The Importance Of A Learning Culture (& How To Establish One)

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Becca Banyard: Imagine a workplace where people can learn, grow, and develop as much as they want to. I don't know about you, but to me that sounds pretty amazing. And according to my guest today, that's the definition of a learning culture.

Welcome to the People Managing People podcast. We're on a mission to build a better world of work and to help you create happy, healthy, and productive workplaces. I'm your host, Becca Banyard.

My guest today is Rachel Glick, Director of Consulting & Team Enablement at LifeLabs Learning. And today we're gonna be talking about the importance of establishing a thriving culture of learning, how to create one at your own organization, and how to effectively measure its success. So stay tuned!

Hello Rachel, welcome to the show!

Rachel Glick: Thank you so much for having me, Becca.

Becca Banyard: It's lovely to have you on the show today, and we're gonna be talking about how to build a culture of learning. Before we dive into things, I'd love to learn just a little bit more about yourself and what you do at LifeLabs Learning.

Rachel Glick: Absolutely. I love that we are talking about learning because it is in the name of the company of which I work for - LifeLabs Learning. So yeah, I am the Director of Consulting & Team Enablement here at LifeLabs. And really what that means is that I get to enable and support and create learning plans for our incredible team of consultants.

And their mission is to support and create learning programs for internal HR, L&D, people ops folks. So it's a really fun, might I say, meta opportunity in my role of lots of learning. Really being the practice lab of what we, promote and recommend internally as well.

Becca Banyard: Sounds like so much fun, such a cool role.

So we're gonna jump into things. Let's start off with some basics. Can you tell me what a culture of learning is and why it's important?

Rachel Glick: I love it. Very cool. So yeah, a culture of learning is essentially what we study at LifeLabs. So we really roll up our sleeves and do a lot of research on what do learning cultures look like, what are those best practices?

And we translate all of that into our workshops where we really teach. At this point, I think over 400,000 folks, over 2000 companies on really what creates that culture? What differentiates a good culture of learning and engagement from a world class culture? So when we think about what does a learning culture mean, what it boils down to is that the workplace is a place where people can learn, grow, and develop as much as they want to at work.

So that is the framing of which I think we can begin to dive in.

Becca Banyard: Amazing. So I'd love to hear actually just what a culture of learning looks like at LifeLabs Learning.

Rachel Glick: So, cool. So as I mentioned, we are the practice lab of what we do in many ways. And what I would say is that learning is really at the core of what we do.

And in many ways, I always think of we should be the top consumers of our product, if you will, internally. So I get really excited about being able to walk the talk around learning. What I'd say this looks like at LifeLabs, there's a couple of branches. Number one is really enabling every individual employee that they are the pilot, if you will, when it comes to their learning.

So they are the ones who have all of the autonomy in the world to learn as much as they want to. And LifeLabs really positions ourselves as the co-pilot. So we will provide the resources, the encouragement, the accountability, the foundational training, and then it is yours to run with. And I think that balance of giving some structure, but also promoting a lot of creativity is really what helps us do this well.

So in practice, this looks like a lot of fun things. We have individual development plans for everybody at the company, which I can speak to in greater detail. We have learning days that are four days exclusively for learning, growth, and development, as well as learning funds that you can use. We embed learning into our weekly schedule.

So there are like weekly opportunities for learning. We actually have, every single employee has 5% of their role is dedicated to learning outside of their primary role. So this could be doing something like what we call the expertise track, which is if you wanna become a subject matter expert on something, you can use 5% of your time directly to that.

So those are a couple of ways in which we do it internally.

Becca Banyard: That's so cool. I'm curious how you manage people's learning and business outcomes and kind of how those intersect. How do you make sure that your staff, their training, is aligned with your goals as a business?

Rachel Glick: I love this question. So what you're speaking to is what we actually call high leverage development or high leverage growth.

And really what that is like the sweet spot or the intersection of skills and interests that somebody wants to grow in that aligns with some of the highest areas that might impact the business. So we often promote and encourage high leverage development. It doesn't have to be, we wanna, again, create that autonomy, but that is really where it becomes most mutually beneficial to the individual and to the business.

