educational content. By ensuring learning is engaging and sticks with learners, we boost what they get out of training. If we don’t pay attention to how learners feel, they might lose interest or not want to join in as much, which hurts the efficiency and success of L&D initiatives.
When we fully commit to principles focused on giving learners an awesome ride through education—thinking deeply about experience design, focusing on learner experience design, and ensuring everything works effectively—we make learning something truly special.
Deeksha, with a solid educational background in human resources, bridges the gap between your goals and you with valuable insights and strategies within leadership development. Her unique perspectives, powered by voracious reading, lead to thoughtful pieces that tie conventional know-how and innovative approaches together to enable success for management professionals.
Free Learning and Development Strategy Template
A complete framework by Risely to evaluate and re-energize your organization’s growth.
As a manager, you’re responsible for the success or failure of your team. To ensure that you’re up to the task, it’s essential that you continuously learn new things. This blog post will outline nine reasons why managers should strive for continuous learning and provide tips on how you can practice continuous learning in your life.
By learning new things, you’ll be able to keep up with current changes in your industry, stay ahead of the curve, and make better decisions that will benefit your team. Other than that, we’ll also share tips on how a manager can encourage continuous learning in their team and how to measure the effectiveness of the same. So let’s start by understanding what exactly is continuous learning.
Continuous learning is the ongoing acquisition of new knowledge and skills, which helps you be more effective in your job and stay ahead of the curve. It is a commitment to consistently learn, grow, and improve in whatever one does. As a manager, you are responsible for ensuring that you and everyone in your team are constantly learning and growing.
It means being proactive in seeking out new information, whether from reading articles, attending conferences and seminars, or any other possible medium. It also means being able to incorporate that new knowledge into your work. By doing this, you’ll be able to keep your team ahead of the curve and ensure that your team can meet the industry’s challenges.
But is that enough to push a manager to strive for continuous learning? It is not that easy to make such a commitment to learn and grow continuously. So, why exactly should one get out of their comfort zone and find shortfalls in themselves and then go for learning to overcome them? Well, several reasons for it are enough to prove the necessity of continuous learning for managers. What are those reasons? Let’s find out in our next section.
Nine reasons why managers should strive for continuous learning
A manager’s ability to learn is key to success in business. That’s why continuous learning is such an important priority. Here are nine reasons why managers should strive for continuous learning:
Continuous learning leads to better decision making
Continuous learning significantly leads to better decision-making. By continuously learning new things, managers can understand different perspectives and weigh all the available information before making decisions. As managers gain more experience and knowledge, they can see things from different angles. It helps them arrive at wiser conclusions about what is happening in their workplace, which can help them make more informed decisions about how to react and manage the situation. Additionally, it allows them to develop practical problem-solving skills.
Continuous learning strengthens relationships with customers, partners, and other stakeholders
When you’re constantly learning, you can effectively keep up with the ever-changing needs of your customers, partners, and other stakeholders. It strengthens your relationships with these stakeholders and allows them to trust and rely more on you. It also makes them more likely to recommend your services to others.
Continuous learning attracts and retains the best employees
One of the significant reasons why a manager should strive for continuous learning is that it attracts and retains the best employees. But how?
First, when managers are constantly learning new things, they are in a better position to understand their industry and the challenges their employees face. It gives them a competitive edge in negotiations and recruitment and fresh perspectives on managing their team.
Secondly, continual learning by managers leads to a more vibrant workplace culture where employees are encouraged to challenge themselves and think outside the box. This motivates them to stay with the company more often and contribute their best efforts. In short, you must constantly learn new things as a manager if you want a thriving workforce.
Continuous learning leads to creativity and innovation
Creativity is essential for any business and is critical in most industries. It is necessary for a competitive environment, where companies that can stay ahead of the curve tend to be more successful than those that don’t. Managers who are constantly learning new things can keep up with the latest trends and technologies, which means they can come up with better and more creative ideas and products.
Innovation also plays a significant role in the creative industries. It’s one of the key factors that separate companies from their rivals, and it’s something that one can only achieve through continuous learning. By staying up-to-date on current trends and technologies, managers can develop new and more innovative ideas that set them apart from their competitors.
It helps managers stay aware of new opportunities and challenges that may arise
There’s no such thing as a static world, and with the ever-changing business landscape, managers need to stay updated on new trends and developments. This is where continuous learning comes in. It helps managers remain aware of new opportunities and challenges and ensures that they can adapt their skillsets accordingly.
It helps managers stay ahead of changes in the workforce and new technologies
In today’s business world, the workforce is constantly changing, and new technologies are continually being created. If managers don’t keep up with these changes, they’ll quickly fall behind and become obsolete. Continuous learning helps managers stay ahead of the curve and up-to-date with the latest changes in the workforce and new technologies.
