How to Build a Culture of Lifelong Learners

Promoting from within isn’t just a trendy phrase for job postings. When you promote employees inside your company, you are already aware of how well they fit into the company culture and how their performance record measures up, thus eliminating the risk of the unknown. You also save the valuable time and resources you would have allocated onboarding someone new.

To retain these star employees, though, your organization must prove themselves as advocates for career development. You must provide opportunities to help employees grow and learn in their roles, as well as roles they hope to move toward in the future. This isn’t necessarily a move from team member to manager, either. This can open the door for employees to take advantage of learning opportunities that aren’t in their wheelhouse if they wish to explore an entirely different department inside the company.

This year, Pipefy opened up a program for employees who wanted to get trained in front-end development. The course was joined by employees from various departments, such as Marketing, Design and Sale. Some of these participants could decide to join the Engineering team after completing the course.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and experimentation and innovation are the children of problem-solving. Empower employees to explore all possibilities (within reason) and watch them take ownership. After all, doing things the way they’ve always been done creates a stagnant and lackluster business model. Working solutions can have a lasting impact on the adeptness of your processes.

When managers are visibly engaged in bettering themselves, then so are their teams. When managers are providing clear guidance to employees and giving them real suggestions on resources they can use, courses they can take and materials they can read to improve their work performance, employees will almost positively take action.

Promoting the critical nature of continuous learning is a priority in all successful organizations. When it comes to striving to be 1 percent better each day, managers must lead by example. Leaders should have one-on-one conversations with members of their teams on their professional short- and long-term goals. This makes those routine check-ins much more effective and efficient as leaders can help employees stay on the right track to meeting those objectives that deliver the best business outcomes.

With Pipefy’s Employee Development Template, you can evaluate your employees’ characteristics and develop them through an intuitive interface.

It’s okay to stray outside of the office for collaboration. Conversations with those in similar roles in other organizations can help workers delve into challenges and prospects through unique perspectives. Learn the wins and losses of individuals who went about something in a way your business never did. Experience is the best teacher, but no one ever said you couldn’t have someone else relay their experiences to you. Just be sure to return the favor.

Social gatherings can be a great way to incite a community of lifelong learning. One of the easiest ways to do this is through literature. Company-wide, or department-wide, select a relevant book and hold book club meetings. Pro Tip: Breaking up the book into sections to discuss at a few meetings is much less overwhelming than trying to talk on the entire book at once. It also makes it more likely that employees will actually read it.

Lunch & Learns are another great way to open up the floors to compelling discussions. Applicable TED Talks, pertinent LinkedIn articles or innovative business trends are excellent ideas for these sessions. Plus, who doesn’t love free lunch?   

Written by

Ashley Sava

is Pipefy's Editor and Copywriter. With a background in journalism and content marketing, she uses her wit, writing skills and incurable cheerfulness to leave her readers inspired, hooked and informed. Sava resides in Austin, Texas.