Learning cultures

good afternoon everybody i'm going to get started i can see you all chatting away introducing yourselves to each other in
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the chat which is really lovely to see also see people concerned that there was no sound yet but that was because we had
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not started we were all on mute but i'm starting now my name is katie jacobs from the cipd
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and I've been hosting our coronavirus series of webinar and this afternoon
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we've got an l d focus session we are looking at learning cultures how has covid19 given us an opportunity
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to take stock and reconsider our learning environments joining me to discuss this topic and
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share their ideas I've got a fabulous panel we've got mel green research advisor at cipd and mel is co-author of our recent
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report creating learning cultures assessing the evidence we're joined by david hayden
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digital learning portfolio manager l d at the cipd and finally by lucia coppa bianco
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senior learning and development officer at the samaritans i can see her smiling because i did pronounce her name right
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because we had some jokes about that before before we started thank you thanks everybody for joining us today um
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as ever i'm just going to run through some very quick housekeeping the session is being recorded it will be available on demand by the webinar
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section of the cipd website you can also access recordings of all of our previous webinars there and sign up for future sessions we're
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only doing one more uh before we have a break for the summer um but that one is on youth employment in the life of the summer statement and
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that's happening this Thursday so please do sign up to that if you're interested if you want to submit questions during
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the webinar could i ask you to use the q a tab which you can see at the bottom of your screen please use the chat box to talk
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to each other and to make comments but if there's a question that you want me to ask I'll probably miss it so can you put it in the q a instead a
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reminder that the legal advice cipd members can call our hr inform helpline it's available 24 7
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and you will get an individual response and a reminder to head to the cipd coronavirus hub for up-to-date information and resources
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and a final reminder about our new well-being hub and helpline for our members in the uk and Ireland
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together with award-winning workplace wellbeing provider health assured we're now able to provide our members
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with free access to telephone or online consultations with qualified therapists that's enough
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housekeeping let's get on with the topic we all know by now that the covid19 pandemic
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has had a profound and dare i even say an unprecedented impact on the way that businesses
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operate organizations have had to change where they work how they work and even reconsider the
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services that they offer the ability to learn to adapt to continuously improve in the face of this
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challenge is vital the 2020 cipd report creating learning
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cultures assessing the evidence provided a call to action for organizations to create great learning environments
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it advised that targeted action is needed to embed learning and that people professionals need to
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identify tangible organizational practices that support learning copic 19 has given
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us an opportunity to take stock to consider our learning environments and what practical lessons
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we can take from this research across the dimensions of organizational team and individual learning so
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mel is going to be taking us through the research and some of the learning from that david's then going to explore what this
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means for l d practitioners working through cavid but also beyond and then lucia will share a case study
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on how she has created a positive learning environment within her own organization and then
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we'll come through to questions please can i ask you to put your questions in anytime you want and don't leave them until the last 10 minutes or
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we won't be able to get to them all but that's it from me for now i'm going to hand over to mel to kick us off great thanks so much katie and thank
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you for the instruction and thanks to all of you for being here on this rainy monday as well great to see
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so many of you here so as katie said i'm mal greene i'm a research advisor at
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cipd and one of the areas that i lead work in is learning and development
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and today i'm going to talk about our latest research learning cultures assessing the evidence
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so before i jump into it i wanted to share a stat that we found from some previous research in
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2019 and that research was called professionalizing l d and in this research that we we found
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that virtually all l d practitioners that we asked in fact 98 of them aspired to achieve a learning
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culture in their organization we also found that just 36 of them felt like they'd achieved this
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so we thought it was really important to explore this idea of a learning culture and a bit more depth to really
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understand what that learning culture really looks like in an organization and really importantly what tangibly we
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can do to shift the environment in our organization for learning so that's what i'm going to talk a
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little bit about today could you go to the next slide please danielle thank you
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so as katie mentioned at the beginning this is all the more relevant now during coverage and i think full disclosure we
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did this research just before covid came into our lives and what is really interesting i think
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from my perspective is that this is even more relevant now so when we talk about learning culture
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and embedding learning into an organization that's always been important it's always been key to make sure
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organizations can adapt that they support development but in a time like covered where i think
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saying chain it has changed the way we work as an understatement we all the more need to concentrate on
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how we embed learning into how we do things and also how we evolve that into organization
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strategy and how we do things in our workplace so i'm going to talk a little bit about
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the what and the why of learning cultures today so in this latest report we
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talk about what a learning culture is and how it might be usefully framed to help guide action and organizations
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we talk about some of the barriers to creating learning culture and some of the practical steps that you
