If you're a younger worker, you may have heard whispers of what work was like ‘back in the day.’ As the story goes, you showed up one day with a resume and a firm handshake, worked at the same company for 40 years, and, if you were lucky, got a gold watch and a thank you when you retired. Training and development were an afterthought, something to do every few years if the need arose, or, preferably, off the clock.

For better or worse, these days are long gone. Research shows the average worker will now have 17 different jobs and five different careers. More to the point, in a highly competitive professional landscape, expectations around benefits, professional development, career advancement, and workplace learning have shifted vastly. 

These days, workplace training can no longer be seen as an optional extra. Rather, bespoke, ongoing training is essential. Don’t just take our word for it, 68% of employees say training and development is a company’s most important policy. Therefore, workplace training is a vital part of the employee benefits equation to attract and retain employees, give learners more of what they want, and stay two steps ahead in an ultra-competitive field.

With this in mind, we’ll dig deeper, asking why is training a vital part of the employee benefits equation? We’ll start by explaining why a mindset shift is essential to think of workplace training as a must-have, before looking at three reasons training is an essential benefit for modern employees. 

Start thinking of training as a must-have, not an added bonus

Workplace training starts with mindset. As mentioned, training is a vital benefit if you want to attract and retain top talent. Notably, 68% of employees say training and development is a company’s most important policy, while 76% say a company would be more appealing if they offered additional skills training. 

As these statistics show, most employees think regular training is essential. Despite this, many teams still encounter roadblocks that prevent them from embracing workplace training. These teams are stuck in a mindset that sees training as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a must-have.’ 

MindTools’ 2022 L&D Benchmark Report found that 91% of L&D teams are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ concerned about managers being reluctant to make time for learning. Similarly, 83% are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ concerned about leaders having traditional expectations of L&D that are difficult to challenge. 

To put it bluntly, these old-school, outdated mindsets hold organisations back. Overcoming these traditional expectations requires a fundamental mindset shift, viewing training not as an added bonus, but as an essential benefit, as crucial as pay, workplace culture, or sick leave. 

As Indeed puts it, “providing training programs for your employees demonstrates the organisation's willingness to invest in their success and growth. When employees feel that the company invests in their growth and development, it improves morale, productivity, and employee retention. In addition, as you provide ongoing training opportunities, employees learn new skills, develop existing ones, and take on greater responsibilities, providing a win-win situation for the organisation.” 

For practical tips on changing your mindset and overcoming ingrained thinking patterns, see our article on fixed mindset vs growth mindset for L&D. 

How top-performing teams prioritise training

The good news? When organisations change their mindset and see training as a non-negotiable part of the employee benefits equation, the results are rapid and appreciable. 

MindTools’ 2022 L&D Benchmark Report found several clear patterns that distinguish high-impact L&D cultures (defined as the top 10% of teams) from low-performers. 

For starters, 79% of high-impact learning cultures (HILCs) support employee career development through digital learning. In contrast, just 9% of low-performing teams do the same. 

Next, 90% of HILCs integrate learning into their onboarding process, compared to just 26% of low-performers. These teams make training an integral part of their organisational culture from the get-go. Thus, it’s no surprise that when an onboarding process involves digital learning, employee retention rates increase by 60%.

Additionally, a massive 90% of HILCs say their learning strategy encourages collaboration, compared to just 4% of low-performers.

Finally, 45% of HILCs say managers allow enough time for employees to learn. While this figure still has room for improvement, it is night and day compared to just 3% of low-performing teams who do the same. 

As such, there is a meaningful link between businesses that take training seriously as a vital employee benefit and highly successful businesses. The message is clear: embrace employee training as a top-priority benefit — not a ‘nice to have’ bonus — and reap the rewards. 

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Below, we’ll analyse three more reasons training is an essential benefit for modern employees. 

3 reasons training is an essential benefit for modern employees

1. Employees crave learning opportunities 

Put simply, employees crave training opportunities at work and will go out of their way to seek a workplace that offers these opportunities. 

