The American author and scientist Peter Senge, together with his colleagues, devised the concept of the learning organization. In his book ‘The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization’ he states that organizations are only successful if they can respond flexibly to a continuously changing environment.
A learning organization enables its employees to adapt by encouraging training, development and initiative. A learning organization is therefore an organization in which staff are given the space to adjust their skills and service delivery to a changing environment.
Organizations with a strong learning culture are successful. Well-known examples are large companies such as Amazon or Salesforce. Amazon hasa strong learningculturethat priority
refers to the development of employees with a wide range of learning resources, such as on-the-job training and online learning platforms. The company also promotes a culture of improvement through ‘kaizen’ (continuous improvement) and the ‘Fail Fast, Learn Fast’ approach, which encourages learning from failures and quickly iterating ideas.
As an employer, it is therefore wise to fully embrace the idea of a learning organization and to see it as an important element within the business model. Both current employees and prospective employees are looking for opportunities to challenge themselves positively. Organizations can contribute to this by giving them a chance to grow and develop. These are four benefits of creating a learning culture:
Share new ideas about business processes with employees. By applying this, an organization can continuously receive feedback that can improve business operations. Processes that may have been effective five or fifteen years ago may not work as well now. This is partly due to the digitization of the work culture, which has changed the way things are done.
By stimulating new ideas, organizations can thecreativity of employeesuse. Employers who respond to innovation and promote a culture of experimenting can adapt to rapidly changing market developments.
Finding and retaining new employees is an important task for every organization. The HR department must identify talent and during theonboarding processon carry it into the business processes in the right way, so that the talent can develop in the right way.
Employees who want to learn and (advance) in their career will actively look for other opportunities if their current employer does not provide a platform to develop their skills. Learning organizations give their employees the chance to grow and further develop their skills. This increasesthe employeeengagementand theworkhappiness.
In medium-sized and large organizations, departments and teams are separated from each other. This contributes to some teams or employees not being aware of the business objectives.
By clearly communicating the company's mission and goals to all employees, this can contribute to better collaboration. Only with good collaboration can teams support each other and solve challenges when they arise.
As a company you reap the benefits when employees are encouraged to participate in candid conversations and creative solutions within the organization.
Learning organizations encourage employees to be more involved and thereby build more sense of community in the company. They enable team members in ableto proud to beof their work and place within the organization. This ensures that employees stay with the company longer.
