The pandemic has catalyzed a hunger for learning. Of recently surveyed professionals, 94% see the career benefit of making time to learn, and 52% of Learning and Development professionals see the need to revamp their initiatives to answer that need. The time is certainly now to harness this appetite to drive new levels of career growth and business innovation. There has been growing conversation about the necessary factors that will drive success in the near future and the long term. Today, let’s discuss the need to make the workplace learning experience more inclusive and more widely available.
Why is it important to create an inclusive learning experience?
Innovation and disruption are challenging companies more than ever to make the most of their personnel. It is becoming less affordable to squander talent and time with the pace and unpredictability of today’s business landscape, so effectively attracting and growing talent continues to become vital to the bottom line. Learning and growth opportunities hold the keys to success and failure in these areas and thus hold the lifeline of the business itself.
Successful learning entails maximizing growth and helping professionals make the most of every workday while recognizing this learning experience may look different for each person. Learning can no longer be a ‘nice to have’ and judiciously implemented when it seems feasible. Learning must become a more integral part of everyday life no matter how big or small that impact may be.
What does an inclusive workplace learning experience look like?
Making learning more inclusive means ensuring every individual is empowered to seize every day as an opportunity to grow. What does this look like in principle and action? What are some of the factors that help further democratize workplace learning allowing it to impact more people more often?
Accessible
Work flexibility is one of the hottest trends in business right now. A huge benefit of the COVID-19 pandemic has been its impact on accelerating work flexibility and, in turn, curbing negative impacts of work on other obligations like family care, hobbies, etc. Learning must follow this same trajectory.
A recent study highlights an age gap in marketing fields with young professionals receiving far more training than older professionals. Part of this gap could be due to time and flexibility. Senior professionals often have more work and responsibility than younger professionals and are more likely to have family care obligations. Increasing the accessibility to learning and making it flexible allows it to efficiently integrate into each person’s day.
Personalized
Successful learning tactics are often summed up by some mix of learning engagement, retention, and reinforcement. It’s important to know if your learning experience is engaging. Is it relevant? Is it digestible? Is it consistent?
Successfully addressing these factors often becomes an issue of personalization. It is unreasonable to expect everyone to learn the same. Creating a learning experience that is conducive to each person’s learning style is crucial as matching the needs of the individuals it is meant to teach allows for better integration. Elements like attention span, auditory or visual learning and even time of day can all help drive better results if harnessed correctly. Geography, culture, and physical disabilities should also be considered in continuing to make learning more accessible and inclusive to all.
There is a demand for creatively expanding the use cases for learning and development. There is no learning focus that should be considered too niche to explore. Workplaces and experts need to embrace taking risks and innovating the use cases of workplace learning to continue reaching into areas of growth where they can expand and drive meaningful positive change.
RevWork provides an asynchronous learning platform and workplace learning experience that optimizes learning retention and ROI. If you are interested in learning more about the RevWork platform and app, feel free to connect with our team!
