Why MDs are ultimately responsible for learning culture

Over the past few months, we’ve written a lot about the importance of building a learning culture inside your recruitment business. We’ve talked about the business benefits of a learning culture, the importance of synergy across teams, and even how your managers hold influence.

However, while everyone has a role to play in your culture, there’s an important person we’ve missed: the leaders at the very top. Whether you’re a managing director, founder, or CEO, the way you behave – and the way you communicate about recruiter training – has a significant impact on the rest of the business.

Read on to find out why higher ups need to be on board with your learning strategy—and what you can do to positively influence your entire organisation from the top down.

1. 1. When a check in doesn’t cut it

      Busy business leaders like to make sure their investment in training is paying off. It’s natural, then, that you’ll check in every so often to ask what people are learning, how useful they find the content, and how it’s affecting your bottom line.

      The problem: this now-and-then approach makes recruiter training a once-every-so-often priority for the entire business. If you only discuss learning and development in occasional meetings or performance reviews, recruiters will naturally structure themselves around these touchpoints. As a result, training becomes something that’s hurriedly done in the run-up to a conversation—not something that’s there every day, so people keep learning over time.

      3 ways to influence your learning culture

      As a leader, your level of engagement in learning and development will directly affect how everyone behaves. That means regular conversations about training, managers that understand how important it is, and recruiters that are encouraged to grow.

      To get you started, here are three practical ways you can demonstrate your commitment to recruiter training.

      #1 Make time for it

      First and foremost, your recruiters will only make time for training if you make time for it first. Fortunately, a smart platform like Juice makes it easy for people to invest their time as-and-when it’s available—without the commitment of an entire training day or session from an external provider.

      When your managers are looking at your resources and how people schedule their time, encourage them to make learning and development part of the picture. With bite-sized content, this could be as little as ten minutes a day. The important thing is that training becomes routine—not irregular.

      #2 Measure it

      As business leaders, we want people to move with purpose—to do things that will directly influence performance and our bottom line. Your recruiters want the same thing—to do work that feels purposeful and finish every day having made meaningful progress.

      When you can see and measure progress, the benefits become clearer and it’s easier to stay engaged. With that in mind, bring training into your reporting processes. Work with managers and team leaders to discuss how training progress can be shared across the business. Juice includes useful reporting tools and leaderboards to make this quick and easy.

      #3 Talk about it

      Finally, leaders can embed a learning culture by talking about learning more often. Ask your managers how training is progressing, what recruiters need from you, and what they’re doing to keep people engaged and moving forward.

      With Juice, we’ve adopted the look and feel of social media to encourage more of those important, ongoing conversations about professional growth. From the What’s Happening Wall to social learning, we’ll help you get people talking—and learning.

      See why recruitment leaders choose Juice to embed a learning culture