15.02.2023
Crossing HR Borders - Stimulating Life Long Learning
'Don't think outside the box, think outside your industry.' For a lot of HR problems today, a different domain has already solved that challenge. It can be very inspiring to cross some borders to gain new insights. And we're not talking about just crossing country borders, but also the borders of your discipline, industry or other unexpected resources. These insights can lead to specific solutions of the challenges that you're facing today.
Explore these examples in this monthly 'Crossing HR Borders' series.
When someone’s pursuit of knowledge is “ongoing, voluntary and self-motivated”, it can be called lifelong learning.
Lifelong learning takes a holistic approach to education and development, actively encouraging people to learn throughout their entire lives while enhancing their human potential as a whole.
Lifelong learning is different from continuing education of job-based skills development: it has a broader scope and more creative outlets, such as online tools and courses.
When you bring a lifelong learning mindset to the workplace, it will have a positive impact on employee retention (job satisfaction, motivation), as well as creativity, productivity, problem-solving skills (fostering innovation and competitiveness), diversity and inclusion.
With this newsletter we give you some inspiration on how HR can stimulate their employees to keep lifelong learning.
No business like show … uh … HR Business
HR can learn a lot from the show business. After all, talent is crucial to the success of a show. You want to recruit the best talent to give the audience a fantastic experience. All these metaphors can be extended to an organisation. An HR department can also be compared with the set and costume designers, because they provide an environment where talent can shine. A production manager, on the other hand, ensures good cooperation between all actors. In Hollywood, there are mostly flexible teams that work on a project basis and whose configuration changes regularly depending on the 'show'.
>>> What can your HR department learn from Hollywood?
Learn from top scientists
Inspiring scientists give free lectures on a wide range of subjects at the University of the Netherlands. The short formats are ideal for keeping your attention. They always start from a stimulating question such as the creation of black holes or animal infatuation.
>>> Take a look at the 'University of the Netherlands' for half an hour and then think of similar formats to convey important information to our employees.
The right information at the right time in a very simple way
Microlearning is becoming increasingly popular!
Mobietrain is an example of software that offers information to your employees in a Netflix-like way.
Instead of scheduling (half) day training sessions, they provide the right information when the employee needs it via the device the employee prefers. This kind of 'mini training' is also very suitable for gamification (see also in our previous newsletter)
>>> What processes in your company would be perfect to communicate through microlearning?
Training employees who are going to leave?
In certain jobs, the opportunities to broaden or to grow are fairly limited. You know that people use it as a steppingstone to a 'future' job with another employer. Nevertheless, an organization such as asap.be strongly believes in training these people. They offer courses on social media, accounting and project management - even though these courses are not directly related to the job description. But they are useful for future or personal development. This creates a bond with the organisation and increases their market value as an interesting employer.
>>> What general training can you offer your employees?
'Crossing HR Borders' is the result of a co-creation between Marc Heleven - Innovation researcher and Cyriel Kortleven - Global speaker on the Change Mindset.
These articles were first published in the Flemish HR Magazine ZigZag.
More info: www.cyrielkortleven.com