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might need to take as a practitioner to embed that i'm going to focus on the what and the why
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today so what really is a learning culture and getting to the root of what that is and then david and lucia will be talking
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about some of the practical learning practical learnings from professionals
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so before i jump into the research i really want to hear from you and understand what the state of
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play in your organization is or organizations you work with so we'd love to hear
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do you think that your organization or perhaps organizations you work with have a
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positive environment for learning you should see a poll question pop up on your screen
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so give everyone a couple of minutes to tell us what they think so it might be that yes you absolutely
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think your organization has a positive environment for learning or perhaps a learning culture
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perhaps you're getting there to some extent you think you do or perhaps this is something that you're still trying to
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tackle on the flip side it might not be something that you're trying to achieve or it might be something else entirely
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and if that's the case please tell us in the chat so we'll give everyone another
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30 seconds or so just to fill in this poll
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and then we can just see the results coming in great so it looks like the vast majority
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of you have definitely got creating a positive environment for learning on your radar which is fantastic
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and the most people actually have said that yes to some extent they do think they have a positive environment for learning which is really
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interesting there's only about six percent that say they don't which is really positive to see
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um and around a quarter of you say yes you have a positive environment for learning in your organization
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which is which is great to see and i'd love to hear your reflections in the chat as well about from those who said
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that they have a learning environment or a positive environment for learning to some extent tell us the areas where you think you do
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have a positive environment for learning and share what you think is challenging as well
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great so let's jump straight into the research findings if you could go onto the next
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slide then danielle so it's really positive that so many of you are thinking about
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this learning environment and i feel like you're at least on the way to creating it and of course it's useful to say
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that when we're talking about creating a positive environment for learning that process is probably a continual one
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there's not a point in time where we can say we've got a positive environment for learning that's it we're done with this
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now so i wanted to talk a little bit about the findings of our evidence assessment
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because i think when we talk about learning culture it's really important to embed that into what this actually
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means in practice culture is a really broad term and while it's
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quite well understood it can also make it difficult to think what does this actually mean in my
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organization what practices what values and what behaviours is it tied to
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so this is what we've really honed in on this research so the evidence is really clear here
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that creating a learning culture is a fairly complex task as you might expect
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and it really involves embedding learning into the organization's way of doing things
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and that's really positive because when we do that it can translate to things like innovation organizational ability to adapt and
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transform and it can also support development all fantastic things that we really want to embed into our organization
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that also involves a lot of supporting factors so organizational systems to be in place
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values and resources to be aligned to that goal of learning and that means that we really need to tie a golden thread
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between different levels of learning or lenses of learning in our organization so it's really clear from the research
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that you need to take a three-pronged approach if we're to assess and act on learning cultures and that's
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organizational learning so how does the organization as a whole learn and adapt
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how do teams learn and adapt so how are learning's translated up to the
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organization's way of doing things and how do teams harness individual learning and then of course
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there's that individual level of learning which is so important and this doesn't just necessarily mean
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formal learning opportunities it's how individuals can reflect and adapt how they do things at work and
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feed that into the wider organization so there are some key factors here that
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the research tells us are really important to help support this and that is individual
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learning opportunities and team learning opportunities as you might expect and again this is not just around
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face-to-face or formal training and of course face-to-face training is going to be challenging for some time for
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organizations it's about how people learn and adapt on a day-to-day basis
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there also needs to be the right resources and knowledge management sharing tools in place on a practical level too
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because all that information and that learning needs to have a mechanism to be shared amongst
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the organization but at a high level as well there are some really key things to think about
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and that includes things like strong leadership that supports learning in all its forms and having a collective
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vision of what that learning looks like and what it should entail in an organization
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there's also some other really important factors which are slightly separate to individual learning opportunities
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knowledge management and leadership for learning and these are wider organizational factors
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that are necessarily directly related only to learning so there these are things like making
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feedback and adaptation the norm so risk taking is acceptable rather than frowned upon
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and having feedback in place and a way to reflect on things like that
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that's really important too in other words having a safe space where people can
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test and innovate ideas is really important if that new learning from individuals or teams
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is going to translate into action in the organization so in other words it's a really systemic
