we deliver a culture of learning
One-time reskilling and upskilling efforts will not be sufficient to deal with transformations in the long-term. Companies and their ecosystems need to build a culture of life-long learning which allows employees to continuously improve their competencies.
The SDLE helps you create a culture of learning, by making development a habit… so ingrained that it simply becomes ‘a way of life’.
Let employees take charge of learning
According to Deloitte, the trend is clear: "The learning organization must help learners figure out how to obtain the learning they need for themselves, from both inside and outside the company. If your organization has not yet embarked on this journey, the time to start is now." Using annual performance reviews to drive development is becoming a thing of the past. Keeping score is not the way.
The Self-Directed Learning Engine™ (SDLE) enables each person to own their development and career planning across 70-20-10 activities (experiential/collaborative/formal), while helping managers support team member efforts with visibility, input, and coaching.
Culture of learning efforts should be accompanied by the creation of learning KPIs and dashboards for the assessment of managers so that learning becomes a key task for both employees and managers.
– World Economic Forum
The SDLE provides aggregated team analytics that highlight whether the culture change is taking place. This help managers realistically support a culture of learning through development habits.
Use collaborative learning to drive culture change
When you have a tool that identifies task-based mentors, everyone in the organization can be both a mentor and a mentee on a regular basis – and learning will simply become a part of the organizational culture. The SDLE empowers both the identification and tracking of collaborative learning.
Don’t take our word for it
ATD’s Lifelong Learning report found that the number 1 benefit of encouraging lifelong learning, cited by two-thirds of respondents, is improved employee engagement levels followed by overall organizational performance (57%), an improved ability to retain talent (56%), and an improved ability to meet changing business needs and objectives (54%).
Creating personal development plans for all employees and leaders is a top practice—and it's linked to better market and learning performance. (ATD’s research on Building a Culture of Learning)
The most effective way for HR leaders to help employees keep pace with shifting skill needs is by building connected learners. Connected learners are eight times more likely to be high performers. To build connected learners, organizations must evolve their approach to employee development across several key fronts:
- Skills Identification: Instead of trying to keep up with leader requests, leading companies are capturing the skills shifts in the market and determining the most pressing skill needs for employees across the organization. (Role-based competency model)
- Employee Motivation: Rather than just communicating skills requirements, employees need to understand how they can personally grow by developing the skills the organization needs. (Competency assessment)
- Learning Solutions: Providing self-service development options can overwhelm employees; leading organizations are brokering quality development experiences to accelerate new skill development. (Personalized learning)
The most valuable aspect of the SDLE for me was that it made me more willing and more motivated to learn. I could optimize my educational experience and focus where I most needed it.
– Synchrony Self-Directed Learning Engine user
Several benefits of using a holistic approach with a competency model, establishing a baseline assessment, and building a customized, individual development plan (IDP) include:
- Forces leaders to define what learning and development really is
- The ability to build informal learning opportunities and on-the-job embedded learning
- Helps learners take more responsibility for their learning on the job
- Gets managers on board with the learning and development
- Guides leadership to make investment in learning and development
- Most importantly, helps the organization in building and tracking a plan to show the closing of the gaps
– Kaiser Permanente Sales Director
Get Senior Leader Buy In
If you want to get buy in from seniors leaders for this approach, watch this webcast and download the skill practice to learn how to create a business case for a culture of learning.
Get Started Quickly
Our competency development system takes just 2 weeks to implement. We provide everything you need to be successful, including communication toolkits and best practices tailored to all levels of the organization – employees, managers, and leaders.