Good employee leadership and further training have never been more important than they are now. How well is your company succeeding in taking the step towards long-term sustainable learning? Read now, using examples, how you can make your further training crisis-proof with the S-A-L principle!
This is the S-A-L Principle
S-A-L stands for: Structure (Struktur), Activity (Aktivität), and Learning culture (Lernkultur). All three aspects are important for designing long-term, crisis-proof further training. Here, everything revolves around a company's employees. Because they are the salt in the soup!
You can now find out exactly how the S-A-L principle works using concrete examples:
Offer Structure
Active employees
Learning culture
1st Pillar for Crisis-Proof Further Training: Offering Structure
What sounds trivial and simple is often not that easy: especially in times of crisis, many employees need the feeling of a structure that gives them stability. The following elements helper your company or department with this:
Clear Roadmaps in Further Training – The SNIPES Example
Everyone likes to know what is coming next. Therefore, always design further training according to a logical principle and communicate this internally as well! The company SNIPES, for example, has a "Campus" where every new employee automatically starts with a welcome course upon hiring. From then on, the path is clearly mapped out, but completely without compulsion:
The e-learning concept of SNIPES begins with a mandatory entry phase and is then continued on a voluntary basis.
In times of crisis, a look to the left and right often helps: not for jealous copying, but for a fresh perspective.
2nd Pillar for Crisis-Proof Further Training: Active Employees
Clearly: further training can only succeed if employees participate. Or in larger terms: a company is only crisis-proof with active employees. The following elements ensure more activity from your employees:
User Generated Content – Study on Employee Content Production
Kill two birds with one stone: you can achieve this with more UGC, i.e., user-generated content. For one, you get employees to actively participate in training. Because the phrase "You learn for life and not for school" can also be seamlessly applied to adults: employees learn for their own success and not to satisfy their trainer. Secondly, UGC naturally also helps to save time when creating learning content!
Read more about this in this article: User Generated Content: Let employees create learning content themselves!
Particularly in times of crisis, employees are often hesitant to actively try out new things. Possible private worries or the loss of support from their close environment can affect everyday work life. This makes it all the more important to offer employees a safe environment in which they can try out new ways of working and learning methods without pressure.
3rd Pillar for Crisis-Proof Further Training: Positive Learning Culture
The third pillar for a crisis-proof future for the company is a positive learning culture: this encompasses the entire company and continuously influences the other two pillars. So that everyone has the feeling "Here I can develop myself, here I am promoted and valued!".
The following elements help to generate a positive learning culture in the company:
Regular Discussions with Supervisors – The blink.it Example
Employees want to feel heard and understood. Regardless of company size, regular meetings between supervisor and employee are therefore enormously important. At blink.it, so-called "One-on-Ones" take place about every three months. These are one-hour meetings between exactly one supervisor and one employee – where for the most part the employee determines the agenda!
Employee | Team Manager |
Prepare and determine agenda | Listen, ask follow-up questions, and answer questions if necessary |
Lead the conversation: talk and ask questions | Ask follow-up questions to the employee if necessary |
Agile Learning Methods – Blended Learning and Microlearning
A dry-as-dust seminar or a monotonous online course are poison for the learning culture at a company. Because if the employee has no desire to even start learning, further training has failed. Instead, apply agile learning methods that the employee enjoys! For more variety, combine in-person with online phases, for example as classic Blended Learning. And use Microlearning to design short learning impulses that are easy to digest.
You can find more on Blended Learning and Microlearning in our learning material.
Conclusion: Get Active and Make Further Training Crisis-Proof
The S-A-L Principle in Brief
Offer employees structures so that they provide stability and orientation, especially in times of crisis.
Encourage them to actively participate in further training.
And ensure a positive learning culture throughout the entire company!
One last tip: it's best to start with yourself. Where can you provide more structure, where can you become more active yourself, and how can you contribute to a positive learning culture? Integrate the S-A-L principle into your own daily work life: first, you learn more yourself. Second, you put yourself in your employees' and colleagues' shoes better. And third, you present yourself as a positive leading figure that others can look up to.
