Tips on identifying a learning and development strategy which aligns with the needs of your organisation, as well as those of individual staff members.

In part 1, I explored some of the factors that influence our choices about professional and personal development at an individual level. In this post, I would like to focus on organisational development, and how organisations can create a compelling learning offering for staff which aligns with their business strategy.

At Firefly, we believe that development activity needs to be aligned with a bigger purpose - at individual, team and organisational levels. We don’t do stuff just because it’s cool and exciting (although the stuff we do is pretty cool and exciting). 

Over the years, we’ve come across a wide range of organisational approaches to leadership development, ranging from organisations which prescribe a standard training offering for all levels of staff (regardless of an individual’s needs or desires), to organisations which encourage their staff to do pretty much anything involving learning and development, as long as it fits within budgetary parameters.

Neither one of these approaches is necessarily better or worse than the other, because professional development exists on a spectrum. However, in order to decide which development approach is best for your organisation, you first need to look closely at your overall business strategy, organisational purpose and culture, and the needs of your staff. 

In the 1990’s, Virgin Money created a learning passport which gave their employees the chance to win round-the-world tickets with Virgin Atlantic, as a reward for completing their professional development plan. The unintended downside of this initiative was that several of the staff members who won the tickets went on to leave the organisation. In some cases, this may have been the best outcome for the individual; choosing to leave the organisation and ultimately move into a different role which was more suited to their strengths and areas of interest. But it does highlight an important question: how does an organisation decide on a learning strategy which meets the needs of the organisation as well as individual staff members?

1. Understand your organisation

Firstly, you need to be clear where you are heading as an organisation and to know and understand the learning and development that is required across the organisation as a result. Our work on the implications of global meta trends for leadership development has shown that it’s no longer enough for organisations to focus on developing leadership skills. What is required are new mindsets such as continual improvement, co creation and innovation beyond boundaries. This results in a reduced need for conventional training, and greater need for an integrated learning offering across the organisation, blending formal learning approaches and development programmes with more informal learning and development such as peer networks and mentoring. 

At Firefly, we have extensive experience in these areas: supporting organisations to think through the challenges they currently face and how they might be approached, as well as helping you to translate the thinking into action. We will only deliver the services you can’t provide in-house, because we believe in creating partnerships - not co-dependency. 

2. Understand your people

Secondly, you need to know what’s important to the people in your organisation. You need to understand what motivates and inspires them, then work out how to bring this to life in your learning and development offerings. If your culture is young, dynamic and engaged, then offering incentives to learning and development - particularly to collaborative learning - might support increased synergy across the organisation. On the other hand, if your culture is more academic and theoretical, with a high value placed on knowledge and experience, then it may be more appropriate to think more about how to show the underpinning theoretical frameworks to your development approaches. 

Ultimately, the success of your learning offerings will be determined by the way that the people in your organisation engage them; if they view development programmes as a “must do”, then the transfer of learning into the organisation is likely to be low. However, if they view them as a “want to do”, then they’re more likely to create a greater impact. Similarly, it helps if you are able to offer learners the opportunity and autonomy to navigate their own development journey.  

3. Make development visible

Thirdly, development needs to be transparent and visible within any organisation. Whether this means completing required compliance-based training, or committing to ongoing professional and personal development and sharing both the development and the resulting impact on the organisation, leaders need to be visible in their commitment to ongoing learning. This might take the form of a blog or similar electronic communication; the inclusion of learning and development programmes in company updates; or simply creating a more visible profile for learning within the organisation. In order to create and maintain a learning culture, it needs to be visible across the organisation and people need to know that it is not only acceptable, but encouraged for them to conduct development-related activity during work hours - whether reading a relevant book or article, having a discussion with colleagues to stretch each other’s thinking, or connecting with other organisations.

What’s creating a dynamic learning culture in your organisation and what choices could you make to take it to the next level? If you’d like to find out more about how we can support you with professional development, then why not start the conversation.

If you’d like to find out more about choosing a path of professional development that’s right for you, then check out our blog on key considerations for individuals, or take a look at our services.