As we recently discussed in our article on how employees like to learn, 78% of employees want to learn new skills whenever they can during the work day. 59% are willing to learn outside work hours to improve their performance. 

What’s more, LinkedIn finds that 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if they invested in their professional development.

Finally, 64% of Millennials chose their current job due to personal and professional development opportunities. 

The message here is simple: employees crave learning and development opportunities at work, viewing these as a vital benefit to aid their professional, personal, and skills development. 

Another reason training is a vital part of the employee benefits equation is that it allows companies to attract and retain top talent. 

For example, 56% of employees say career growth and opportunity are more important than salary, making it one of the most important benefits you can offer. Similarly, a recent survey by Logitech found that 42% of Australians would prefer to work from home than receive a pay rise. 

Moreover, 79% of employees wouldn't accept a better-paying position at a company with questionable ethics (i.e. not acting against sexual harassment, creating environmental problems, and paying female employees less), according to a survey by The Manifest. 

These statistics show that salary is no longer the be-all and end-all of employee benefits. These days, factors such as training, professional development, diversity and inclusion, and work-life balance are equally — if not more — important. 

Accordingly, robust, comprehensive training opportunities are essential to attract and retain talent. Employee retention rates increase by 30-50% for companies with strong learning cultures. Likewise, companies that provide professional development opportunities have 34% higher retention rates.

On the other hand, when companies fail to offer training as an essential benefit, 22% of employees leave their jobs to seek better professional development opportunities elsewhere. In fact, employees are a whopping 12 times more likely to leave a company that doesn’t offer learning, development, and career growth opportunities. 

That’s right, employees are 12 times more likely to seek greener pastures when you don’t offer learning and development opportunities! Remember that the next time you’re weighing up whether a new professional development course is really worth it (hint: it usually is). 

While offering training is an excellent idea to keep employees happy, increase engagement, and attract top talent, it is also a savvy business move to increase your company’s bottom line. Companies that invest in employee learning and development have 24% higher profit margins than companies that spend less on training, according to ATD. 

This statistic alone should be enough to convince any executive that training is a vital part of the employee benefits equation, showing a clear correlation between spending more on training and increased ROI. In other words, the more you put into employee training, the more you get out —  it’s a win-win! 

If that wasn’t enough to convince you, additional research finds that 42% of companies enjoy increased profitability after investing in digital learning. IBM puts this into perspective, finding that every dollar invested into online training results in $30 worth of productivity.

With this in mind, it makes sense that 72% of organisations think their business gains a competitive advantage by investing in L&D. 

So, if you don’t want to risk falling behind, losing top talent, or having disengaged employees, it’s time for a mindset shift. Training isn’t an optional extra or a once in a blue moon activity, it’s an indispensable part of the employee benefits equation. 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

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Workplace training is no longer an optional extra. Rather, bespoke, ongoing training is essential. With this in mind, we’ll ask why is training a vital part of the employee benefits equation?

Why training is a vital part of the employee benefits equation

Workplace training is no longer an optional extra. Rather, bespoke, ongoing training is essential. With this in mind, we’ll ask why is training a vital part of the employee benefits equation? 

For many of us, it’s been a long time since we were students in a school classroom. While we may have known how to pass exams and complete assignments back then, could most of us complete a senior high school physics or geography exam now? Probably not. Why? Because, unless these skills were directly related to our careers, we haven’t practised them since. 

That’s not to say we should all go back and study everything we learned in high school just to keep those skills current (even if we don’t need them). However, the concept can be applied to workplace skills as well. For example, you may have completed a course on ‘search engine optimisation’ or ‘how to best handle workplace conflict’ a couple of years ago. But that doesn’t mean you still have the most up to date knowledge today.  

You may be wondering, why does that matter? Does it make that much of a difference to keep up to date with skills we may already be familiar with? Absolutely. Let’s look at some of the benefits of keeping your workplace skills up to date, as well as how workplaces can best facilitate this. 

