How can you encourage continuous learning in your team?

Setting goals helps trigger new behaviors, helps guides your focus and helps you sustain that momentum in life. Goals also help align your focus and promote a sense of self-mastery. In the end, you can't manage what you don't measure and you can't improve upon something that you don't properly manage.

Setting clear goals and expectations creates accountability. Knowing that there is a goal to reach or an accomplishment to fulfill helps staff feel purposeful and feel like part of an organization.

There is absolutely a need to set out what you are trying to do in the business and getting others to understand how they feed into it. Those two way conversations are critical as it gets buy in but also helps to create Ambassadors to actually starting to achieve what you are setting out. This then helps create High performing teams. In all of this we must also remember when creating a learning culture is understanding what our Teams need and want to learn. It is give an take a Freedom with the Framework approach helps drive impact on both fronts and keeps people interested and passionate about the work they are doing.

While setting goals is definitely helpful, understanding the motivation and building on it through channeling someone's ambition added to realistic opportunities drives achieving those same goals. Some individuals are very driven, internally motivated and get what they desire or target to achieve in terms of opportunities through the means of your company or take it elsewhere. The good and the bad comes with it. For less driven teammates clear understanding of WHY they need to learn, WHAT they need to learn, and HOW can be a good starting point. It can be then arranged in smaller SMART goals. It is like internally selling "continues learning culture": start with learning the audience, its needs and motivators -then speak to them.

The most successful way to encourage continuous and higher learning is to provide incentives such as pay raises, ownership rights or privileges of rank based on merit. As an employer or even a volunteer coordinator this is essential and should be part of every human resources department. By identifying each learning need with a program that addresses it using the SMART criteria is a great addition to a company's policies.

Understanding that recognition is about giving positive feedback based on results or performance. Sometimes this happens formally: an award, a bonus, a promotion, or a raise. Sometimes recognition is given more informally: a verbal thank you, a handwritten note. These methods can be meaningful, especially if done promptly and genuinely. They’re also motivating and exciting — everyone wants their excellent work to be applauded. But there are some limits to recognition. First, it’s performance-based, so it’s conditional. Second, it’s based on the past, so it’s about what people have already done.

If staff members are unaware of improvement areas, it's difficult to expect good outcomes. In addition, not recognizing those that are completing, going above, and going beyond also creates an unappreciative environment. Providing feedback and recognition creates awareness and a desire to perform better.

My view is feedback is essential for growth as an individual no matter what level you are at in a business. Formal appraisals each year draw a line in the sand but making sure you get some form of 360 feedback helps to inform a richer conversation. Check in every 3 months or so also helps to frame the impact of any feedback and recognition. But don't wait until then, if someone has done something good, acknowledge it and also share it, commenting on employees post in LI is an easy way to get that started and show visibility.

There is no better learning platform than the job itself. For that to work, people recently promoted or who earned more responsibility need to feel comfortable to make mistakes and to rely on the team leader (and other experienced team members). The best team leaders are strong safety nets to each team members, in a fashion that is invisible to the rest of the organization. This allows team members to increase confidence and self-reliance.

Assign team members to roles and duties that are a good match for their abilities, talents, and experience levels to enhance their chances of success. The more effectively they see their individual duties as necessary to the completion of an initiative, the more likely they are to strive for professional growth and development.

1:1 coaching or group workshops can help clarify so many unanswered questions or guesses. Coaching and shadowing really help employees know what's happening and why it happens. Brainstorming and knowledge sharing also help other staff to create oneness in shared goals.

One of the best ways that I found during my professional career through experimentation is to give extreme ownership to the team. Each individual member of the team should be responsible for basically anything they touch or feel. Once you have established that, the next thing is to introduce an innovative sprint (agile) where they have to come up with tasks that are purely innovative and complete outside the box. By doing this you are making a growth mindest and a very creative attitude.

I use the Freedom with a Framework approach. There is always 'stuff' in a business we are need to do, data capture, form filling, processes etc etc. But once that is done go off and do the more exciting things and help to move us on as a business. That is were innovation, usps and competitive advantage come from.

Learning behaviours can be encouraged by team members generating ‘individual development plans’ that cover their short, medium and long-term career aspirations. This will help embed training in a more focussed, strategic way. Where applicable, it’s also useful for colleagues to be members of a professional body and seek to gain accreditation (e.g. chartership) through them; this, in itself, will promote breadth of experience, learning and networking. Organisations can encourage membership through paid time off, annual subscriptions etc.

L.E.A.D. your team... Listen to learn- take opportunities to find what personal goals your team members have and find ways to align this with your team learning objectives. Empower them to have ownership then support them with encouragement. Appreciate their work and celebrate milestones. Debrief for lessons learned and and find the next opportunity for Development. This method will model and encourage a growth mindset with each member.

An organization that promote a culture of learning and development inspires employees to grow and make significant contributions to their organization. Many employees have an innate need to find more purpose, meaning, and growth opportunities in their jobs and to be valued as such. It is a key factor in employee and talent retention. Strongly advocating mentorship by managers is an important component to an employee's motivation.

A slightly "off-piste" approach but related to all the steps above are crisis simulation exercises (CSE). When dealing with a crisis or disruptive event, teams need to behave, interact, communicate and act differently to business as normal. CSEs put that team under pressure, and whilst learning to deal with the crisis in hand, it often focuses everyone on areas for improvement that might not otherwise have been discovered. Huge benefits to business as normal, as well as business continuity processes. A CSE should be bespoke to that group, department, organisation, and test the team using plausible scenarios, unique to them. The team should use crisis mangement principles, strategies and techniques. Practicing and adapting are key.