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and broad picture so a learning culture is a really broad really broad concept it's not just about
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individual learning it's not just about team learning or the organization learning as a whole it's about bringing
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all of these three things together and making sure that the organization can use that learning to
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to adapt and change how it does things too could you pop onto the next slide please
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danielle so this found fantastic so as you would imagine
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there are some really clear benefits from embedding this sort of approach into your organization so the research is quite clear that when
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organizations are good at doing this they benefit in a number of ways as do the employees within them
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so there's research linking having a learning culture to things like growth transformation productivity and
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profitability and also to organizational performance so what the research really tells us is
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when we support learning in all its forms and encourage knowledge management and sharing of that learning
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this in turn enhances the skills that you have in your organization which in turn can then enhance
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performance so it's really about linking that individual learning to how things are done in the organization to improve it for better
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performance on an individual level as well it's really clear that it can help individuals want to use that learning
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this this is intuitively making sense because if you know that your learning will actually be used
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you're much more likely to offer up that learning and change the way you do things and lastly as you might expect
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there's evidence that having a learning culture is linked to better organizational commitment and reduced
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intention to leave and again we might expect this because we know that development opportunities
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are such a key factor in employees well-being and satisfaction with their job overall
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so we stand to gain a huge amount if we concentrate on the environment for learning or the learning culture
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in our organization so all that being said there's some
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there's a big question of how do we translate this into practice and what do we do with the concept of
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learning culture could you go into the next slide please
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so one of the first things that we recommend based on this research is to think about how you can
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take practical steps to embed some of this into the way your organization does things and one thing that's really clear
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is that this is a really broad area so talking about learning culture can be
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a little bit broad and it can be not entirely sure what we mean by that and what it means for organizations
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so one thing one and one key takeaway really from this research is to think about how we frame this idea of learning
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culture because yes we're talking about some cultural things in terms of
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how people have autonomy to make changes in their work what sort of feedback's acceptable and is promoted in an
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organization and how people are allowed to take risks and change changes how they do things
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however this is a really broad subject and what we also really want to do is consider what practical
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tangible things we can do within our own sphere of influence so while the idea of learning culture is
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really helpful and it can provide a really good evaluatory tool in terms of thinking about
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your organization's learning at that individual team and wider level there's also a really strong argument to
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frame this as a learning environment because really what we're talking about is does your organization have a
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positive environment for learning in its many forms so to make things more practical and
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tight so tangible practices we very much recommend reframing this idea of learning culture
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we feel this can really help tie it to tangible organizational practices so if we talk about
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do you have a positive environment for learning we can consider what the environment for learning looks like for individuals and
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tie that to specific practices behaviours and policies in your organization so for
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example what sort of learning opportunities are offered how far are they taken up
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and how do managers support learning those are really tangible things that we can consider
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in our practice and practically make make progress on of course the idea
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of learning culture is a really important one because it's really broad and systemic but what we really recommend is focusing
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in on some of those practical tangible things that can really shift culture
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because we know that those practices and behaviours ultimately help demonstrate a culture and organization
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and they're also far more tangible and we can tie that into practice
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so in summary i think it's really clear that that idea of learning culture is really
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important and it's all the more important now in the wake of covid especially when
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we think about wanting organizations willing to adapt and individuals needing to upskill and
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reskill but we do need to take some practical steps in our organization to understand
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what our current environment for learning is and what practically we can do to shift that so i'm going to hand back over to katie
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now who will then hand back over to david and each year who are going to talk about some of those practical
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recommendations and share some really interesting cases of how they've embedded that learning in
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that practice thanks so much mel really really great overview of the topic i see that's gone
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down really well in the chat lots of people sharing lots of conversation about the challenge of creating space um for
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oneself or for teams or with managers or persuading senior leaders um some
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chat about whether learning is even the right word or we should talk about things like growth and tie it more clearly to
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performance and but we can pick up all of this in the discussion um so as mel said david is now going to
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bring this to life a little bit talking about the practical implications for l d managers so over to you david
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hi hello everyone and uh thank you for um thank you for joining us today um uh 244
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people are in the in in in the session that's that's brilliant to see and also welcome to everyone who's come through the um cipd
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learning leads in learning routes as well to to this session and i am going to talk a little bit about that