We’ve all had times at work where we think, “if I just had more time, I’d be able to...”. While we  can’t magically add more hours to the day, keeping your workplace skills up to date is an effective way to make it seem like you suddenly have more time than you did before. 

When you know something like the back of your hand, it’s easier to focus on getting it done without distraction, meaning you can speed up the process overall. This knowledge leaves more time in the day for other tasks that may have fallen by the wayside during a particularly busy week. You could even use this time to take advantage of learning and development tools at your workplace and learn something new. 

More broadly speaking, making the best use of your time is a highly valuable skill. When you can learn to make the best use of your time at work, it becomes easier to prioritise - even during busy times for the business - without becoming too overwhelmed. 

Gaining confidence in the workplace is something just about all of us desire, and it’s certainly easier said than done. However, maintaining up to date knowledge could be the ticket to feeling more confident in the workplace. When you know you have the most up to date knowledge, it is easier to be assured that you can complete a wider range of tasks without having to reach out for additional assistance. 

Along the same lines, having increased confidence in your ability to complete more tasks demonstrates a level of flexibility, thereby making you even more of an asset to the company. 

It may seem daunting to take this approach at first, but one sure-fire way to grow your confidence is to update the skills you feel are your weakest. If you find yourself getting nervous when someone asks you to do a particular task or avoid doing a specific thing at all costs, it may be time to face the beast head-on and participate in workplace learning that focuses on that very skill. 

We’re all familiar with the excited and inquisitive whispers that fill an office when there’s word a promotion could be on offer. Of course, most people will hope they’re chosen, but taking the practical step of consistently upgrading and maintaining your workplace skills may be what makes you stand out among the other candidates. 

Some questions managers may ask themselves that can help you become a favourable candidate include: does the candidate possess up-to-date industry knowledge? Or, has the candidate got any additional helpful skills that other candidates do not? 

If you can anticipate these questions ahead of time, you’re putting yourself in an extremely favourable position and doing something that others in your workplace may not have even considered. 

Aside from the actual skills that you gain and improve on, keeping your workplace skills up to date shows managers that you regularly strive to improve outside of what is expected of you. This drive and desire to learn is very impressive when considering someone for a promotion. 

Unsure if you want a promotion that’s on offer, or uncertain if you even want to stay in the same field you’re currently in? Keeping your workplace skills up to date can still be very beneficial. You just need to ask yourself different questions. 

First, think about your dream role. What does a day in the life of that dream role look like? What skills do people you know that are already in that role possess? It’s also worth searching through job ads online for your dream role. Not necessarily to apply at that moment, but to see what skills they’re seeking. That way, you know which specific skills you need to gain or improve on. 

Keen to learn more about how you can keep your workplace skills up to date? Want to know which skills are the ones to watch? 

Be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter and stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs. 

Does it make that much of a difference to keep up to date with skills we may already be familiar with? Absolutely. Let’s look at some of the benefits of keeping your workplace skills up to date, as well as how workplaces can best facilitate this. 

The importance of keeping your workplace skills up to date

Generalizations abound in any discussions about the work styles of each generation. Older workers are seen as more experienced, though they sometimes struggle at each technological turn.  In contrast, younger workers thrive in the technical world, albeit while lacking experience and longevity. 

Today’s workforce is made up primarily of four generations: 

Insights indicate that older generations tend to be keener on jobs in government, military, or public schooling and stay with employers for an average of 5-8 years. On the other hand, younger workers are highly interested in owning their own business and will stay with a single employer for an average of 2-3 years (Note: Gen Z are new to the workforce, so their longevity data is limited).  

There is no limit to headlines about each generation's shortcomings, usually authored by a frustrated or misunderstood voice. These assumptions only further limit understanding and cement bias across the workforce.  

Sweeping statements aside, seeking a deeper understanding of what influences and empowers each generation will allow greater collaboration and engagement. When diversity of thought is embraced, organizations can access new insights and decision-making capabilities.  

Though classically reserved as a ‘boomer’ struggle, it is becoming clear that digital disruption no longer holds any bias. 