And what's really great about okay, so how do I understand what that high leverage development looks like? We wanna provide people with the opportunities to better understand what the business needs are, what our strategies are each quarter, the things that we're focusing on. We make all of that really public and accessible and transparent, so then it can really get the wheel spinning on, Ooh, that excites me. I wanna grow and develop there, so on and so forth.

Becca Banyard: Amazing. I'd love to just go back to something you said a moment ago about creating learning plans, and I'd love to just dive into that a little bit more. Can you tell me what this looks like at LifeLabs?

Rachel Glick: Yeah, absolutely. So learning plans or individual development plans are really a structured way to think about how I do want to learn and grow. Because that can feel really big and sometimes intimidating, which might even avoid us from taking that first step to really be deliberate. So what we focus on is creating a deliberately developmental organization through our learning plans. And what I'll speak to is this strategy really avoids some of those common pitfalls or mistakes we see with learning plans.

Some of those can be like, we focus on too many skills at once, right? We get excited, we wanna do it all, or we switch focus too often. We don't actually really master that level of expertise before we're looking to learn the new next thing. I'd also say sometimes folks focus on the wrong skills. To your point of high leverage development, how do we make sure we're, we have guideposts for the skills that will be most beneficial to the individual.

Sometimes people set it and forget it as well, so they'll be like, yep, I got the plan. But there's no accountability systems in place. And then lastly, sometimes folks just learn on the job, which aka is just not a plan, right? It just is like happening. So with these common pitfalls in mind, LifeLabs gets really excited about creating IDPs that really combat these things and create meaningful plans that are laser focused, that are disciplined, that align with the skills that the business values and the employee values.

So we actually have these pretty cool templates that really help hammer in those focus areas.

Becca Banyard: That's so cool. And so how do you kind of zone in like narrow down what skills somebody should be focusing on and what skills are most beneficial to your organization and to the employee?

Rachel Glick: I love it. I feel like I'm saying that to all of your questions.

The way in which I think it's most helpful to like really narrow in there is number one, as I said, autonomy. Let's laser in on a specific skill that somebody wants to improve in. So maybe that's like making meeting agendas or maybe that's something like earning stakeholder influence or communication skills, whatever it might be.

We wanna be as specific as possible of what is the specific area? Then what we want is to understand the impact. What will the benefit be to the individual or the company if this skillset is improved? So that also helps us narrow in our focus, because like you said, there could be so many. So understanding the impact is a really big one.

Then what I also really love is we ask people to self-report. On a scale from one to 10, where do I feel my current skill level is? Another great opportunity, you could ask a peer or you could ask your manager for their report as well. Cuz it's a simple question. It's a scaling question, 1 to 10. And then once we've kind of narrowed in there, that's when we wanna create a deliberate plan for how we're gonna improve, right?

So this is what we think of at LifeLabs we have a lot of acronyms. Three Es is a big one that stands for "What Education, What Exposure and What Experience" do I want to better support my learning so that I can achieve my ultimate goal? So we have a whole bank of three Es to choose from. But I would say like really walking people through just that process of getting clear on the skill and the impact and where they currently feel, and then what would get them to where they want to be, those are the ways in which we can really narrow in.

Becca Banyard: So good. So for a leader who is considering building a culture of learning, maybe they don't have one right now, but they're thinking about it, why is it important? How is it different from more standard learning and development practices, and why should somebody consider it?

Rachel Glick: I love this. I think why I keep saying it is cuz this topic is really, it matters so much and I'm so passionate about it. Because if work is where we're spending the majority of our time, and one of the greatest indicators of employee satisfaction and happiness is that feeling of growth and progress.

Goodness matters so freaking much. And I will say like a lot of the research shows, even Gartner did a study, one of my favorites back in 2015 that showed that across all sorts of different variety of industries and company size, 70% of the employee population was dissatisfied with how they were learning and growing at work.

And that's pre pandemic. So think about how that got maximized in a remote world where we have even more stressors, and uncertainty amongst us. So this is a thing to take seriously because in some ways it is a problem that can catalyze and unlock all sorts of other problems like burnout or, attrition or lack of focus, lack of progress, lack of performance.

