How to Encourage Continuous Learning at Your AEC & M Organization

Foster a culture of ongoing learning with these tips.

The ability to adapt, acquire new skills, and stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends is vital for architecture, engineering, construction, and manufacturing teams who want to remain competitive. The key to success in this arena lies in fostering a culture of continuous learning on an organizational level. To achieve this, many organizations turn to learning management systems like Pinnacle Series that empower their employees to learn and grow at work every day. 

In this article, we’ll explore six tips for encouraging continuous learning, which include:

1. Start with a solid LMS
2. Encourage self-directed learning
3. Offer opportunities to apply new skills
4. Recognize and reward milestones
5. Share up-to-date training
6. Encourage feedback

Along the way, we’ll also explore how Pinnacle Series can be a pivotal tool in your organization’s learning journey.

Start with a solid LMS

A culture of continuous learning at any company can only be as good as the resources available to your workforce. That means your choice of a learning management system is foundational to this entire conversation. Your employees need a trusted resource that they can quickly and efficiently consult for reliable answers when they have a question.

Pinnacle Series is the premier choice in this space for AEC & M organizations. Our LMS serves as a comprehensive repository of expert-created training materials, plus your own custom resources. When employees get accustomed to using Pinnacle Series as their primary source of knowledge and learning materials, it will become a central part of their daily routines at work. By pointing them to Pinnacle Series as their go-to resource and encouraging the use of “small bites of training” such as videos and documents, you ensure that your team has easy access to the information they need for skill development and problem-solving. 

Leadership buy-in is also essential to this step. It’s important to showcase the benefits of the prospective LMS to management early on, so they understand the importance of continuous learning and a robust platform to encourage it. Then, once its time to roll the platform out, leadership can drive the importance of training home and set the tone for successful implementation and adoption.

Zutari — an infrastructure, engineering, and advisory practice with distributed teams across 31 offices — needed an upgraded training solution that could unite their organization. After a successful rollout of Pinnacle Series, their Digital Practice Leader, Selvan Murugan, said, “There [were] quite a few criteria that we used to select the platform, and Pinnacle was ticking all of them. We were very impressed.”

Encourage self-directed learning

Continuous learning is often most effective when it’s self-directed. When you empower your employees to take charge of their own learning journeys, you tap into your team’s intrinsic motivation, resulting in a more engaged and proactive workforce. 

With Pinnacle Series, employees have the autonomy to choose what they want to learn and when they want to learn it. They can explore the diverse range of topics and courses available within the LMS, allowing them to tailor their learning experiences to their specific needs and career goals.

And since it’s a cloud-based platform, that means the resources on Pinnacle Series are always just a couple of clicks away. Samantha Duncan, Digital Collaboration Leader at Zutari, said, “As long as they have the company login details, they can access the platform. It is also very cellphone-user-friendly, so they can train wherever they are.”

Offer opportunities to apply new skills

Learning is most effective when it’s applied in real-world situations. Having practical tasks provides employees with opportunities to gain confidence in their abilities and use their training in a way that immediately benefits your organization.

One of the best ways to do this is to simply weave on-demand training into an employee’s typical day. Assign projects that will require the application of the new skills they’re developing, and let them learn as they go with the help of their LMS. This way, they’ll be able to immediately put their newfound knowledge and skills to work.

At Zutari, this is exactly the approach they’ve chosen. Rather than assigning courses and training content, they encourage employees to use Pinnacle Series whenever they need answers or have some spare time to invest in their learning and development. That’s where those small, quick “bites” of learning come back into play.

“Employees do not always have hours to spend on training,” Duncan said. “It’s easy to go to Pinnacle and to go and search for specific fields that you’re busy with, and to do the training while you’re busy problem-solving.”

Recognize and reward milestones

Acknowledging and rewarding continuous learning achievements is a powerful motivator, so consider implementing a system that recognizes and celebrates the progress and accomplishments of your employees. Pinnacle Series allows you to track the learning progress of your team members, making it easy to identify those who have excelled in their learning endeavors.

You can organize regular learning milestones and achievements, such as completing a certain number of courses or achieving a specific KnowledgeSmart assessment score. Recognize these accomplishments through certificates, badges, or other forms of acknowledgment. By doing so, you not only motivate the individuals who have achieved these milestones but also encourage others to strive for similar recognition. This is also a great way to increase user adoption of the platform in the early days as you roll it out.

Share up-to-date training

To keep the momentum of continuous learning, it’s essential to provide fresh and relevant learning materials. By maintaining a dynamic and up-to-date learning environment, you offer employees the confidence that they aren’t working with outdated content or learning obsolete methods of doing things.

Pinnacle Series has dedicated content teams behind it, who work every day to ensure that our training evolves with industry changes and technological updates. 

This is one of the things the team at Zutari appreciates the most about Pinnacle Series. “We know that nothing is fixed forever and that we need to update and stay on top of our game,” says Murugan. “If there’s an error in the training, that means 2,000 people will get something wrong. The quality of the training [in Pinnacle], we are very, very impressed with. It’s the updates, it’s the scalability for 2,000 people to access the platform with no issues.”

Encourage feedback

Continuous learning is a two-way street. Encourage your employees to provide feedback on their learning experiences, whether it’s with Pinnacle Series or another LMS. What worked well, and what could be improved? By listening to their input and making necessary improvements, you create a more user-centric learning environment.

Furthermore, decision-makers should be actively assessing the impact of continuous learning initiatives on the organization. Are there specific skills or knowledge areas that need more attention? By collecting and acting on this feedback and data, you can fine-tune your learning programs to align with your organization’s evolving needs. Plus, our team is always happy to brainstorm with you about how Pinnacle Series can grow with you to help you achieve your present and future goals.

Want to learn more about how Pinnacle Series can help foster a culture of continuous learning at your AEC & M organization? Get in touch to set up a demo or free pilot program today!

If you’re already a Pinnacle Series subscriber, log in now to explore tools like KnowledgeSmart assessments and custom content that can help your organization achieve a culture of continuous learning.