The business world is constantly changing, as is the technology we use to navigate it. So, it’s no surprise that businesses are searching for ways they can stay ahead of the competition and grow teams that are engaged in and passionate about their work.
What is a Learning Culture in the Workplace?
According to a LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2025, “Learning combined with career development – leadership training, coaching, internal mobility, and more – accelerates the flow of critical skills to keep pace with business needs.”
Within professional organizations, learning cultures are teams that have been given the opportunity to grow their knowledge and develop new skills. This could be upskilling within their chosen field or developing new skills in their area of interest, but the ultimate goal is to develop in order to progress professionally.
Cultivating a business culture of learning and development can be extremely powerful, both for individuals and the wider business. It gives people a sense of purpose at work while increasing employee happiness and, as a result, long-term talent retention.
Because learning and development is so intricately linked with business success, leaders who prioritise a learning-focused approach will play a vital role in the continued success and achievements of the wider organization.
Related: Techniques to boost learning retention
The Importance of Creating a Learning Culture in the Workplace
Organizations that want to succeed should embrace personal and career development to drive their employees to thrive in their chosen field. Companies that champion personal and career development out-perform their competitors because they are:
- More confident in their ability to attract and retain talent
- More confident in their ability to be profitable
- Better positioned to reap the benefits of technological advancements
- More likely to adopt superior technologies that streamline business processes
What’s more, when organizations prioritize career development, they are more likely to see an increase in employees engaging in business-relevant skills, a higher rate of internal promotions, and a higher number of employees being raised to positions of leadership.
What’s Stopping Businesses from Fostering Learning Cultures?
Despite the evidence strongly supporting the concept of fostering a collaborative culture in competitive industries, many organizations are missing the mark. So, what exactly is standing in the way?
Research shows us that businesses face three main barriers in the pursuit of learning and career development. According to the Workplace Learning Report 2025, these barriers are:
- 50% say managers lack proper support
- 45% say employees lack support
- 33% say talent teams themselves lack support
- Only 11% say that “leadership doesn’t value career development”.
As the data shows, most organizations and leaders aren’t the ones standing in the way of creating a learning culture. Instead, systematic changes are needed before forward motion can be achieved.
So, let’s take a look at how businesses can prioritize upskilling within their organizations and cultivate a culture of learning and development.
4 Steps to Create a Culture of Learning and Development
Forbes tells us that learning and development leads to everything from “increased job satisfaction and loyalty to better retention rates – and ultimately better employees.”
Essentially, it benefits everyone involved. As such, organizations and their talent leaders must take proactive steps towards establishing a learning and development culture. Here’s how this can be achieved:
- Focus on Building the Right Skills
So much about business success comes down to doing the right things sooner rather than later – and faster, where possible. Most organizations understand the time restraints within their own business. They know how much time, effort, and resource it takes to build an agile team with learning and development at its center.
This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes into play. AI is helping businesses and their employees extend their skillsets by supporting learning and development across organizations. AI can deliver dynamic digital learning solutions personalized to each individual’s learning needs and deliver this training at scale.
Additionally, integrating IT resource management software can help managers better plan and allocate learning resources to ensure that new upskilling and learning initiatives are streamlined and align with wider business objectives.
Whether your teams are keen to learn how to develop managerial skills or how to write evergreen content, it is the job of the organization to facilitate learning opportunities that allow employees the chance to grow and develop their skills.
Without the help of AI, large-scale upskilling initiatives can be extremely time-consuming and slow-moving. AI introduces an agile, effective, and streamlined approach to learning and development across organizations.
- Help People Move Easily Within Your Organization
When there is flexibility within your organizational structure, people can move more freely and explore which areas of the business (and which skills) they would like to explore further.
By focusing on building a more agile workforce, you create a culture in which employees seek to build others up, share skills, and develop cross-functional knowledge. This helps employees learn from their peers, discover new skills, and more easily transition into new job roles when the opportunity arises.
Corporate training solutions provide the opportunity for employees to upskill in their areas of interest. This fosters an environment of learning that helps people proactively go after the things they are interested in and passionate about.
- Give Managers the Opportunity to Support Careers
80% of CEOs report that the need for new skills is their biggest business challenge. However, people thrive when they are given the opportunity to develop and learn new skills. So, it’s fundamental that organizations prioritize this in order to lay the groundwork for long-term success.
Managers play an important role in creating a strong learning and development environment in the workplace. The best managers help to steer people toward skill-building opportunities that further their careers, set them up for promotions, and increase their professional abilities.
However, too many managers are under intense time restraints and, as such, employee learning and development is something they simply don’t have capacity for. To solve this, organizations must provide support to managers so they can have the time and resources to support their teams effectively.
- Inspire a Sense of Purpose in Employees
According to Gallup, “Managers serve as crucial connectors for team collaboration and effectiveness, accounting for 70% of the variance in employee engagement.”
No organization can succeed in fostering a collaborative working culture without providing its people with a sense of purpose. People need a sense of purpose in order to thrive, both professionally and personally. By providing opportunities for learning and development at work, organizations are improving employee wellbeing through upskilling.
Whether it’s upskilling for a promotion, to further their skills in a certain field, or simply to learn something new, upskilling helps employees pursue their career goals by increasing their access to professional opportunities. This is hugely motivating for employees and provides a renewed sense of professional purpose.
The payoff for the wider organization is that you have a workforce who are driven to learn new skills, higher talent attraction and retention rates, and an organization that is equipped to succeed in a competitive landscape.
Make Learning and Development a Priority
By following the steps we’ve shared above, you can make learning and development a priority within your organization. It’s not only important for employee retention, it’s a necessity in a world of rapid technological advancement and highly competitive talent acquisition.
Continual learning and development is how you foster collaboration and it’s one of the best ways to grow your organization in a competitive landscape, helping you weather whatever challenges come your way.
