Creating an Effective Learning Culture

by Richard Gourlaycompetitive advantage, Uncategorized 06/03/202606/03/2026No Comments

In today’s workplace an effective learning culture is not a “would like to have” it is becoming a “must have” to successfully compete for many businesses for both talent and customers.

A learning culture creates not only a better place to work, but also reduces key staff turnover, while driving productivity and growth.

This is why workplace learning is at the top of the do list in 2026 for HR managers and L&D directors.

The importance of developing a workplace learning culture today’ has never been more important to leadership teams or more able to be delivered.

Let me share a few thoughts about why and how this can be achieved.

The Challenges for L&D in 2026

The Workday Global Workforce Report identifies key HR’s challenges for 2026

Many still view HR through lenses of hiring or firing role, but today its value is in helping shape an organization’s workforce for success both now and in the future.

Modern HR and its L&D professionals are data interpreters, change facilitators, and advisors, connecting people strategies with business outcomes.

Their work is a driving force in how effective companies are at adapting to rapidly changing markets and emerging opportunities through people development.

Talent acquisition and retention: Attracts talent to not only fit current roles but also support future growth, while creating an environment that motivates employees to stay and build careers. Workday global workforce report
Keeping pace with rapid skills evolution Udeny 2025 Global learning skills trend.
Making Learning Strategically Effective – Does learning make a tangible difference to the organisation results
Integrating New learning Wisely – 94% of learning leaders see digital learning as central to their strategy – Elucidat Digital learning 2025

Delivering personalised learner centric experiences – engagement needs to be a key focus for learning and measured

Attracting and Retaining Top Talent

The CIPHR report from 300 companies in January 2026 reported their biggest challenges: that 85% of companies report skills shortages, 87% reported struggling to find the right talent and 79% reported building capable managers where major challenges.

Skills Shortages

Struggling to find talent

Capable Manger Challenge

Today’s top talent expects competitive pay and benefits but also meaningful work and connection to the organisations forward strategy. Being engaged from the start is now the expected normal. This trend originally documented by Dan Pink’s in his research on motivation at work called Drive defines the new way today’s employees look at employment opportunities. Employees perform when they are left to develop mastery of their subject. That culture shift leads towards ROWE work environments (Results Only Work Environments). Which many companies now adopt headlined by global brands Facebook (Meta) and Google.

That means that LD need to develop employee retention and engagement within the workplace for earlier, than was traditionally thought.

62% of organizations struggling to find qualified workers, impacting sectors like construction, manufacturing, and health. This gap, which has more than doubled since 2017, is hindering growth, driving up wage costs by billions, and delaying projects.

Key Sectors of the UK Skills Shortage

Impacted Sectors: Construction (52% vacancy issues), manufacturing (42%), and health/social care (40%) are heavily affected.

Economic Consequences: Skills shortages are estimated to cost the UK economy £39 billion annually, according to The Open University Business Barometer 2024.

Root Causes: Key factors include a post-pandemic rise in economic inactivity (e.g., long-term sickness), an aging workforce, and the end of free movement following Brexit.

Response Strategies: Businesses are increasing salaries (67%), hiring at lower levels, or struggling to adopt new technologies like AI, The Access Group notes.

Future Outlook: Skills England is being established to address these gaps, with projections suggesting 20% of the workforce could be under skilled by 2030, according to Grant Thornton UK.

Attracting and Retaining Top Talent

Workday Global Workforce Report 2025 shows that are losing top talent. 75% of industries are experiencing voluntary turnover of high potential employees.

Voluntary Turnover of High-Potential Employees 75%

75% of companies loosing voluntary High Potential Employees

That talent drain holds companies back, while driving wage inflation and slows company growth. This talent loss reduces organisation’s ability to grow and develop. The big challenge is that employees are not just going to the competition. Research shows that talent is not just going to direct competitors over 40% of it is moving across sectors.This gap, is hindering growth, driving up wage costs by billions, and delaying projects.

FOMO to FOBO

Why are key people leaving companies? Well pay is not the highest factor for employees today. You’ve heard of FOMO – FEAR OF MISSING OUT has a new L&D big brother FOBO. The McKinsey survey 2025 identifies that 45% of employees are worried by FOBO, affecting mainly younger employees with digital skills and outsourcing.

FOBO or the Fear Of Becoming Obsolete, is now identified as a key driver for skilled people to move to better development and opportunities.

FOBO means that while we all know that the grass is NOT always greener on the other side of the fence, employees today are not taking the risk in missing out. Employers at the cutting edge of any sector are drawing in talent like never before. Today, AI investment is the buzz that is driving not only investment but also drawing people into this new world. AI is being led by companies with cultures that enable employees to be more engaged, more focusing on continually learning.