So we really wanna get this one right and cultivate that culture of growth and learning in order to best deliver on all the other things that make work, fun and meaningful and enjoyable.

Becca Banyard: Wow. Yeah. So important.

Rachel Glick: When you say it like that, it's like meaningful, right?

Becca Banyard: Totally. Yeah. So meaningful. It affects employees satisfaction so much.

So then for somebody who's looking to create this culture of learning, I'm sure it doesn't happen overnight, but what are some of the first few steps that somebody can take to start building this in their organization?

Rachel Glick: When it comes to where to begin? I think a really great opportunity is first taking a honest look at your feedback culture at an organization.

Because ultimately feedback and having those feedback loops and opportunities are inherent with learning. So if we don't have a high quality feedback culture, then we're missing so many opportunities to learn together. So I would say that would be like one of the first steps to take is honestly, what does our feedback culture look like?

Because at the end of the day, a feedback culture is a learning culture. And really this comes down to the brain science level of if we're not being able to give high quality feedback or give feedback at all or give feedback that's not receivable, like that crunchy, we have a toxic culture kind of conversation.

What that does is that, putting all of our neuro energy into the amygdala, right? That's that fight flight hijack state where we shut down and are in survival mode. And what we want to be is in that prefrontal cortex space of learning, of growing, of rest, of improvement. And if we aren't even having dialogues where we can be in that space, then we're not in a learning culture.

So I would say check in your feedback culture would be a really smart first step.

Becca Banyard: Okay. Yeah. That's so interesting. I never would've considered that as a place to start. So then can we just go a little bit deeper into that, and my next question would be, how do you then set up a feedback culture? What does that look like?

Rachel Glick: Yes, absolutely. So I think the first thing with setting up a high quality feedback culture is to take an honest assessment of how often are folks having feedback conversations, be it positive or constructive. And when I say positive, what I'm actually looking for, what we see a lot is cultures of nice.

Oh yeah, I gave feedback on that project. It was great. It was great, feels good, right? Oh, my ego is happy, but did I actually learn what was great about that project or that presentation? So we wanna start getting even more specific in our feedback, even when it's positive, which feels maybe like the easier one to do first.

And then on the constructive side, when there is an opportunity for growth or improvement, what we're also looking for is something more specific so that it enables learning. So it's not that wasn't an effective email. Okay, well now I just feel like you clubbed me on the head because that didn't feel great and I don't know why.

Right? We wanna become more specific around, Hey, I noticed that in this email you did X and the impact when the person responded was Y. So it's leaving me to believe that they didn't feel satisfied. Well, how do you see it? You see the difference? I would say just making those small, incremental changes of what type of feedback are we giving and can we make it more actionable, specific, and as observable as a camera would capture it rather than, sort of those empty, blurry words of that wasn't great or you could do better, or nice job, et cetera.

Becca Banyard: Yeah. Clarity is so important.

Rachel Glick: Clear is kind - Brené Brown.

Becca Banyard: So good. Okay, so we've got a feedback culture check. What's the next step?

Rachel Glick: Awesome. So next step in establishing that learning culture, I would say is those learning plans that we spoke about, having a templated type of opportunity where we can, as an org commit to on a quarterly basis.

We're all gonna be doing IDPs. So when you create that org-wide commitment and you have a like high quality resource for people, those two things combined will absolutely catalyze creating that learning culture. Cuz now we're all holding each other accountable to doing our IDPs or creating learning plans.

So I would say that is a really great next step. And from there, as I spoke about those three Es, so being able to create spaces and opportunities for your employees to learn, having some type of bank, a three E's bank, if you will, would be a really great step number three. And just to clarify what I mean by three E's, so it's education, exposure, and experience.

So when we're thinking about learning, education refers to acquiring new information. So might I listen to a podcast or read a book or take a course? Something like that nature for learning in the developmental area that I'd like. Exposure refers to learning from someone else. So this could be something like a mentorship program or a listening tour, or having a coach of some kind or an apprenticeship, if you will.

