Who owns learning? 5 reasons to give your learners more control

By Tess Robinson, Director, LAS

If we’re honest, no one really likes just being told stuff. Cast your mind back to the last conference you attended. I bet there were some sessions where the speaker was just speaking at the audience, where you perfected your doodling, caught up on your emails or drifted off entirely. I much prefer the sessions where I’m encouraged to talk to other participants, to discover things, to make connections, to try concepts out for myself in my own context and to get feedback from others – I bet you prefer those sessions too and more importantly, I bet you remember them much more clearly. Learning cannot just be about transfer of information, that sort of learning just doesn’t stick.

When your learners are given the chance to ‘own’ their learning, to ask questions and to apply their thinking, that’s when they really become engaged. All organisations want employees who are motivated, innovative and flexible. Giving them opportunities for discovery and for driving their own growth can be very positive for self esteem, confidence and job satisfaction and creates an environment where employees feel that they have a real stake in the success of the organisation.

Here are 5 more reasons to give your learners more control:

1. It shows that the organisation has trust in their people. This inspires confidence in learners and is very motivating; not only in terms of their learning itself but also in terms of how connected they feel to the organisation and their place in it as a whole. This positive effect on retention and engagement is really important. According to Harvard Business Review, 71% of business leaders see employee engagement as one of the three most critical factors to the success of their organisations.

2. If learners own their own learning, this allows them to personalise their learning journey and focus on improving their own specific weaknesses. This makes learning more efficient and effective and prevents organisational resources being spent on teaching people things they already know.

3. Learners can access information and resources at the point of need, increasing business agility and giving people the ability to confront challenges and draw out the resources needed to find solutions.

4. Information can be easily updated. Learners don’t have to wait until the next training course to find out new things that can help them with their job role or personal development. Resources can be updated as they change, increasing accuracy and again improving the ability of the business to respond to challenges as they arise. User-generated content, moderated by the learners themselves can be a very effective way of keeping information current.

5. This approach focuses much more on ‘performance’ than ‘training’ and opens the door to lightbulb moments which can really push your organisation forward and give you the edge.