You’ll be able to keep up with or even stay ahead of the competition
It isn’t just a theoretical exercise; continuous learning has tangible benefits for managers. For example, it can help them stay competitive by ensuring that they have the latest information and technology at their disposal. It also allows them to develop new skills to help them perform better in their current or future positions. In short, striving for continuous learning is one of the best strategies for managers who want to stay ahead of the competition.
Managers who engage in continuous learning are more knowledgeable than those who do not. It is because constant learning allows managers to develop a broad range of skills and knowledge. It includes everything from technical know-how to professional expertise. Managers who regularly participate in activities such as reading, attending conferences, and taking courses are more likely to be up-to-date on trends and best practices.
It will ultimately make you a better leader
All the beneficial outcomes of continuous learning and the ability to see the bigger picture prove that constant learning can benefit managers. It brings so many skills, knowledge, information, and opportunities for managers that it ultimately makes them better leaders.
The reasons mentioned above must be enough for managers to consider practicing continuous learning. But how to go ahead with practicing it? Well, we do have some tips for you in the next section.
How can managers practice continuous learning?
There are many ways that managers can apply continuous learning in their work. Here are five steps you can take to start practicing:
1. Set learning goals and objectives
Setting learning goals and objectives is the first step for managers to practice a continuous learning process. These learning goals should be specific, measurable, and aligned with the business’s objectives. They should also be relevant to employees, customers, and clients interacting with the company. Goals should also be time-bound to be achieved within a specific timeframe.
2. Make time daily to read, listen to audio recordings, or watch videos
Continuous learning can be done in several ways, but making time each day to read, listen to audio recordings or watch videos is an excellent way to begin.
Reading can give managers new insights and ideas and help them understand complex concepts more quickly. It can also increase your knowledge about different industries and how they work.
Audio recordings, podcasts, and webinars can give you insights into different problem areas you may not have known about before and help you develop better solutions.
Watching videos can give you an overview of different topics that you may be interested in, or it could provide you with practical tips that will help you improve your business.
Follow experts in your area of focus on digital media and other sources. These days, experts keep sharing their wisdom in an easy-to-consume manner on social and other channels.
Continuous Learning For Managers
3. Seek out opportunities for hands-on experience
Managers who want to practice continuous learning should seek opportunities for hands-on experience. Hands-on experience allows managers to learn about different aspects of the job and how best to use their skills. You can do it by participating in new tasks around you, trying different ways of doing your tasks, shadowing your team members to identify and learn their unique skills, volunteering for opportunities that float within your organization, etc. By doing this, you can build on your skills and knowledge, which will help them improve their performance as managers.
4. Take part in workshops, webinars, and seminars
One of the best ways to practice continuous learning is by participating in workshops, webinars, and seminars. These events offer various resources, including video presentations, discussion forums, case studies, and more. By engaging in these types of events, you’ll be able to learn from the best minds in the industry and keep up with the latest trends.
5. Reflect on your learning experiences
Reflecting on your learning experiences is a significant and significantly important part of practicing continuous learning. One way to reflect on your learning experiences is to keep a learning journal. In your journal, you can write about what you have learned, how you have applied it, and what challenges you have faced. Keeping a learning journal is a great way to track your progress and ensure that you continuously learn and grow as a manager. It also allows you to look back on your experiences and reflect on what has worked well and what challenges you have faced.
It is true that by following these tips and practicing continuous learning, managers will be well on their way to developing greater efficiency within themselves. But doing that won’t be enough to take the team to more significant potential. To achieve that, managers must also encourage continuous learning for their team members. How? We also have some tips for that in our next section.
How can managers encourage continuous learning in their team?
Encouraging continuous learning in your team can be a challenge. Here are some tips to help you succeed:
1. Communicate your learning goals and objectives to team members
To encourage continuous learning, managers must communicate their learning goals and objectives to team members. If everyone on the team knows what’s happening and what is expected, they’re more likely to be motivated to stay current and up-to-date.
One effective way to do this is by setting up regular learning sessions. This way, everyone can join in and discuss the latest insights and developments as they happen. It also allows team members to ask questions and get help when needed. Managers should also prioritize ensuring that everyone on the team feels comfortable sharing their own experiences with learning. It will help them feel more connected to the learning process and motivated to continue growing as a professional.
Check out more information on communication goals that a manager can set here!
2. Encourage team members to participate in training and workshops
Encouraging team members to participate in learning opportunities like training and workshops regularly can be a significant step to ensuring continuous learning. Doing that will also bring many benefits to the team, including:
Firstly, training and workshops can help team members learn new skills essential for their work.
Secondly, they can increase productivity by improving the team’s overall efficiency.
Thirdly, team members who participate in training and workshops often develop better relationships, strengthening communication within the team.
