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Key Tenets of
Adult Learning
Employees know how they learn best. By putting people in charge of their learning experience, they can set their own goals and determine how — and when — they want to learn.
In a culture of continuous learning, employees with demanding roles are empowered by leadership to prioritize professional development instead of viewing training as merely adding to their workloads. Creating a curated learning path provides the flexibility learners need to build skills on their own amid busy schedules as well as the structure needed to stay motivated.
Self-directed:
To better enable organizationwide improvement, leaders must view professional development as more than a point-in-time event, but rather a way to continually evolve workforces for the future.
Clinicians are already seeking learning to maintain their credentials. By providing continuous, on-demand learning opportunities through multiple modes of delivery, organizations can create a culture that doesn’t view learning as simply checking a box, but instead provides an enriching experience that helps move organizational goals.
Continuous:
Adults are seeking practical, clearly defined content that is applicable to their role. To set up employees and the organization for success, leaders should consider developing curated learning paths specific to new skills needed in the workplace today rather than presenting employees with potentially outdated, irrelevant courses that add variety, but not value.
Upskilling, or the ability to evolve employees’ skills for the current time, is necessary for organizations to build a change-ready workforce. Part of upskilling is providing a clear “why” for individuals regarding the benefits of investing their time in a development program and the value of being fully equipped to perform at the highest level in their role.
Relevant:
Adult learners thrive when learning enables them to accomplish a goal that is key to their role. If an adult is going to invest time into a learning program, it is essential for them to have a tangible result that aligns to their personal or professional goals and makes their time worthwhile. Organizations should be considering how their data analytics programs can support goal-oriented learning by providing meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) that tie back to employees’ goals and track progress.
Goal-oriented:
Transferring learning from the classroom to the
real world has always been a challenge for adult learners. In a world of self-paced and digital learning, people still need experimental components to help close the gap between old ways of working and new skills or behaviors.
Whether facilitated in a group setting with simulations and case studies or through peer-to-peer connections, a “learn by doing” approach allows learners to build key competencies, practice decision making and understand results in a way that other learning modalities do not provide.
Experiential:
