Employees who love to learn are a real asset to any company. However, the term “lifelong learning” has negative connotations for many employees. Human resources developers are therefore faced with the challenge of awakening the joy of learning – and at the same time achieving sustainable transfer of learning. Find out in this article how you can actually implement “lifelong learning”.
“Lifelong” and “Learning”: Negative Associations
Both the term “lifelong” and “learning” tend to have negative connotations for most employees. Or what is the first thing you think of when you hear the words separately from one another?
“Lifelong” has a strong connection to the justice system: A harsh punishment for serious criminals; coercion and lack of self-determination. And let's be honest: in marriage, too, “lifelong” often has a connotation that frightens many people today.
And “learning”? That is a term we primarily know from school. Probably not the most pleasant, fun part of school days for most people either. The first typical sentence from school days that comes to my mind is: “I can't, I have to study.” – Joy? No chance!
The Goal: Giving Lifelong Learning a Positive Connotation
Yet lifelong learning is basically something very positive: developing yourself throughout your life and never saying: “Well, now my education/training is complete. From now on, I will never need to learn again.” On the one hand, that sounds unrealistic, but on the other hand, it sounds really boring!
HR developers are therefore faced with a significant challenge: teaching adults how to enjoy learning (again).
Outdated Forms of Learning Due to a Lack of Better Ideas
Lifelong learning takes place on the one hand in private life: a new hobby, household skills, or even experiences that make us wiser over time. On the other hand, it also takes place in a professional context: Here, learning is not only important for the individual, but also for the future of the company. Employees who are always developing themselves are a real asset to any employer.
In many German companies, however, corporate learning still looks the same as it did a few decades ago. HR Director Ana-Cristina Grohnert recently described this very vividly in a Spiegel article:
We send whole groups of people to remote hotels for weekends. This is at the expense of free time, family, and also working hours. The results of mass face-to-face learning and other forms of learning from the past are often meager.
Classic seminars last one to three days – once or twice a year. With such short and disconnected learning phases, the transfer of learning is almost always lost. Although employees appreciate getting “out and about” and perhaps meeting new people. Just something different from the usual working routine. But that is certainly not a form of lifelong learning.
Learning and Fun with Gamification and Blended Learning
But how can you combine learning and fun? Some HR developers are currently trying to do this with the buzzword gamification. My colleague Laura recently wrote about this: Gamification: Playful learning for adults – how it works!
Broadly speaking, the gamification approach simply means: motivating people, providing an incentive to become active themselves, and wanting to learn of their own accord. This works, for example, with the principle of blended learning: Here, the good aspects of classic face-to-face learning are combined with the advantages and the playful character of digital learning.
With the blended learning concept, employees experience learning as refreshing and varied: they are motivated in short, focused face-to-face events. The actual learning then takes place in their daily work, while they are repeatedly prompted with online impulses to practice or think further.
Online, additional motivators can then be integrated, entirely according to the principle of 'playful learning': For example, gradually unlocking new content or achieving a special certificate – all of this is easy to implement online and brings fun into learning!
Using Digital Learning Opportunities Sensibly
However, digital offerings are not the “cure-all” for unmotivated participants or a lack of learning transfer. Always adapt the format to the respective objective of the learning measure: For some goals, personal contact is valuable; for others, an online impulse is the better format. As a rule, further training courses consist of several sub-goals, for each of which different formats make sense.
This means: Lifelong learning can only actually succeed in a mix of different learning opportunities, such as digital learning and face-to-face learning.
Study: Why Companies Should Use Digital Learning
Why are digital learning offerings a good choice for companies to achieve sustainable lifelong learning? There are many reasons for this, which the German Economic Institute investigated in a survey.
In the study “Weiterbildung 4.0 – Digitalisierung als Treiber und Innovator betrieblicher Weiterbildung” (Further Education 4.0 – Digitalization as a Driver and Innovator of Company Training), companies state that they particularly appreciate the ease of integration of digital offerings.
But the individual adaptation to needs and the combination of face-to-face and digital media are also rated as particularly advantageous:
Results of the IW Further Education Survey 2017: Why companies use digital learning opportunities.
Conclusion: How Lifelong Learning Can Actually Succeed
In companies, lifelong learning is particularly successful when further training takes place continuously, flexibly, and close to daily work.
In summary, if you want to get employees to look at learning with joy – and therefore motivation – in the long term, the following methods will help:
Blended Learning: Depending on the goal of the individual teaching unit, use digital learning methods or classic face-to-face seminars.
Digital Learning Impulses: The employee can decide for themselves when and where corporate learning suits them best.
Gamification: Use playful incentives to ensure that employees remain motivated in the long term.
With digital learning impulses in the form of blended learning and gamification content, the term “lifelong learning” is given a positive meaning once again.
Last but not least, an important aspect: Employees themselves know best how lifelong learning can be given a positive meaning for them. If you haven't done this yet, or haven't done so for a while: A short survey in the company often helps to find out the individual wishes and ideas of the employees.
And then it's a case of: Just give it a try! The easiest way to start with blended learning is to leave existing face-to-face events largely unchanged – and simply add online support in the weeks that follow.
This allows you to find out with little effort which approaches work well and which method is best suited to which goal. So that lifelong learning becomes a long-term reality!
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
What does lifelong learning mean in a company?
Lifelong learning means that employees continuously develop their knowledge and skills throughout their entire working lives. Learning thus becomes an ongoing part of the daily routine instead of an occasional individual measure.
How can companies encourage the joy of learning?
Varied learning formats, self-determined digital learning impulses, and playful elements can boost motivation. In addition, companies should ask their employees about their needs and preferred forms of learning.
What role does blended learning play in lifelong learning?
Blended learning combines face-to-face learning phases with digital offerings. This allows companies to use different formats depending on the learning objective and integrate further training more continuously into the working routine.
Why are individual face-to-face seminars not sufficient for lifelong learning?
Individual seminars only create selective learning phases. For sustainable and lifelong learning, continuous impulses, repetition, and opportunities to apply what has been learned in daily work are also needed.