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um as as i go through my three slides that I've got on on on this this part of the
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presentation today so danielle if you could put me on to my first slide please yeah so from a from um an advice point of
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view in terms of thinking around how we can embrace this concept of
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are we are we creating a great learning environment one of the first things i'd say is
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take some time out to stop and think to to really kind of stop and think around
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what is it we want to create what is it we are working towards what is it we are
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um there to serve our organizations to do so whether you're working within an organization or whether you're working
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with an organization what is it that you're you're really aiming to achieve
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so what is so asking yourself some basic questions like what is my belief system
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about learning what is it that i think learning and development's all around um what's my philosophical
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understanding of what learning development is for in organizations so are you coming from a
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spectrum where it's education and curriculum based or from a from a point of view where it's
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self-directed where it's growth where it's where it's explorative or somewhere in between
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so really taking some time out to think around what is the purpose of learning and developing our development in
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organizations and then filtering that down a little bit and thinking around well what does that mean what sort of
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experience do i want people to have as a result of learning and development
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in my organization so where does that link in with things like your organization's strategy
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and purpose about learning what are some of the stated um things you've got within your
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learning development strategy if indeed you have got one where are you open to saying
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look um i am willing to be vulnerable and role model
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the fact that i am still learning about my job in learning so one of the things that
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um one of the reasons why i think I've got the best job in learning development is because i get to speak to people
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about learning development every single day so what's not to love about your job about that and and one of the things
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that i'm i'm very clear around is is that i'm still learning about learning so if we can role model
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that we're learning then that's going to help sow the seeds and set the scene
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for a more open approach to people saying actually
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do you know what i don't know i need to know something i don't know i don't know something so how we can get people to role model
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um what great learning is so so thinking about how we stop and take stock and pause and
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if if some of you are at the festival of work you may have heard uh benjamin murray from the nhs talk around
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purposeful pauses um as as part of the panel session he was on so thinking around not just stopping for
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stopping sake but having that purposeful pause around working out what is it we think
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learning development is around and what is it we want our people to say about the provision
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we provide do we want people to say hey that was yeah this is good the organization i
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work for helps me develop in my role or do people in your organization say things
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like I've got to go on a training course today um and it's quite frustrating my wife
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says that quite a few times a year oh no I've got to go on a training course he's like do you know what job i do
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um let me talk to your organization but what do people say about the provision
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so first thing stop really think around what is it we're offering and and that's exactly what we've done
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with the leaders in learning so right now we've got a unique moment in time to think around
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what do we want to do what do we want to what do we want to carry on doing what
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do we want to repurpose so with our leaders in learning provision at the cipd we're taking this
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time to really kind of take a pause and think around okay this is
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what we've achieved this is what we've done where do we want to take it next so we're actually role modelling some of
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this some some of the things that we're talking around here um so if we move on to the next slide
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danielle so um once we stopped let's have a
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really good look at what's happening let's have a really good exploration
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of what is actually happening within our organization so i know some of you are going to be
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right now looking at that slide thinking where are those three mistakes where are those three mistakes um
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and that's kind of you can some of you are going to look at that statement on on that slide and
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and not see any mistakes and not see any errors with it within that within those wording and
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some of you who may be dialling in by the phone may not actually be able to see what's what's on the screen right now
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and i think that that's a really kind of good analogy in terms of some of the things we think are
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happening within our organizations around learning development and the reality of what is happening um
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in learning and development uh within our organizations so sometimes we just see what we think is there
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rather than what people are actually experiencing so one of the things um there are three e's in the word through
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um on on this slide and yet our brains will make allowances for that and and
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tell us that that word is actually spelt okay so our brains sometimes blinker us
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in terms of what we actually see so we need to think around who are we going
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to involve when we look at what's what's what's happening within our organizations
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um we need to think around um some of the things that um mel said i don't know if you you
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picked up on it a couple of times but mel actually said learning in all its forms
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so thinking around how do we how do we work out what's happening both formally and informally within our
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organization's learning development provision so you know where is the um some of you have mentioned some great things
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around initiatives that you you you you're trying to introduce but are not um not necessarily being
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taken advantage of so it's it's not looking at what offering you've got but around what are some of the barriers