Even millennials,  who drove innovation and grew up alongside the digital era, are already being ‘aged’ out of it, increasingly struggling to stay up to date. Technological advancements and changes are happening rapidly, thereby heightening the need to learn emerging skills  for the first time. All four generations find themselves in the same boat; stay up to date or be left behind.  

We can rest easy in the knowledge, however, that regardless of age, 78% of employees want to learn at work. 

In the context of a digitally demanding and adaptive working world, employees require space to learn and relearn current in-demand skills.  

It is crucial that employers appreciate the varying approaches, learning styles, and differences their employees bring to the table. Understanding each generation’s learning challenges and opportunities is one step toward this.  

Age and generational experiences will impact an individual’s way of working, as will their ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, religion, class, educational background, and more. 

Thus, for each person to feel they hold space and value in every working environment -not only learning ones - it is critical to foster psychological safety.  

Professor Megan Gerhardt, author of Gentelligence, spoke with Harvard Business Review about developing a psychologically safe workplace where every person of each generation feels comfortable asking for help, sharing their ideas, and taking risks. She said: 

“People come to these conversations with different experiences and varying levels of willingness to engage. The role of the manager is to provide ongoing opportunities to have these discussions.” 

Younger generations may be driving workplace discussions around diversity, mental health, and gender roles, though you might find Boomers and Gen X are a force behind aligning strategic change with organizational goals. Just imagine the impact of combining the strengths of each generation! 

Rather than separating and managing each group individually, try to find shared areas of interest, overlaps in working styles, and foster cross-generational collaboration and growth. Encourage opportunities for younger and older generations to meaningfully connect and share learning, such as mentoring programs.  

The opportunities that each generation’s expertise and working styles bring to a collaborative workplace are undeniable. When we step away from cliched notions of a generationally siloed workforce, we enable pathways toward more diverse learning and organizational success.  

For more insights on overcoming the generational divide, check out our articles on Bridging the generational divide to create sustainable L&D roles and Bridging the skills gap for Gen Z learners.  

Or, you can sign up for a free trial today to access world-class Go1 courses, such as The Generation Gap at Work.

With a focus on digital disruption and learning opportunities, we dive into how each generation brings their diversity to the workplace. While it may be easy to stick to assumptions, here offers an opportunity to combine the strengths of each group.

Generational divide: assumption and how it can limit your learners

With a focus on digital disruption and learning opportunities, we dive into how each generation brings their diversity to the workplace. While it may be easy to stick to assumptions, here offers an opportunity to combine the strengths of each group. 

Every organisation wants to have the best of the best working for them. But how do you find those people? And how do you get them to want to work for your organisation over others? 

You could start the recruitment process, place ads on job websites, and interview candidates — a process that can sometimes take months and cost thousands. 

While it may sound like something you’d hear in a meditation class, to find the talent you seek, it’s much easier to look within. By that we mean: invest in the staff you already have and focus on expanding their skills.

But what exactly makes building talent within your organisation worth the investment versus just hiring someone who already has the skills you need? 

And if you do go down the path of building talent from within your organisation, what steps can you take to ensure that you’re able to maximise your results? 

At first glance, it might seem easier to bring in a superstar that already knows everything there is to know about your particular industry. Nevertheless, this solution neglects the ever-changing nature of the modern workforce and the importance of adaptability.

Someone might be considered a current industry expert, yet, they could quickly become a less sustainable option for your team if they struggle to learn new skills, whether due to ability or motivation. 

In other words, it’s not just about having the skills, it’s about having the ability to adapt and acquire new skills.

When workplace leaders focus on helping their employees grow and acquire new skills, it creates a culture of learning within the workplace. Having an established learning culture opens the door for emerging talent that you may not have known was there.

Creating these opportunities and encouraging employees to pursue them has personal benefits for employees, including an increase in overall confidence at work. As such, employees are often happier too. 