And then lastly, experience refers to learning by doing. So, this is really the rolling up our sleeves and signing up for that project that we feel like maybe we don't have the prior experience, but we will learn by doing the thing in an experiential way. So I would say that being able to generate that sort of vernacular of three E's, choosing from the three E's bank will help catalyze learning, and then it is up to the employee what they wanna grab onto and how far they wanna take it.

Those are some great parameters and guideposts for how to create that learning culture.

Becca Banyard: So good. I love that piece of experience. I haven't heard people talk about that part of it before. But I think that's so good because for people who like learn on the job, learn through doing, that's such an important option.

Rachel Glick: It totally is. And it's actually making me think what we were talking about earlier of just learning on the job in and of itself isn't necessarily a learning plan, but you can pull in aspects of it as a part of your learning plan. So then you're actually feeling like your job is deliberately connected to your growth.

And that kind of making that bridge is often so available to us, but goes so unnoticed and when you can do it, you immediately start to feel more progress in your day.

Becca Banyard: Yeah. Wow. I love it. I'm just curious about this culture of learning, how we can ensure that when we are building it out, we're being inclusive, that it's accessible to all employees and that no one's left behind, and that we're meeting people where they're at?

Rachel Glick: Really appreciate this aspect because I would say a learning environment is a feedback full environment, which must also be an inclusive environment. So in many ways these are all synonymous with each other. So I really appreciate you highlighting that. And to your point of accessibility, I think one of the best ways to make your learning culture inclusive is to make sure that everyone has visibility on the opportunities for learning.

So even something like creating an L&D calendar that is visible in a centralized place, be it digital or be it in the physical walls of your organization, is a really great way to ensure that everybody is informed of the learning opportunities available to them. So that is number one, even something as physical as an artifact, like a calendar.

But also number two, encouraging your influencers or your leaders or your role models to also be spreading the word as well. So it's one thing to have it accessible, it's another thing to have promoters that are able to reach the whole organization. So that would just be like even a 10 percenter you could do tomorrow is, Hey, does everybody know about the opportunities that we're hosting?

Let's make sure that is visible, accessible, and transparent.

Becca Banyard: Awesome. Thanks for sharing. Okay, so we've been working on building out a culture of learning, but how can leaders be sure that they've achieved a culture of learning and that it's actually successful? What metrics can we track? What are some signs that it's working?

Rachel Glick: Everyone's into ROI. We gotta have the ROI for learning, right? Of course we do. Great question. I would say there are a couple of ways of which we could measure success for any learning initiative or learning culture. The first one is when we set out on the learning initiative, what does success look like?

So to be able to quantify that ahead of time, such that at the end of the journey we are able to compare against that will be very useful. And a lot of people feel like learning is abstract or it's not as tangible as something like a product or a digital tool. So we sometimes skip that step, but it's actually very important.

And so what success could look is quite varied, but some common things that I see are we doing engagement surveys and do we have questions like at work, I am learning as much as I want to. And again, that framing of as much as I want to is definitely important because we want people to be autonomous in the drivers of their learning and growth and development.

So being able to know what your benchmark is and then run some initiatives to enhance your learning culture and then take a post-test would be really helpful. Another thing too is a lot of folks actually use HR escalations as a metric because like I said before, feedback is synonymous with a learning culture.

If you're getting a lot of things escalated or reported to HR about difficult conversations or a lack of direct feedback because they're instead escalating it, if you can then run some initiatives to build your learning culture, you're actually seeing those feedback conversations are happening. Then you're seeing a reduction in HR escalation.

So that can also be a really useful tool. And then there's other things like I would say, like behavioral assessments, if you will. Like you could do a manager 180 if you're doing a manager training, you could be asking them, their direct reports, what is their behavior look like as a manager, pre-training, and then post-training and see what those results look like as well.

But above all, I would say the best way to measure success of your learning culture is to always link it to an existing initiative that other stakeholders care about. Because this will get them far more bought into the whole idea of establishing a learning culture if we feel like it could tie to other existing priorities within the business.

So those are just a few ideas around measuring ROI on that.

Becca Banyard: Amazing. Thanks for sharing that. I'm curious what that last part that you mentioned about tying to initiatives and goals of the company, what kind of an example of that would look like?