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um to to those offerings so is it because people
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don't necessarily see the the the point of some of those things is it because people can't relate to
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what they're seeing in some of the learning development how close to people's reality is the
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learning development we're offering or is it something um saw in the chat i think it was neil who put in the chat
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how do we manage people's expectations so we have very traditional
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clear expectations of what learning and development is within our organizations and in some organizations
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it's actually embedded in our reward strategy so our reward strategy will say
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we will we will offer learning to people now now should it be in the reward
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strategy or should it be actually an integral part of actually what we do because it's the right
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things to do um i worked with one organization who um who who used to fly i mean this is
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going back a couple years but they used to fly people to London um from their own country um to come on
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a training course they worked out it was cheaper to fly um a trainer to uh to their site
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um the uptake was minimal because it was embedded in their reward strategy
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that they could fly people to London to undertake this particular course so that's a lot of expectations to
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unpick and re-manage in in terms of thinking around what is learning and how do we create a
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great learning environment and also with luck is where else are you who are you benchmarking with
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in order to think around what a great learning environment actually looks like so are you just identifying with
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yourself are you identifying with other people in your sector or are you identifying with
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with totally different sectors and seeing what you can learn from from them i worked in local government
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for a while and one of the things what kind of frustrated me was immediately when we were writing a new policy
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we would go to all the neighbouring local government areas to find out what they were doing and
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that was great on one level some insights but it was also just kept us within that local
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government bubble so thinking around where else you can look beyond your organization
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is really key to thinking around what sort of learning environment do i want to provide for for the organizations i work for and
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then my final slide danielle if you can move it on is um who who do we listen to
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um so which voices do we activate um and which voices do we
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do we really kind of embrace which voices do we really spend time on picking and
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listening to and which voices do we just shut down who do we say um yeah actually you've made a valid
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point because i agree with you or do we say actually no do you know what um
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i don't agree with you so i'm not going to listen to you um and and why why should
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our employees listen to us what is it about us and about our own strengths and our
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own credibility that our employees will listen to us when we say hey look this is a this is a learning
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environment we want to create so thinking around thinking around voice thinking around tone of voice
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thinking around the stakeholders we listen to and again something mel said around our sphere of influence you know who is
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our sphere of influence in our organization and who are we not listening to are
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really important things to consider when we want to think around what sort of learning environment do we want to
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create and in terms of in terms of
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how we get to listen to um to a variety of different voices
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thinking around um what questions do we ask so one of the questions that i used to ask
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way back was um you know was what was around would you recommend this
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course to anybody else um and i'd be wanting people to write yes i would
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as a way of saying this was a brilliant course but actually that's a totally if you
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think about learning development from a performance point of view that is totally the wrong question to ask because actually if we're targeting
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people's performance then that question kind of becomes redundant
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so what we need to be doing is listening to line managers and saying look this person came on this
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learning intervention for this particular resource have they now been able to do their job better
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and thinking around how we engage and talk to line managers a lot
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more than maybe spending lots of time on a happy sheet processing industry at the end of a
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program can really offer some great dividends in in in terms of really understanding
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what are people's reality um especially right now so for instance my backdrop
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here today isn't isn't my office at 151 it isn't my own sort of temporary office
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in in my own house it's actually my mother-in-law's front room I've had to um I've had to come here
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today because we've got a uh we're having a boiler refitted today that's the only day we could have them so I've had to
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kind of drive 20 odd miles away from home to be able to do this so what is people's reality right now
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and you know as as organizations start to go back to work as offices start to open as different
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pockets of lockdown happens or unhappens what is people's
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how do we listen to people's voices to work out what their reality is really like
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so when we're putting forward whatever learning interventions we're putting forward we know that it meets their reality
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so back to you katie thank you thanks so much david that was great can see some stuff that really resonated with people
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people loving the idea of purposeful pauses of vulnerability of acknowledging that we're we're all
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learning um and some great points we can pick up in the q a as well but i'm going to hand over to
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the cheer now to give a case study of what's going on with learning cultures at the samaritans
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thanks katie and uh welcome to everybody uh today uh this is the very first time
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I've ever done anything like this so please bear with me i'm feeling slightly nervous even though if i may not look it um my
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name is lucia i work in the l d team in samaritans I've been there now
32:22