Employee happiness has positive knock-on effects for the business overall too. As Global Industry Analyst Josh Bersin explains: 

“Employees who are the beneficiaries of deep investments of time and resources to stay relevant feel more committed to the organization, retention and engagement goes up, and the company now sees a clear pipeline of digital skills emerging in its own talent.” 

Bersin continues, explaining that while an internal candidate who is freshly minted may appear less capable than an outside candidate with more experience, in reality, “the internal candidate brings with him or her well-honed networks, a good understanding of how the company works, and years of valuable business knowledge.

If you, as a workplace leader, notice an employee has gained a new skill or improved on one they already had, speak up about it. Let them know you’ve noticed the improvement and look forward to seeing what those new skills lead to. 

Another huge factor in encouraging workplace learning is leading by example. It's not just employees who should be learning new skills — workplace leaders should also be upskilling. It's one thing to tell your employees how beneficial learning at work is, but when they can see it in action from someone higher up in the organisation, it’s much easier for employees to get excited. 

Encouraging employees to learn new skills, even if they aren’t directly related to their job, is another way to help encourage a love of learning and build your organisation’s talent from the inside. For example, you may have hired a person to work in administration. However, if a learning module centred around human resources or marketing piques their interest, you may have unknowingly hired your next superstar. At the same time, that employee has been allowed to explore a new passion in the workplace without fear of it negatively impacting their current role. 

Encouraging everyone to build their skills and participate in more workplace learning is fantastic. However, organisations are seriously limiting their talent-building potential if learning materials are not easily accessible to everyone.   

The first thing that likely comes to mind when you think about accessibility at work is making accommodations for those who are affected by disabilities. Some ways to do this include introducing closed captioning for employees who are deaf or hard of hearing, or the ability to increase the text size on a screen for employees with a visual impairment.   

Not sure if anyone in your workplace might require specific accessibility features for learning? It doesn’t hurt to ask.  Not only will that mean more of your organisation can participate and feel included in talent-building, but employees will also know that you genuinely care about them and their experience in the workplace. 

There are also other ways that workplaces can make their learning more accessible. For those that don’t have a lot of time on their hands, introduce them to micro-learning style courses. That way, the time taken from their workday for learning doesn’t feel overwhelming. For those that prefer to learn on the go, show them how they can access the learning materials on multiple devices. 

Making workplace learning more accessible encourages all members of the workplace to grow their talent. When more people can easily use workplace learning tools, organisations are much more likely to uncover hidden gems of talent they may not have known existed. 

Offer on-the-job development opportunities

Offering on-the-job development opportunities is a slightly different approach to what we'd typically describe as formal learning at work. However, by encouraging different methods of learning, we’re more likely to reach a broader audience and increase the number of engaged learners. Some ways to do this include offering involvement in on-the-job projects and task forces, or encouraging participation as presenters for training programs.

On-the-job development doesn’t mean you have to forget about the online courses we know and love. It just means you can now approach them with a more collaborative mindset. Think about how what you learned might impact the task force you’ve been part of. Then, discuss what sort of courses you might want to participate in that could help any future team projects. 

As appealing as it may seem to hire someone that already has the skills your organisation is looking for, by taking the opportunity to build talent from within the organisation, workplace leaders are eliminating the need to train a brand new employee on internal workplace policies.

Not only that, but it also provides peace of mind to current employees who can see there’s room for growth within the organisation. Of course, this also does wonders for retention. In other words, much like fruit and vegetables, there’s nothing quite like homegrown talent. 

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs. 

While it may sound like something you’d be told in a meditation class, in order to find the talent you seek, it’s much easier to look within.

How organisations can build talent rather than buy it

While it may sound like something you’d hear in a meditation class, to find the talent you seek, it’s much easier to look within. 

Written by guest blogger Shannon Tipton. Chief Learning Officer of Learning Rebels LLC and co-founder of Emerging Stronger, Shannon's mission is to modernize, upgrade and reimagine workplace learning problems. She believes that by making complex training more interesting, engaging and impactful, training is transformed from being just another organizational event to becoming part of real business solutions.