Fourthly, managers can be confident that their teams are up-to-date with the latest industry trends and developments.
Fifthly, staff who are well-trained and proficient in their roles tend to be more customer-focused and customer-centric.
Sixthly, well-trained and skilled staff often enjoy working in their field.
These benefits should be enough for managers to consider encouraging their team members to participate in these opportunities. For encouraging or motivating the team members to take part, managers can use various methods like:
Providing incentives (such as bonuses or salary enhancements) for team members who take part in training and workshops
Praising team members for taking part in learning opportunities
3. Give team members opportunities to share their experiences and thoughts
Managers can encourage continuous learning by allowing team members to share their experiences and thoughts. It will help them grow, develop their skills, and learn from others in the team. By providing regular opportunities for team members to share their ideas, opinions, and insights, managers can help create a learning culture where everyone is encouraged to take risks and explore new possibilities. This environment will lead to a greater sense of teamwork and overall productivity.
4. Celebrate individual successes and learn from collective mistakes
Another effective way to encourage continuous learning in the team is to celebrate personal achievements and learn from collective mistakes.
When an individual achieves something, take the time to recognize their achievement. It will show your team that you are invested in their success and value their contributions. You can also use these moments to learn from your team member’s successes and apply them to the broader team.
Similarly, when a mistake is made, it’s essential to take the time to learn from it. It will show your team that you are committed to continuous improvement and are willing to learn from your mistakes. You can also use these moments to learn from your team’s mistakes and apply the learnings to the broader team.
5. Coach team members to help them foster a continuous learning environment
Managers can encourage continuous learning by coaching team members to help foster a continuous learning environment. It involves setting up an environment where team members are encouraged to learn and make mistakes to continue growing and improving as professionals. This type of environment is fostered by providing team members with the opportunity to exchange ideas and share their experiences and support when needed.
All these tips will be enough to encourage continuous team learning effectively. However, how can a manager measure the effectiveness of their steps to promote continuous learning in their team? Let’s discuss that in the next section.
How can managers measure the effectiveness of encouraging continuous learning in their team?
There is no one definitive way to measure the effectiveness of your continuous learning strategy. However, you can use a variety of metrics to gauge progress and success. Consider the following methods:
Continuous measurement of skill gap matrix
To measure the effectiveness of encouraging continuous learning in your team, you must create a skill gap matrix. It will help you understand how much team members have improved their knowledge and skills. To generate the skill gap matrix, you’ll first need to gather data on all team members’ current skills and knowledge.
Once you’ve created the skill gap matrix, it’s easy to track the progress of your team members by monitoring their scores regularly. You can do this by asking them to complete a questionnaire or conducting a survey. Next, you’ll need to compare this data with the data from when you began your training program. It will help you identify which areas of knowledge and skills have improved most.
How often team members are engaged in training or workshops outside of work hours
Managers need to measure the effectiveness of encouraging continuous learning in their team to determine whether it’s worth continuing. They can do this by tracking how often team members are engaged in training or workshops outside work hours. You can get their attendance and engagement recorded and maintained by the trainers or workshop supervisors. It will display your encouragement’s influence on your team members’ willingness to learn.
The number and variety of innovative ideas that are brought forward by the team
To get a clear picture of how well the team is doing, managers need to measure the number and variety of innovative ideas. They can do this in several ways, such as using surveys or interviews or reviewing performance data. Ultimately, managers need to keep track of how their team is performing to make informed decisions about how best to encourage continuous learning.
Conclusion
As a manager, you must keep up with your field’s latest trends and knowledge. By striving for continuous learning, you can stay ahead of the curve and make better decisions for your team. Further, by encouraging and motivating your team to practice continuous learning, you can take your team towards more significant potential. So, if you are a manager, follow the tips mentioned above and practice ongoing education with your team to collectively achieve great heights.
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Learning continuously is important because it helps managers and leaders stay on top of a constantly moving industry. With rapid advancements in work methods and styles, managers need to be aware of the trends and latest developments so that their teams can make the best use of available opportunities. It also provides a constant source of motivation and progression in life. For team members, it can enable professional growth.
What is continuous learning in the workplace?
Continuous Learning in the workplace refers to the mindset of constantly learning from the experiences and other sources of knowledge at work. it can include modes like workshops and seminars, coaching, and self-help resources. It helps managers and teams develop robust responses to the changes coming to the industry.
What is an example of continuous learning?
An example of continuous learning is a person who works in the technology industry and consistently keeps themselves up to date with the latest trends and advancements in the field. For instance, this person may attend regular workshops, conferences, or online courses to learn about new programming languages, software development methodologies, or emerging technologies. They may also read technical articles, research papers, or industry news to stay informed and gain knowledge about new and innovative technologies.
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