The term learning organization or learning enterprise was popularized by Peter Senge, an American management professor and author. It describes an organization with an ideal learning environment, fully in line with the organization's goals. It's not just a matter of choosingandragogy, pedagogy for adults. According to him, in this type of company, employees “are constantly developing their ability to create the results they really want.” They are businesses in which “new, expansive thought patterns are nurtured, where collective aspiration is unleashed, and where people continuously learn to see a global reality together.”
Interesting in theory, but in practice, what does that mean? This means both the company's ability to create and transfer knowledge, but also to be able to adapt its behaviors, work processes and organization to adapt to these learning needs. So how does one become a learning company?
Step 1: Know how to quickly identify learning opportunities
A learning company knows identify potential problems to turn them into learning opportunities. It can be operational or managerial difficulties, a lack of skills... In all cases, it is a question of have an identification process that makes it possible to classify the problems that learning can respond to. For example, some startups use a “red bin” system: a virtual space accessible to all that identifies problems to be solved.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Set up a process for identifying problems in the company and making all employees aware of the approach
2 - Make employees aware of the identification of the learning opportunities that result from them
Step 2: Encourage experimentation and frame risk-taking
Experimentation is part of learning, and therefore part of the learning enterprise. A company that values experimentation gives its employees spaces in which they have the right to make mistakes. It also encourages employees to seek the opinions of peers or management during the experiment. In this context, The company must be in a position to value everyone's successes, but above all to reassure employees by providing them with a framework that encourages risk taking.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Communicate about the spaces for experimentation that exist in the company and reassure employees about the company's culture with regard to failure as a form of learning
2 - Encourage employees to be a force for proposals on new ideas or projects to be experimented with, which involve new learning.
Step 3: Incorporate learning into daily work
According to the model 70/20/10, a central model of training, 70% of our skills would be the direct result of our professional activity, 20% would come from social interactions with our colleagues and a tiny 10% of our skills would come from classical academic learning. In this context, it is not difficult to understand why The learning company is the one that has understood how to integrate learning into the daily life of the employee, often in an on-demand training model, especially on mobile phones or other devices. This type of learning in a situation is all the more effective if it is implemented immediately, consolidating the memorization of achievements for the learner and allowing counter the forgetting curve.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Equip yourself with a learning tool such as Mobile learning, which allows access to training content on demand, from anywhere and at any time.
2 - Develop training modules in the form of microlearning, in order to provide exactly the information necessary for learning, without superfluous
Step 4: Establish group learning
That she call on the Social learning in the context of work or thanks to e-learning, the learning company has understood that peer learning is among the most effective. Again according to the 70/20/10 model, 20% of an employee's skills come from what they have learned in contact with their co-workers. Among the ways to capitalize on collective learning, we can count learning platforms such as LXP or mobile learning, co-development, mentoring, or even 360 assessment, which allows peer feedback to be collected.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Encourage employees to use the advice and feedback of their peers in a framework of experimentation and learning
2 - Equip yourself with learning tools that use social learning and encourage the sharing of knowledge by employees in a simple and intuitive way
Step 5: Identify and capitalize on the skills available internally
The learning company knows the skills that are present within it at all times. In this context, competency frameworks and maps are its essential tools. They also make it possible to identify talents, to value employees and to facilitate the sharing of best practices. Continually, some companies use strategic workforce planning in order to identify future skills needs and anticipate them through employee training.
-> What actions should be put in place?
1 - Conduct a dynamic skills map, which is updated as employees acquire new skills
2 - Carry out continuous prospecting work in order to anticipate future skills needs
