How to Find a Learning Program That Fits Your Company Culture

Developing an effective learning culture—one in which employees are continuously learning new things and applying those lessons to their work—is one of the most important tasks for any modern organization.

Learning cultures help current employees improve their skills, agility, and creativity, while also helping to attract the best and brightest new talent. It can also be vital for preparing employees for eventual leadership roles.
A critical component of any organizational learning culture is the particular learning program employees access. An effective learning program makes it easy for employees to access while providing valuable, actionable content.
Because every culture is unique, the question is this: how can you find a learning program that fits yours? The first step is knowing what to look for in a learning program.

Ease of Access

Any learning program that will be integrated into an organization’s learning culture will need to be easy to access for all of the employees in the organization.
This is something that online e-learning programs typically excel at. Online learning programs can be accessed by any employee at any time. Many of the more sophisticated e-learning programs support the use of mobile devices, like smartphones, to allow people to access content at their leisure.
However, even with e-learning courses, availability can be an issue if the program has limited “seats” for any given piece of content. Because of this, it’s important to find a learning solution that either has enough seats available to accommodate the entire organization or doesn’t enforce a seat limit.

Personalization of Learning Content

When it comes to employee development and learning, there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” solution. Employees have different backgrounds, levels of experience, and skillsets that they bring to the organization.
Additionally, not every employee is looking for the same career path. Forcing everyone to sit through the same lessons, regardless of their existing skills or personal aspirations, is not the best way to promote engagement with learning content. In fact, it is more likely to cause employees to become actively disengaged with the learning program.
Finding a learning program that makes it simple to personalize learning content based on the needs of each employee, while staying on track with your organization’s needs and goals, can help to ensure that employees are free to take the lessons that are the most meaningful and engaging to them. This helps avoid the problem of redundant lessons and content.

Variety of Content

One area where a lot of e-learning programs fall short is in their variety of content. Many of these programs stick mainly to one kind of content: text. The problem with this is that there are many different kinds of learners in an organization who may benefit more from live lectures, interactive lessons, and other forms of multimedia content. Another issue is that any one form of content can become boring and repetitive.
A learning program with a variety of content can better serve diverse learners, and keep content from becoming stale for the user. These multimedia content pieces can include text, infographics, videos, podcasts, tests, workshops, and more.
In addition to leveraging a variety of content formats, another facet of learning to consider is expert-led content. By featuring renowned experts with demonstrated industry success, employees will be more excited to learn and better digest the information.
Another benefit of having experts providing lesson content is that they can provide practical perspectives that inspire learners. Through relatable real-world examples, experts can show how a specific way of thinking, communicating, or solving problems can help produce results. Expert-driven video content is one of the most exciting and effective value adds of Big Think+.

Proven Track Record

Ultimately, an employee learning and development program is only as good as its results. So, it’s important to check the track record of any learning and development platform that you consider so that you can find a solution that works. Contacting others who have used the learning platform and seeing what they have to say about it can be a great way to make sure that the learning platform is a reliable one.
The more organizations that a learning platform has successfully worked with, the more likely it is that the platform has the requisite quality and depth of content needed to fulfill your organization’s needs.
Big Think+ has helped numerous Fortune 500 organizations overcome their employee development challenges with personalized content featuring expert-led lessons from scores of well-known experts across countless industries. From major corporate CEOs to TV program hosts to renowned industry innovators, Big Think+ has the right content in the right format to help your organization create a lasting culture of learning.