Over the past year, the Emerging Stronger team has developed a series of tools to make it simple for L&D professionals to embrace evidence-informed tactics to improve business impact. In the second of this series of “Making it Simple to Do the Right Thing”, Shannon Tipton introduces you to the Curation Decision framework.

Curation: Moving beyond aggregation to quality information gathering and sharing

Learning and development professionals have more content available to us than ever before  - but can we put our fingers on the information we need, when and where we need it? And, then when and where our businesses need to have it? 

Today’s businesses are rapidly requiring that their learning and development teams have relevant, well-organized, and well-displayed digital collections of resources. Resources such as articles, links, videos, graphics, and research so that they can allocate these precious resources to the people who need them the most when they most need to have them.

E. O. Wilson is quoted to have said, “We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”

Continuing information overload can be cured with thoughtful and deliberate curation. Today’s workplace needs curators who collect, disseminate, and invite others to view "collections" of digital assets.

This post, when worked in conjunction with the Emerging Stronger “Power Hour Tool”, will make it easier for you to help managers share and empower their teams to take ownership of their professional development. 

Here we will guide you through using the Curation Decision Framework by supplying you with helpful suggestions as to how best to use the tool.  

Here the Emerging Stronger team shares the impact of this tool:

Curation Decision tool

Thoughtful curation, the answer to information silos 

An information silo is information held by one group that is not easily or fully accessible by other groups in the same organization. Does this sound familiar? Whether it is your LMS hoarding your vast content library or a team holding onto some breakthrough thinking - information silos suck!

 What is the cost of continuing information silos? 

The current view of information becomes limited: Information silos prevent relevant information from being shared. Organizational analysis is limited because secrets are hidden away. There’s no hope of discovering operational inefficiencies or redundancies.

It’s a waste of resources: When the same information is stored in different places, by different departments and people, there’s a business cost of productivity and separate hard costs of IT data storage.

Discourages collaborative work: Information silos reinforce silo-driven cultures. Information-driven organizations embrace collaboration to find and leverage new insights. When information is difficult or impossible to share, the ability to collaborate across departments and businesses suffer.

Then there are the hard costs, according to Forbes: “Fortune 500 companies lose at least $31.5 billion a year by failing to share knowledge, according to International Data Corp. (IDC)” (Babcock, 2004, p. 46)

For businesses to thrive in this ever-changing business climate, a culture of curation and knowledge sharing is non-optional.

L&D’s unique position of being the eyes and ears of an organization allows us to get in front of thoughtful curation practices that can propel knowledge sharing forward. To help you with your curation efforts, Emerging Stronger has a framework that can make your curation decisions easier.  

Ideally, this tool would be used before you start resourcing content to share. Your curation decision will consist of three steps:

Part 1 - Accessing “the Right” Content

The need: What business problem are you trying to solve?

The audience: Who is the person using the content?

The application: What should people be able to do with the content?

The access: How will you share what you find?

The potential impact: How will you know the content will be useful?       

Reduce confusion and frustration around curation efforts

This tool provides guidance notes for each part of your curation journey.

What makes this template useful is that it provides a worked example to show you what a completed template might look like. 

All to help make it simple to do the right thing, to help you connect people to resources. 

Realizing that not everyone is facing the same situations, even within the same organization, how can you use this tool to gain impact?

All of this is to help you be the content tour guide in your organization. Connecting people with resources helps them be smarter, better, and faster than they were the day before. 

When considering content curation where would you rather find yourself: Ideating, writing, and recreating the wheel? Or, Gathering, disseminating, and clicking “share” on something valuable you recently read?

The road to a winning curation strategy takes a bit of thought and consideration, but overall curating content saves you time and team effort. Curated content helps you remain visible and keeps you adding value to the business and creating impact without additional content creation expenses. 

Some L&D tools work just fine on their own, however, others work at their best when combined with other complementary tools. Fertilizer alone works just fine to nourish plants, but when coupled with good soil and mulch the results are ten-fold. 

Using this Curation Decision Framework tool alone will help you see the results discussed. Coupled with the Power Hour Tool (See below), it becomes even simpler to do the right thing and see results that increase business impact. 

