According to experts, the future of work will require learning and adaptability. Organizations around the world are investing heavily in learning management systems, content platforms, design tools, and the capability of their learning teams. Making learning a key component of your employer value proposition can differentiate you from competition. Here are five ideas for your learning strategy that will help you develop awesome employees and win the war for talent.

Learning should be…

In the flow of work

Wherever possible, learning needs to happen where it makes the most sense for employees because we often don’t have enough time to invest in our growth at work. Formal learning experiences, like spending two days away from the office to learn about coaching, are powerful, but they exist outside the flow of work. By creating simple micro-learning experiences, like infographics, videos and one-page guides, that are easy to find employees can learn from day-to-day experiences. Especially when peer-coaches and managers who are strong teachers reinforce what was learned.

Essential, not exhaustive

Great learning experiences teach people how to learn. Information is so readily available that it makes little sense for organizational learning teams to create robust and super-detailed content about sales, business writing or Excel – thousands of very good courses exist on these topics and they’re ripe for curation. Learning professionals add value by finding and organizing the most important and relevant stuff so that their clients can learn something or most of the things they need, but not always everything.

Beautiful

Human beings are more likely to focus our attention on beautiful things. We are more likely to gravitate to video games or well-produced YouTuber content than a 90-minute click-through online course built on a mid-2000s platform. People expect high aesthetic quality from so many other digital experiences (Kurt learns from Netflix and HBO all the time!), so why wouldn’t you try to match their expectations for how they learn?

Measurable and evaluated

Your learning strategy needs to be measurable and evaluated because you need to show the results educational experiences create if you want to have money for more of them! Learning is often seen as a cost center in organizations, but it needs to be presented as a revenue or performance generator because of the knowledge and abilities that great training or growth assignments can generate for employees.

Central to organizational needs

If learning isn’t serving a larger purpose for a community then what’s the point? Students from Kindergarten to university are learning to be global citizens, which is a complex and noble purpose to say the least. Organizational learning should serve the current and future needs of the business. Outlining the skills, knowledge and behaviours that people need to thrive today and in three years will help folks get clear on how they can grow themselves while growing the enterprise.