Celebrate Workplace Learning for National Teacher Day!

Does your workplace celebrate National Teacher Day? It should! Learning happens daily in a healthy workplace culture.  And, you can celebrate teachers all week in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.
Workplace learning keeps employees engaged, happy and innovative.
National Teacher Day is a chance to thank the people at your company who make workplace learning and mentoring happen. National Teacher Day is also your opportunity to reflect on the importance of learning and curiosity to employee engagement.

Why Workplace Learning Makes Employees Happy

As we’ve learned, happiness is an unreliable measure of workplace health (“Secrets to Building a Happier Workplace”). Workplace learning, however, is one of the most reliable, valuable ways to build employee satisfaction and happiness.
Workplace learning offers a measurable, adaptable, evolving and fulfilling process. Ideal workplace learning environments encourage employees to fuel their curiosity, build new skills and sharpen existing ones.  It often includes an institutional commitment to mentoring, too.
Teaching and learning are investments in people. By fostering workplace learning, you affirm employees’ value.
Learning, like any aspect of workplace culture, isn’t a one-time deal. The most effective skill-development programs “encourage employees to keep learning,” according to CGMA Magazine.
Learning doesn’t stop after orientation or a training. For real cultural impact within the company, it needs to continue. Research shows that the most successful companies institutionalize and integrate the tools, methods and processes of learning, according to CGMA’s Sabine Vollmer.

Teachers: The Force Behind Workplace Learning

Curiosity is gaining traction in recent years as a powerful way to build workplace happiness.
Curiosity “is the new black,” writes Julie Winkle Giulioni, author of “Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want.”
On her SmartBlog post about curiosity, Winkle Giulioni cites a sad but unsurprising statistic: by the age of 30, natural curiosity declines. Our childlike wonder evaporates when confronted with adult responsibilities and concerns.
Learning is our defense against this curiosity drop-off. Curiosity is a building block of learning, but it’s a chicken or egg scenario: sometimes our curiosity is piqued once we’re in a learning environment.
Good teachers, from kindergarten to graduate school, know how to spark their students’ curiosity. Workplace learning thrives in environments in which employees are allowed the time and space to explore their curiosities with coworkers and under the guidance of a teacher.
“In today’s economy, if your business isn’t learning, then you’re going to fall behind. And a business learns as its people learn,” writes Paul Sarvadi in the Entrepreneur article, “The Importance of Employee Development.”
Who are the people within your company who teach others and foster a vibrant workplace learning environment? It may be your trainers, coaches, office managers, or, in a growing trend popularized by Google, employee-to-employee learning.
These teachers may not be traditional classroom educators, but they’re keeping your employees engaged, knowledgeable and skilled. Ultimately they boost your company’s reputation, performance and bottom line.
On National Teacher Day, give your workplace teachers the gratitude they deserve. Want to share your “thanks” in a big way? Share it publicly on social media with the National Teacher Day #ThankATeacher hashtag, and plan a teacher appreciation activity each day this week. National Teacher Appreciation Week continues through Friday, in conjunction with National Teacher Day.
For more great tips and insights into building a vibrant culture of engagement, respect and appreciation at your school or business, be sure to download our free e-book, “The Top 20 Employee Engagement Blogs You Should be Reading”.

About gThankYou, LLC
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