Rachel Glick: So an example of what tying your learning culture initiatives to existing priorities could look like. So a great example is a lot of folks think that what they have to do is show their execs or their stakeholders how this learning will lead to more revenue for the business. Cuz that always seems top of mind for our execs, right? But even more deliberate and creative way to show how your learning culture could support the bottom line of the business is actually to address margin.

So for example, you could say that rather than investing X amount of dollars into our hiring initiatives and the cost of hiring somebody and then onboarding somebody, and then training somebody, and then having them equipped and ready to go to be fully competent and capable in the role, which is X number of dollars, I'm gonna save you.

I'm gonna use half of that money and say, actually, we shouldn't go higher. We should instead invest those funds in our existing workforce, do certain learning skill up, do certain trainings, create a mentorship program, X, Y, Z, whatever learning culture initiative you want, and then show the enhancement in the performance from there.

It's actually you're spending less on your existing group, which is better. That's helping your margin rather than it meaning that hiring these people will lead to X revenue. Does that make sense?

Becca Banyard: Totally. Yeah. Thanks for sharing.

Rachel Glick: That's like a secret, kinda secret weapon hack of how can we support from that angle rather than revenue.

Becca Banyard: Yeah. That's so cool. I love that perspective. So we're about to wrap things up. We're coming up to that half hour mark, but I have a couple questions that I ask all my guests. I'd love to hear your input. So the first question is, and I think you've kind of potentially already answered it, but maybe not, we'll see.

What do you think is the number one thing that keeps employees happy in the workplace?

Rachel Glick: This is a good one. If I had to come up with one thing, it's going to be another LifeLabs Learning acronym because it encompasses many things, so I'm cheating just a little. But the one thing that I believe in, and also our research shows that really the brain craves at work to be happy, like you said, is what we call CAMPS.

And what CAMPS stands for are the drivers of that joy and engagement at work. So I'll break it down for you. C stands for certainty. So how clear do I feel of what's expected of me at work? Do I trust the organization? Do I feel trusted by the organization, is certainty. A is autonomy. So how satisfied do I feel with my decision making authority or the direction that I'm given at work?

Because we wanna feel like we can fully express and be ourselves with autonomy, right? M is one of my favorites, meaning. So how much do I feel that the work that I am doing creates meaning or purpose for the team, for the company, or for the greater world, really. And then P is progress. So this is a huge one.

A big indicator that research shows of employee satisfaction and happiness is Do I feel like I'm making incremental steps every single day? And that's where those learning plans are so great because we're helping people track what is it that you want and what are those steps to help you get there.

And then lastly, the S, another very big one in my book is social inclusion. So this is around like my connection to my team, to the things that I wanna be a part of at work. And this particularly in a remote world, is very important. So I know that was many a things, but if you just think about it as CAMPS, that is truly the culmination of what I believe is the key to happiness at work.

Becca Banyard: I love that you cheated and brought in so many because it's so good. Okay, so last question is, as a leader yourself, what do you personally need to be successful?

Rachel Glick: This is a beautiful question. If I were to think fast, not hard, so just maybe more of the thing that is top of mind. I think for me it's a big sense of we are united to achieve things together, and we're having a lot of freaking fun while we're doing it. Like we've gotta be enjoying ourselves or what's the point to achieving together and having fun in the process.

Becca Banyard: So good. I love it. Rachel, it has been such a pleasure, such an honor to have you on the show today. Thanks for joining.

Rachel Glick: Thank you so much for having me. Really, I could nerd out on this all day with you. Really appreciate the time.

Becca Banyard: If people wanna get in touch with you or follow along with what you're doing at LifeLabs Learning, where should they go?

Rachel Glick: Yeah, absolutely. Come visit us at lifelabslearning.com. If you are in the people op space and you like nerd in that on this, we have Culture Club, which is a great event to be a part of.

Becca Banyard: Amazing.

All right folks, well that's it for today. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like to stay in touch with all things HR and leadership, head over to peoplemanagingpeople.com/subscribe to join our newsletter community. And if you like this episode, be sure to give it a and subscribe to the podcast.

That's it for today. Bye for now.