 Ready to scale your curation efforts? Download your Curation Decision Tool now!

Needs Analysis Tool: It's always good to clarify what’s actually needed to improve performance before jumping into curation & this tool helps. 

Curation Decision Tool: Once your needs assessment points you in a specific direction, how can you better curate and disseminate resources and tools?

Communication Launch Tool: Your learning intervention is on its way, how will you communicate and implement its purpose? Just because you build it, doesn’t guarantee success.

Power Hour Tool: Sometimes the biggest barrier to training success is “INSIDE.THE.HOUSE”. The Power Hour tool can help you bring managers into the discussion sooner and enable them to be part of the learning process.

Workplace Communities Tool: Perhaps your analysis tells you it’s not more learning required but a connection to the community. This tool helps identify workplace communities with fertile ground and how to take action to help learning thrive.

Improving Impact Tool: Your needs analysis sets you up for success, the improving impact took keeps you on track to deliver.

You may also be interested in the other blogs in this series:
Making it simple to conduct a needs analysis conversation, where Shannon Tipton covers delivering valuable content with the Needs Analysis Tool.
Making it simple to engage with managers, Laura Overton talks through improving engagement with managers with The Power Hour Tool.
Making it simple to market learning and increase engagement, with Laura Overton exploring how to best spread the word on your learning solution with the Communication Plan Launch Tool.
Making it simple to improve impact, Laura Overton walks through a powerful and adaptive resource, the Improving Impact Tool.

Ready to embrace evidence-informed tactics to improve business impact? Introducing the Curation Decision Tool.

Making it simple to curate with impact

Welcome to the launch of the EC Premium Content Insider! Each month we will release the latest and greatest content and providers that have gone live on our platform. We will share insights into schools that we work with and staff member successes. You’ll get to know us, our team, and our passion and pride for creating quality teacher professional learning.

This month our focus is on wellbeing. Student, staff, social and cyber wellbeing, with quality content partners teaching educators how to be mindful and safe in the workplace and online.

Our wellbeing is vital to our ability to thrive in the workplace. And, just as importantly, for our students to learn. In this issue, we are spotlighting partners who we believe are shining the light on how to be safe and well at school and in an online workplace or learning environment.

Which awesome new content partners have we added to the platform this month?

The Wellbeing Distillery have developed a beginner's course on Positive Psychology and how to apply this to a whole-school context. Backed by a multitude of science and theoretical research, the course also packs in easy tips and tricks to create a warm, welcoming and wholesome environment for students and staff.

The Cybersafety Project focusses on social media presence and gaming in their interactive course. Being safe in an increasingly virtual world is at the forefront of modern education and this is a critical and insightful course for all K-12 teachers with students learning on digital devices.

Culture Shock aims to make a whole-school change towards better wellbeing and a positive culture through Kylie Dermody's course. With practical and applicable tools, you can assess what your own school culture feels like and make a change today.

Which great content partners should you check out this month?

Michaela Epstein at Maths Teacher Circles has developed a course to be implemented by K-12 teachers, directly into the classroom. The interactive videos and activities invite teachers to try new strategies and includes professional learning methods that will get teachers excited again about teaching maths. 

Based on the ground-breaking work of global education leader Joanne McEachen and her team of international education experts at The Learner First, embark on an inspiring journey in The Contributive Learning interactive course. Bringing together decades of experience at all levels of education, their research-proven tools and processes have been used in thousands of schools around the world.

EC's own Edupreneur course gives teachers the 'how'. Teachers already know what needs to be done to improve education, but they may lack the support and processes to bring it to life—and that's where this course comes in. Take a walk through our 5 stages of innovation and learn how to unleash change from the classroom up. Straightforward, highly practical and kick-in-the-pants inspirational, this course is the new companion for teachers to make education work.

