The Dog Days of Training: How to Encourage Learning Year-round

As kids return to the classroom after summer break, they benefit from a refresher on what teachers covered during the spring. Leading up to the start of the school year, teachers are preparing to help students relearn the material often forgotten during the "summer slide."

Identified by researchers in 1996, the phenomenon refers to a regression in students' academic proficiency over summer break. That's why parents are encouraged to help their children maintain skills like math and reading while they're home for the summer.

Similarly, talent development professionals should help their employees during both the fast and slow parts of the year. Otherwise, employees may become stagnant, resulting in seasonal slumps.  

Doing so requires having a well-defined strategy to determine what employee development looks like each season. This strategy should account for how employees will learn in the flow of work and what challenges you might encounter in making continuous learning a company priority.

These programs allow companies to signal their organization's culture – not just in terms of the value it places on education and growth for its employees, but in creating an environment where its employees feel safe and welcome at work.

Ensuring your workforce constantly improves and builds upon their skills has tangible benefits at both the individual and collective level.

Year-round upskilling yields benefits like these:

1. Helps employees adapt to (often rapidly) changing technologies and market conditions
2. Increases efficiency and productivity
3. Increases employee retention by proving commitment and loyalty
4. Provides a competitive advantage due to a more skilled workforce
5. Fosters creativity and innovation
6. Provides opportunities for career advancement
7. Creates higher-quality output from employees
8. Addresses and closes existing skill gaps
9. Anticipates the future needs of the business and accompanying skills
10. Increases employee engagement and job satisfaction

Just as it can be beneficial to institute these practices, it can be harmful to withhold them. Without taking the deliberate steps to establish continuous learning and development, organizations often suffer a number of issues. Not least, their company culture can falter and employee turnover often increases.

But what's the right approach to encouraging employees to learn all year?

The first step toward promoting learning year-round is understanding that consistent, meaningful training is important to an organization's success. What's next? 

1. Assess and Plan

Identify skill gaps through assessments. Set clear goals aligned with company strategy and individual aspirations and create personalized learning plans tailored to each employee's needs and role. Review and adjust these plans regularly.

2. Provide Diverse Learning Opportunities

Offer a mix of online courses, hands-on opportunities and workshops, mentoring, and on-the-job training.

Plus, it helps to equip employees to learn in the flow of work. As employees encounter projects or situations at work, sometimes the best training isn't a formal course. Rather, it's better to view a short video and comb through forums or community pages to find answers.

3. Foster a Learning Culture

Allocate time for skill development, dedicating working hours to learning and development. Encourage social learning, mentorship, and a forum for the easy exchange of ideas.

This culture should trickle down from management, who should visibly and enthusiastically participate in and promote continuous learning. As part of this culture, support growth, celebrate achievements, and view mistakes simply as learning opportunities.

4. Consider Incentivizing Learning

Set aside rewards for individuals or teams that remain dedicated to learning to make the most of your learning and development budget. Link learning achievements to career advancement opportunities and recognize those employees with company awards.

Consider offering tuition reimbursement for job-related education – degrees, certifications, courses. Provide employees with access to tools that give them access to on-demand learning.

When possible, offer bonuses or salary increases for completing optional courses and allow paid time off for attending development-related workshops or conferences.

5. Monitor and Adjust

Conduct regular check-ins, measure results, and update learning content to reflect current needs and industry trends.

Just as teachers and parents work to combat their students'  "summer slide," talent development teams are responsible for the progression of their workforce. When employees stop learning and growing, their skills become outdated, leaving them and their organizations vulnerable in a rapidly evolving market.

Talent development leaders play a critical role in preventing this by providing continuous upskilling opportunities, enabling their teams to stay competitive, innovative, and ready to meet the challenges of the future.

Interested in more about upskilling? Request a free demo now  to check out the world's most extensive course library.