Employees who organize themselves are more efficient and motivated in their work – this also applies to further training. But how can I, as a learning officer, create the foundation for self-organized learning?
"We must bring learning closer to the place where the learned knowledge is to be applied" – Charles Jennings
This quote captures the core idea, because learning must take place at the workplace so that the content can be applied directly there!
Step by Step: Slowly introducing Self-Organized Learning (SOL)
Teaching employees self-organized learning does not happen overnight – such processes also take time. Therefore, introduce your employees gradually and step by step to the topic of “self-organized learning”:
In the first step, you should slowly familiarize your employees with the topic: convey the advantages and possibilities of self-organized learning. To immediately alleviate any possible fears your employees may have, you should provide a central contact person for questions. Additionally, you should collect all learning content in one central place that is easily accessible to all employees – a digital learning platform like blink.it is particularly suitable for this.
In the next step, you should create a good learning foundation and impart skills necessary for self-organized learning. These primarily include technical basics, so that the learning process can run independently. Also, give your employees the freedom to engage with the topics themselves and learn which areas they actually have knowledge gaps. Fixed learning times support this process.
How to support employees in the process of self-organized learning
It is particularly important for employees to gain control over the learning process themselves and to gather their own experiences. Fundamental to this is their self-learning ability. Additionally, give your employees the possibility to turn to an expert with questions or problems.
In order for self-organized learning to be successful, you should also consider the following three points:
Offer fixed learning times, as regular learning simplifies the learning process.
Enable exchange with other employees to better internalize the content.
Provide tasks and materials so that the new knowledge is applied directly.
Learn even more about self-organized learning, specifically for companies! My colleague Corinna has already reported on 4 factors for self-organized learning in companies on the blog.
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