Located in the Western suburbs of Sydney, Doonside Technology is a 7-12 school that has been connected with EC for four years now. The team at EC have collaborated with the Head Teachers to improve the quality of teaching and enhance outcomes for all students through the development of targeted Faculty Management Plans. With the plans now in action, the EC team continues to guide the faculty leaders through regular check-ins and coaching to keep 'the wheels in motion' and by building leadership capabilities.

Kerrin has a decade of school teacher and leadership experience, with a particular depth in the Catholic and independent education systems. He holds a master’s of education leadership has been a program consultant on learning projects for clients including the Academy (VIC), Professional Learning Institute (TAS) and with schools across NSW.

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The EC premium content insider – August 2022 edition

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Consider two divergent L&D strategies. Option one: learners are assigned generic training. They have no say in when or where they complete the training and weren’t consulted on the subject matter or the training's broader objectives.

Option two: learners are a central part of the training process, consulted throughout. Their goals and needs are considered, and they are given bespoke training to help meet these goals. Which approach is more likely to lead to engaged, happy learners?

Obviously, option two is the winner. As such, a learner-centric approach to L&D is vital. Yet, many L&D teams still trip at this hurdle. It makes intuitive sense that learners will be happier and more engaged when their needs are centred, and they are consulted throughout the training process.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. A learner-centred approach is essential for high-performing L&D teams, with wide-ranging benefits from improved retention to increased profitability.

With this in mind, we’ll answer the question on everyone’s lips: why is a learner-centred approach important? We’ll start by defining learner-centred approaches, before analysing how to adopt a learner-centred approach, and concluding with four benefits of learner-centred approaches.

Ready to put your learners first? Start here.

A learner-centred approach is a style of teaching that puts a student’s needs, goals, and objectives front and centre. As the name suggests, taking a learner-centred approach means centring your learners as the key pieces in your instructional puzzle. 

A learner-centred approach (also known as student-centred learning) focuses on making the student the focal point of the learning process. It involves making the student responsible for their learning and development which is facilitated by a trainer, tutor, or teacher.

LearnUpon expands on this, explaining that a learner-centred approach “views learners as active agents. They bring their own knowledge, past experiences, education, and ideas – and this impacts how they take on board new information and learn.”

They elaborate, contrasting this approach with traditional behaviourist views of learning: “it differs significantly from a traditional instructor-centred approach. Traditional learning approaches were informed by behaviourism, which sees learners as ‘blank slates’ and instructors as experts who must impart all the relevant information. This approach sees learners as respondents to external stimuli.” 

For a more detailed explanation of behaviourism in L&D, see our recent blog series on Cognitive learning theory and the strategies that L&D teams should use to apply cognitive learning theory. 

Thus, rather than designing generic, one-size-fits-all training and pushing it out to your learners, a learner-centred approach means taking a more active, considered, and bespoke view of learning. Learners are not blank slates waiting patiently to be filled with knowledge, but rather active participants with ideas and preferences about their learning journey.

Finally, eLearning Industry adds that “a learner-centric design approach focuses on customising the learning experience to the learner rather than customising the learner to the Instructional Design. Furthermore, it seeks to understand all about the learners first before designing an experience for them.” 

Utilising a learner-centred approach and placing students at the centre of the learning process means the student is the focus. Having a tutor act as a facilitator means students guide their learning so they can put their interests first.

The advantages of a learner-centred approach become apparent when used in an adult learning environment, such as the workplace. This is because adults are more independent than younger students and are also more accountable. It also encourages students to become more confident problem-solvers and promotes a learning mentality.

How to adopt a learner-centred approach 

Now that we understand what a learner-centred approach is, the question becomes, how can my L&D team adopt a learner-centred approach?

The best starting point to adopt a learner-centred approach is conducting a learner needs analysis. To centre your learners and put their needs first, you need to understand what they want, including:

What do they already know? What is their learning background and history? 

What are the current gaps in their knowledge? 

What are their short-term learning goals?

A learner-centric approach to L&D is vital. Yet, many L&D teams still trip at this hurdle. So, we’ll answer the question on everyone’s lips: why is a learner-centred approach important?

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