coming up 14 years this year and i'm also a listening volunteer for samaritans in my
32:28
local branch so i sort of wear two hats if you like um so danielle if you would move on to the
32:35
only slide i have um so i set this up because um actually I've got three
32:42
audiences that uh we as an ellen d team cater for um we've got roughly about 20 000
32:49
volunteers um in our 201 branches across the uk and the republic of Ireland
32:55
um there's about 160 staff and then our workplace offering is what
33:02
we do externally facing so we will come to other organizations to train um and the l d function serves
33:10
um all three of those and i'm going to focus predominantly on the staff uh piece today um
33:17
but uh i think what i'm going to talk about does touch all three of those those pieces um
33:24
the audiences are different but their motivations are probably the same so um for me i think
33:30
um and david might remember this it was when i was doing my one cipd qualification that suddenly a light
33:36
bulb moment happened um in terms of learning culture um for
33:41
samaritans and it was the piece around induction um and a huge grabbing sort of light
33:48
bulb went off in my head because actually we didn't have one um at that point and um
33:56
i remember coming away from the session and thinking actually this is a massive piece that we're
34:01
missing um because we're not giving people a chance to feel proud
34:06
of what they belong to and what they what they do what they serve what they support um for me
34:14
because i wear the two hats and i see the volunteer inside it's easy for me to understand but actually unless you not not
34:20
all staff are also volunteers so they don't necessarily have contact with branches every day and don't necessarily see the impact that
34:26
they have so i came away and did some thinking um
34:31
and approached at that time um there were only two of us in the l d team um and we were not linked to our hr
34:38
department at all so um spent some time talking to hr
34:44
about how best to go about making a change in what we could do
34:50
and um we started to plan how we could um embed
34:56
or put together an induction to instil that sense of pride but also
35:02
then actually it was the key to start um
35:08
embedding a learning culture if you like as well because one of the things i think that's resonated with me with the other speakers is
35:13
um a the word training i think training course automatically people just think oh god
35:19
another training course um and so we we made a very conscious
35:24
effort to move from training to learning and I've seen some comment in the the chat around that
35:30
um and for us we found the best way the most powerful way of
35:37
of doing that is through storytelling um and giving people an idea of what it is
35:44
that they are they belong to um so with the um but i think it's fair to say
35:51
as the other speakers have said that you need buy-in from the top and people
35:56
need to lead by example um so one of the first things we did
36:01
was um speak to our leadership team about how we could um better create learning environment
36:09
learning culture and make learning um a popular topic make it not seem just like a tick box exercise
36:16
and someone say well i need to learn how to do this so i need to go on a course um and we did a series of
36:23
communications out to staff we've got a regular slot we saw a regular slot in our staff team meet it in a staff
36:30
meeting um where we talk about learning one of the first things we did was ask
36:36
people when we said learning or training what came to mind um and actually
36:42
we found a lot of people were doing a lot of informal learning without even thinking about it you know it's things like how many how many of you use
36:48
youtube how many of you google something in how many of you look something up online that's a way of
36:54
of learning it's just not sitting in a classroom doing a face-to-face piece
37:00
so we we looked a lot at language as well which again I've seen as a theme coming up in the chat box what language
37:06
do we use when we talk about learning we want to make it fun we want to make it friendly we want to make it
37:12
approachable something else that we've done is we've tied it into well-being
37:18
we've made it we've made a start so with the impact of kobe obviously our central office is shut
37:26
most of our staff are working from home and there's been quite an emphasis on people's well-being making sure they
37:32
take time out they you know are interested in self-care and
37:37
um we're promoting learning as part of that self-care piece you know what are you doing
37:43
to look after you what are you doing for you on a regular basis what little bite size things have a cup of tea and
37:51
sit and watch a ted talk um you know look at have a look at this little piece of
37:56
learning on the platform that we've got um and we've as a team we take it in
38:01
turn we use workplace for most of our communications we highlight a course of the week and
38:07
just suggest the staff that this would be something really useful for them in their day role in their day job and just to take a time
38:13
out but again I've just seen something come up on the chat it's really important that line managers
38:18
and the top also endorse it as it were so something
38:24
that was fed back to us fairly early on was people felt guilty for taking time out to learn our jobs are busy they're
38:32
pressured um sometimes you don't feel that you've got 20 minutes 40 minutes to give to
38:38
something um and we needed people to say it was okay to do that and that's been led by our
38:45
ceo very much and again through staff meetings she's encouraging people to take time out and say it is okay yes
38:54
we are busy but actually i want you to do this this benefits the organization
39:00
um and you as the individual so we want you to feel able to say
39:05
i'm going to take an hour today not my lunch break really importantly not my lunch break but actually i'm
39:11
going to take an hour or 40 minutes of time to learn something new we've also tried
39:16
to encourage with um each team has catch-ups each week so we're trying to as an led team one of
39:24
us goes into each of those meetings to ask what people have learned that's new this week so that people get very used to the idea
39:32
of learning it becomes just part and parcel of their role it's not something else as an add-on and
39:39
it's also i'm very pleased to say now going to be part of our performance um management the pdr system
39:47
that we have so for the first time um from the next rollout in
39:52
November um there's going to be um some questions around learning what people would like to learn how they would like to do it
39:59
and what we would like to do is set up a mental body type system um so quite often you know
40:06
you see someone doing another role and you think i'd quite like to know more about that so if you could shadow them for a day
40:11
now that is going to very much depend on covid's situation um and how that
40:17
develops but that's something we've got certainly planned for the future
40:23
um but i think the most important thing i suppose i'm conscious I've jumped around a
40:28
little bit and that's partly nerves um but i think the biggest thing for me
40:34
has been that giving people instiling a sense of pride about what who we are and what we do and what
40:40
they belong to and how they support it and then it's about the language that we
40:46
use um and the way that we talk about it and it doesn't have to be a formal thing
40:53
we do surgeries we were doing surgeries where um
40:58
people could just drop in and ask questions on a hot topic of that week that's learning because people come and
41:03
ask questions people talking about it we would get a subject matter expert and say if you want to know more about
41:10
the events team running the London marathon come and have a five minute chat and do it that way so it's much less formal and that seems to be
41:17
really taking off for us so
41:23
back to katie thank you and somebody's put in the uh chat that you don't come across at all
41:29
as nervous and i would say to say and that was really really great um can i ask david and all of you to unmute
41:35
yourselves um so we can go into a discussion so you don't have to keep turning it on and off
41:40
brilliant um so one of the things that came out really clearly in your presentation then lucia and
41:46
david melv mentioned it as well is the importance of getting senior level buy-in um somebody's asked have you got any top
41:53
tips for getting senior stakeholders to buy into the move from training to learning especially especially after they've
41:59
understood it and still aren't interested uh david any thoughts on that oh wow yeah where do you start so um
42:07
yeah i think i think so there's a few different layers so
42:12
first of all is having the confidence to go and ask so um it may be that someone in learning development may
42:19
from a hierarchical point of view appear to be a little bit more junior in the hierarchy than someone in the leadership
42:26
team but it's about it's it's about having the confidence to say um what have you learned this week and
42:34
how have you shared that with with your teams that's that that is one element um another element
