You will never stop Learning Lifelong Learning
in Companies

What is Lifelong Learning about?

Learning is not simply over when you have finished school, vocational training or university. These traditional educational paths are followed almost seamlessly by so-called adult education. This is actually logical, otherwise you would remain at the same level of knowledge from the moment you hold your last certificate in your hand and no longer gain any new skills. Personal development would therefore be complete. However, further development is essential in order to be able to adapt to new circumstances and challenges.

Learning after traditional training is just a little different. Instead of following a predetermined path, further development can be individually tailored from a wide range of further education, training courses, certificates, etc. This offers a major advantage: each individual has the opportunity to focus even more on their personal strengths and to further develop them.

Digitalization and Lifelong Learning

Continuing education naturally also plays a major role in the working life. Due to digitalization and technical progress, changes are constantly taking place in many respects. This means that employees are faced with the challenge of constantly adapting to new situations, processes and structures, so that the knowledge they have acquired may no longer be sufficient within a very short time - knowledge practically has an ever shorter expiry time.

Microlearning for Employees Build up Practical
Knowledge and helpful
Soft Skills in Tiny Portions

Thus, it is necessary to continuously acquire new knowledge. The faster the requirements in the workplace change, the faster employees need further training. The whole process is repeated many times over the course of a professional career and is therefore theoretically a lifelong process that will never be completed. Apart from the fact that most people will not work until the end of their lives, of course.

New Job Profiles

In addition to advancing digitalization, new job profiles also make lifelong learning necessary. In turn, digitalization is also a driving factor. This is because it has led to the emergence of many digital professions on the job market. For example, it was not previously possible to train as an AI developer, big data analyst or cloud engineer.

Not a new Concept - a Look into the Past

Speaking of the past: how long do you think the concept of “lifelong learning” has been around? If you think it’s a newfangled trend, you’re actually wrong.

The fact that we learn throughout our lives is not a new, modern insight. Well-known thinkers in ancient times - such as Confucius, Pythagoras, Hippocrates and Seneca - already dealt with this topic. “As long as you live, you must learn how to live”, is how Seneca summed it up around 2,000 years ago.

Remote Workshops and Knowledge Databases - Digitalization creates new Opportunities

Digitalization therefore presupposes lifelong learning, but at the same time it creates new possibilities for how learning can be implemented. On the one hand, seminars and workshops can also be held remotely thanks to digital tools. This can greatly simplify organization and save a lot of time.

In addition, companies can optimize their knowledge management. Knowledge can be stored digitally across all departments and made accessible to all employees.

With the help of extensive digital knowledge databases, learning can be self-organized and partly self-taught. There are numerous videos, tutorials and interactive learning formats on a wide range of topics. On top of that, there are more innovative learning formats, such as gamification, where learning content is integrated into a game interface.

Nowadays, there are even intelligent adaptive learning systems that adapt individually to learners. They observe and interpret the learner’s behavior and adapt to their needs.

Many different Forms of Learning - each Employee needs a different one

In general, there are many different ways in which employees can acquire new knowledge and expertise. You should bear in mind that not every way of learning is suitable for all employees.

More important Factors that should be considered during the Learning Process

• Learning Type: The form of learning is closely related to the learning type. Every person can be assigned to one of these types. This means that he or she achieves the best learning results under certain conditions. For example, there are visual learning types who learn best when reading or watching videos and auditory learning types who learn best when listening to others.

• Age: Another factor is the age of employees. Younger employees generally learn somewhat more easily than older employees. Older employees, on the other hand, have the advantage that they have a repertoire of knowledge and skills that they can build on more easily. In addition, they have already gained more experience and are better able to assess the conditions under which they learn best.

• Motivation: Motivation is a key factor in ensuring that learning has the positive effect desired. A rough distinction can be made between two types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. While extrinsic motivation is achieved through external factors, such as rewards, praise and financial incentives, intrinsic motivation is caused by the internal drive. This means that motivation arises from the fact that you are genuinely interested in something, learning is fun and you recognize the purpose behind it.

You have to learn Lifelong Learning

Despite motivation and framework conditions: What applies to digital transformation also applies to lifelong learning. This concept does not work according to the plug-and-play principle either! Learning does not work at the push of a button; you first have to create the right framework conditions. This includes finding out what type of learner you are, learning according to a plan, avoiding distractions and setting yourself goals.

Lifelong Learning - not a positive Thing for Everyone

Another challenge is that some people do not only see the task of having to learn their whole life in a positive light, but sometimes even find it frightening. This may be partly due to the connotation of the term - many people automatically associate learning with obligations, effort and boredom because of their time at school. Of course, this also creates the challenge of breaking down this thought pattern as far as possible and giving the term “learning” a more positive connotation.

How do you achieve this?

Employees are generally most motivated when they find learning easy and fun. To achieve this, the learning process should be self-determined and must fit to the individual learning type. The challenges must also be appropriate. In other words, employees should ideally feel neither underchallenged nor overwhelmed - this applies to both the level of difficulty and the learning workload. Quite a lot to consider! But if lasting success is achieved quickly and learning is associated with ease, the preparation and organization, which may be time-consuming at the beginning, will pay off.

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Lifelong Learning: Benefits for Companies

1. Higher Performance and Productivity: The higher qualification of employees is automatically reflected in their performance and productivity. This enables better overall performance of the company and leads to increases in turnover.

2. Lower Fluctuation Rate: With a well-thought-out learning program, which ideally is also individually adapted to each employee, you improve the motivation and commitment of your employees - which in turn increases the overall attractiveness of your company, so that employees rarely leave the company.

3. Employer Branding: You have the opportunity to retain your employees in the long term - lifelong learning can become part of your successful employer branding, which will also helps you attract new employees to your company. Nowadays, many employees appreciate the training opportunities that employers can offer them.

4. Long-term Customer Relationships: If your employees have high competence and a lot of specialist and background knowledge, they will pass this on to the customers. You can present your company and your products and/or services more authentically so that your customers are convinced and remain content. In other words, you strengthen relationships with your customers.

Hand in Hand with your Digital Transformation

Learning accompanies us throughout our lives. It was the same 2,000 years ago. And most likely even longer ago. 😉 Nowadays, lifelong learning goes hand in hand with digital transformation.

If you want to successfully implement the concept in your company, there are a few challenges to overcome first to make the learning process work for all employees. After that, it will offer great potential: your employees and the whole company will be constantly evolving.