42:40
is one of the beauties of having these these kind of things is you can easily record you can make
42:47
imovie you can make some amazing imovies uh in one minute imovies with
42:53
with very very little um time to learn how to make them yourself
42:59
but you can you you can you can record um someone from a senior team sharing
43:04
something so that can go out to the wider population as part of a a specific program um so you know
43:13
that is another way um and another way is let's talk performance stats you know
43:19
kind of um let's let's talk the performance language of the organization
43:24
and um you know share get senior lead teams to share their
43:29
learning journey with that performance language so so if we're talking about kpis you know kind
43:34
of what what does that mean for this organization what have you learned about this organization and this particular kpi especially if if
43:41
that senior lead is relatively new so i think it's about using some of the tools we know we've got
43:47
in learning and development and not being afraid to knock on um the the leadership team's doors
43:54
or press record button on a zoom meeting etc and and ask those questions and then
44:00
share them widely thank you david and and mel have you got any advice
44:05
i'm building on that on what are the best ways that hr and lnd professionals can engage line managers
44:10
on the value of helping to create a culture of learning given that they tend to be focused on
44:15
more operational financial goals and i mean especially right now absolutely
44:21
i think this is something that we hear so much not just in the realm of ellen d um but
44:27
with various other sort of parts of people practice and it's of course a challenge which we have to recognize we know managers are under
44:33
really intense pressure as you said katie especially now i think there's something really important about
44:39
language here we've talked a little bit about this i think all three of us in our presentations but
44:45
if we're asking managers to help us create a learning culture how clear are we being on what that actually means for them as a manager and
44:51
what their role is and also what the outcome is for them so if we're thinking about what we actually want
44:57
managers to do what is their role it's about them role modelling what they've learned showing that it's good and okay to learn
45:04
as lucha was mentioning just saying it's okay to do this and take the time
45:09
but the second part of that is also what outcome is it does this mean for the
45:14
manager so if we start framing learning as a time
45:20
taken away from the role yes that might impact on operational things however
45:26
what ultimately we want people to do when they learn is to learn new skills maybe
45:32
i think a lot of people have used the word growth in the chat it's about growth isn't it it's about teams growing their knowledge growing
45:38
their skills and once managers understand that that's a benefit to them
45:43
right so i think we just need to be really clear on why it's important um not just for the
45:49
individual but for the manager too everyone stands to benefit when we create this sort of environment
45:55
thank you and the cheer is that something that you've come across in your career have you ever had to deal with any challenging
46:00
managers and how have you overcome that challenge um absolutely and i think you know
46:06
as uh david and mel have said you know people are under pressure there are time
46:12
pressures there are targets there are odd challenges but i think um
46:18
if you can prove the benefit the the the worth if you're going to be a
46:24
little bit mercenary one of the things that always stuck in my mind was you know you've got 80 days
46:30
uh when somebody starts with you to persuade them that that's a you're a company an organization that you want to to stay with
46:37
and actually you know if you get the learning culture and environment right and people feel that they are being
46:42
developed it helps with staff turnover um because which that ultimately does have an impact you know if there's
46:48
teams are constantly um got a turnover of staff um you know if you if by
46:56
improving that culture and environment and learning is one of those things that benefits people and makes them want to
47:01
stay then actually in the long term there's a game so i think it's it's proving the benefit isn't it and
47:07
the worth as somebody's put a great quote by ken blanchard in the chat that if you think training
47:13
is expensive try ignorance um um richard branson won as well isn't it
47:18
what we don't invest in our people and they leave um david a few people have asked about
47:24
um any organizations that you would recommend as having fantastic learning cultures so any kind of really great players out
47:31
there or similarly is there a way of identifying organizations which are showing best practice
47:36
so any kind of benchmarking people can do yes so um so i
47:42
there's a few different layers to this um so from a cipd perspective we just recently put out another
47:48
um another report on learning development skills at work
47:54
um so that came out um in June of this year so again a lot of the
47:59
research was done pre-lockdown but the lessons are still really really valid
48:04
and within that piece of research there's there's half a dozen or so specific case studies in there i think
48:10
it seems also important to say that a case study is only a moment in time so
48:16
in the past there have been some fantastic organizations doing some amazing stuff um and being um rewarded
48:24
in um the awards season that kind of thing but uh a change of focus change of
48:29
emphasis the change of ceo perhaps a change of l d manager that case that that
48:34
organization then um may not necessarily um be offering the same provision but right
48:41
now there are a number of case studies with the l d skill survey skills at work survey
48:47
that we put out but also um have a look at um what panasonic did as well quite recently so
48:53
they had a background of plummeting um customer customer
48:59
engagement scores plummeting engagement scores and they really needed to drive up their customer
49:05
service experience and get those customer service numbers really high up and they did some amazing
49:10
things not by putting on your normal this is how to deliver great customer service
49:16
um they actually did that stop look and listen and um they worked out what does it take
49:23
to be a great customer service advisor and and some of the things they found in
49:28
their organization really shocked them in terms of what they were expecting their customer service advice
49:34
team to do so yeah it's it's look at some of those case studies but be careful they are a snapshot they
49:40
are just a moment in time thank you and some people are asking is there a link to the report that david
49:45
just mentioned so could i ask one of my lovely colleagues in the background to uh copy and paste that into the chat
49:50
please um we've had some questions and some stuff going on in the chat around
49:56
obviously for many of us we're not going to be back in a workplace or with colleagues regularly for another
50:03
six months or so do you think we need to shift how we create learning cultures or engaging people in learning
50:09
uh when it's going to be done digitally mel any thoughts on that so i think that's a really interesting
50:16
question and i think there's one first thing to note from me i think is
50:21
while the way that we create that change and maybe deliver some of the changes
50:26
that we could go about might change i think the underlying principles really are still
50:31
the same so you still need that leaked scenario buy-in you still need the right systems and processes in place whatever
50:38
that might look like it might be a new knowledge management system or it might be something much smaller
50:43
like managers facilitating more conversations with their team those fundamentals of having the
50:49
processes and the resources having seen you buy in and getting people to take ownership both at the
50:55
individual level and the manager level those are still the fundamentals that we need to work from
51:01
however of course there will be some differences in how we might do that so i think if dave has been talking a
51:07
little bit about it's about listening and understanding what the needs are now and how that means that we should adapt so what tools
51:14
do people need now that they're not necessarily in the office or perhaps somewhere in the office and some aren't
51:20
how do we adapt to that and listen to what people need to really inform what we do
51:25
what we do next thank you uh see somebody's just put the link to
51:31
the report that david mentioned in the chat so that is available now to download um
51:36
youtube had quite a few questions that are quite practical in nature for you about the kind of the tools
51:42
and techniques that you use within samaritans um so the first one would just be what
51:47
learning platform do you use uh we've literally uh used it's changed
51:53
to agilia in the last two three months and is that working out well for you it is actually yes and one of the um
52:02
it's much more straightforward than the old system that we had uh before so we use it for
52:07
volunteers and for stuff and one of the other benefits also is that we're able to have uh apps for our
52:15
external facing courses as well and there is uh one of the unexpected
52:22
benefits actually with the fact that you can have it on your mobile phone or tablet is obviously as we've gone into lockdown
52:28
it has made accessing learning slightly easier for both our volunteer and staff audiences so yeah it's a julia
52:34
that we use currently yeah and then we've had a couple of questions about the way you're linking it to your performance management system
52:40
um so some people just asking for a little bit more detail on that and somebody asking how will you and your management team ensure
52:47
that learning on their pdr forms doesn't become a tick box exercise that's a risk that they've seen happen many
52:53
times it is and and they're quite right and that is something because it it starts from this November
52:59
so it's something that we need to pay a lot of attention to and make sure that we evaluate properly so that it doesn't become
53:04
that again i think that's um making sure that we've got buy-in from seniors um and our senior leadership team to
53:11
make sure that it it doesn't and then it just doesn't become another question on the forum where do you what do you need to learn
53:16
this year oh yeah let's put this down sort of thing um so uh hr
53:22
and my um my head of l d are in deep discussion about that at this moment because it's a very new
53:29
thing but uh yeah it's something we're very anxious to avoid or very keen to avoid if we
53:34
if we can so I've not got I've gone on so watch this space yeah come back come back in six months
53:40
yeah yeah um it's important that l d is not just manager-led what are your
53:47
tips to get staff to also take ownership of their own learning david any thoughts on that um
53:54
trust them trust trust your employees um don't start from a point of view that
54:00
they don't know anything or whatever topic you're talking around what we tend to do is a traditional approach to design we just throw all the
54:07
content we know when we're designing rather than start from a point of view what do you know
54:12
already um and i think that's one of the the biggest things that switch people off um i used
54:19
to i used to freeze when when i heard people say uh the phrase yeah but david in the real
54:25
world it's like this um you know we need to work out what the real world is for people what's their
54:31
starting point um and so stop feeling whatever method we use
54:37
stop overfilling stuff with learning stuff with content and use more facilitative explorative
54:44
stuff what do people know already and you know what's prevented so if anything we're doing is linked to
54:50
a kpi and we've got to get that kpi we've got to reach that kpi target what are the blockers what's stopping us from
54:57
achieving that now because the chances are the bulk of the content we put in learning people know
55:02
that already so let's stop telling them stuff we know and let's find out what they don't know
55:08
yeah mel any thoughts to add well resonate with david censonates with
55:14
me very much um somebody's put on the on the channel
55:20
in the q a uh monika she says i encourage learners to think about their own career capital
55:25
and building up their personal assets um which is a lovely way of looking at it um mel have you got any advice on how to
55:32
evaluate culture i mean i assume learning culture in this um in this context
55:37
and then measure the progress of any move towards uh cultural revolution or evolution
55:44
that's a really great question i think i think going back to some of the conversations we've had about
55:50
language i think my question would always be is evaluating a very broad culture
55:56
what we need to be doing or is it evaluating some of the practices that we have in place so it's quite difficult to measure
56:04
a broad or a specific culture so when we're talking about learning culture because it's built up of so many
56:10
component parts like autonomy what feedback you have in your organisation what's the psychological safety for
56:15
taking risks that's actually a very difficult thing to evaluate as a whole that's not to say it can't be
56:22
done of course there are ways to measure culture um you might already have things like engagement surveys or culture surveys in
56:28
your organization that can help identify some of the barriers but when we're talking about learning let's take
56:35
it down to what practices are in place and how people feel about learning in the organization
56:40
that's a really important first step in tying it to what's actually going on in the learning space so that absolutely
56:47
needs to connect to the cultural piece and we need to understand both but let's not get lost in the
56:53
let's try to evaluate a huge culture where we need to think about some of the practical things
56:58
and if we're thinking about some of the things we could measure that there's a broad range but again
57:03
it needs to be about more than saying we offer ex-learning opportunities and we have
57:08
this system in place it's really about understanding yes what the take-up is that's really important
57:15
but also what other avenues there are for things like reflection informal learning in the organization
57:20
those things are going to be really powerful indicators of what's going on in in the business really
57:26
thank you are we rapidly running out of time I'll try and squeeze another couple of questions in there um given that we're
57:33
going to be learning digitally probably quite a while now um can anyone recommend any
57:38
collaborative learning tools where people explore a topic or an idea together david you're nodding away
57:44
yeah we're on one now yeah so talking about um a company that's
57:52
demonstrated agility Microsoft teams what that looked like on the first week of lockdown in the uk to
57:59
what that looks like fast approaching the the i think 18th 19th week in lockdown uk
58:05
that has developed over you know every week there's been new features so things like that trello slack google
58:13
hangouts there are lots and lots of online collaborative tools that where you can hang out in the same space
58:20
and share some stuff online go away do something and then come back at a later time
58:25
um to to share your insights so yeah there are lots of um platforms some of them you'll have to
58:31
pay a license for some of them will be free brilliant um and i will ask
58:38
one more question i feel the pressure to choose sorry if i don't ask a question um
58:44
somebody's asking is a relatively small team with a global spread any tips for managing learning cultures
58:50
across regions or time zones um or i guess just as a small team without that much
58:55
resource only cheer you mentioned you had two people at the beginning so how did you get everything done
59:02
panic mainly so um we're i suppose samaritans is very
59:09
lucky in that it has a very strong volunteer structure
59:15
so in terms of staff especially when there were two of
59:21
us there wasn't really much going on uh we're now a team of five um which
59:26
enables us to to devote more time in terms of the volunteer base um we've got quite a hierarchical
59:34
structure so every branch has its own training team um and then each region will have a
59:40
regional training officer and there are regional other regional offices as well so it's fairly well for all voluntary roles but these are
59:46
people who enable us to get learning out communications out policies etc and for the service to
59:54
to run and train new volunteers so yeah we are lucky that we have that
1:00:00
structure so i suppose that's a bit of a cheat for us really is it the the if we had to pay our volunteers
1:00:06
it would be astronomical um for the amount that they actually
1:00:11
they actually do for us um so yeah we use the volunteer structure to be
1:00:18
able to manage that thank you i'm going to have to bring it to a close there because uh we are out
1:00:23
of time uh thank you so much mel david and luchier for your contributions um
1:00:29
and for a really really great discussion thank you so much everyone for watching um i really enjoyed when i could keep up with all the
1:00:34
comments going on in the chat and thanks for your really thoughtful questions as well because these sessions are only as good as the interaction
1:00:41
you get from the audience so thank you so much for your energy and your engagement the webinar and the slides are going to
1:00:47
be available on demand from this afternoon and you'll find them on the cipd website and a reminder that we have one
1:00:53
more webinar this week looking at youth employment and that then we'll be taking a break over august and we'll be returning with a new
1:00:59
program in September and a very final reminder about our new well-being support for members in the uk
1:01:04
and Ireland with a three 24 7 telephone helpline staffed by therapists and provided by health assured you can see
1:01:10
details about that on your screen now but that's it from us thank you so much for watching and we
1:01:15
will see you next time goodbye thank you thank you
1:01:26
you
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