Build Competitive Advantage: Attracting and Retaining Top Talent

Companies today are struggling to build and sustain competitive advantage. Loosing good people due to FOBO is hugely damaging and for L&D and yet The Workday Global Report also points out that 94% of employees would stay at a company if it invested in their learning.

94% of employees would stay at a company if it invested in their learning.

UK employer investment in training fell to £53.0bn in 2024, a significant decline from £59.0bn in 2022 and down 18.5% since 2011. Expenditure per employee correspondingly dropped to £1,700, a 29.5% decrease since 2011, making it one of the lowest levels in over a decade. While some of that decline is a shift to online learning rather than in person learning, many larger public sector organisations have pulled back on investing in their people. The Learning and Work Institute reports that around 40% of employers offer no training at all.

According to the Workday Global State of Skills report, the majority of business leaders are worried about skills shortages in the next three years.

Only 32% believe their organizations currently have the skills they’ll need in the immediate future.

Only 54% of leaders have a clear view of the skills within their organisation. That is a major issue in competitive global markets.

With that snapshot now in your mind this is why building a learning culture within your organisation really matters.

Benefits of An Effective Learning Culture

What are the benefits to having an effective learning company? Creates improved performance

There are many benefits in creating an effective learning culture, here are just 6 that make the point so well-

Innovation: They are 92% more likely to innovate.
Profitability: They are 17% more likely to be a market leader.
Skills: They are 58% better prepared to meet future challenges.
Time to Market: They are 34% better at responding to customer needs.
Quality: They have a 26% greater ability to deliver quality solutions.
Productivity: They enjoy 37% greater employee productivity.

Other key metrics which companies with a learning culture consistently delivers.

They have on average 59% lower costs of recruitment and retention

Absenteeism is around 40% lower.

And 72% Higher employee engagement

Source The Access Group

So how do organisation start to develop a learning culture?

First Steps Towards Creating High Performance Company

High-performing companies are shifting their focus from roles to capabilities.
Mapping Critical Skills rather than job titles
Creating clear progression pathways to retain and develop talent

Organizations that fail to plan for future workforce needs often find themselves reacting to crises instead of leading through change.

Most HR leaders recognize the criticality of better and more holistic planning, but Gartner reports that today only 15% are engaged in it at a truly strategic level.

Making it an HR priority and planning effectively in collaboration with other stakeholders across the company will be a strategic differentiator in the future, both for optimizing budgets and resource allocation and for retaining top talent that drives performance.

By forecasting demand, analysing skills inventories, and running scenario planning exercises, HR leaders can align their company’s people strategy with long-term business goals.

The question for 2026 is no longer:-

“How do we recruit better people?”

It is:-

“How do we build and protect the skills our business depends on?”

Creating a learning culture is a competitive advantage not only in winning the right new talent into a workplace but also in retaining it.

A learning culture creates and sustains a competitive advantage in the workplace.

Requires a clear vision and support from the leadership team to make it happen.

Understand the benefits from doing it and the risks from not adopting it.

Develop a whole team culture to make it work.

L&D Creating an Effective Learning Culture

A true continuous learning environment isn’t created by hanging motivational posters or offering the occasional webinar. It’s baked into daily workflows.

Hallmarks include:

Provide company wide learning – developing everyone simultaneously – move the whole not the few

On-demand, ongoing training: Learning is accessible anytime, not relegated to annual workshops.

Microlearning integration: Short, focused bursts of training that fit naturally into busy schedules.

Leadership advocacy: Leaders model curiosity and growth, encouraging teams to follow suit.

Engaging Content – Genuine learning not simply tuckbox compliance with pathway options towards specialisations

Modern LMS platforms can help address these challenges by making learning more flexible and accessible. Quick, ongoing updates and bite-sized training modules transform the experience — shifting from overwhelming to manageable.

Making Mentoring Matter

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Values, competitive advantage 04/02/202612/02/2026No Comments

Mentoring is a long-term collaborative and confidential relationship where an experienced individual (the mentor) provides guidance, knowledge, and support to a less experienced person (the mentee) to foster their personal or professional growth. It focuses on building confidence, enhancing skills, navigating transitions, and empowering the mentee to develop their own solutions, rather than just providing answers. Making mentoring matter in business creates a strategic competitive advantage.

That overall objective of empowering the mentee to develop themselves through guidance is ultimate measure of a successful mentor. Making mentoring matter takes several key cultural and skillsets to make it effective.

Making Mentorship Effective

Making mentoring matter inside an organisation requires a culture of mentoring to be built within the organisation. Mentoring can create problems inside a vertically structured business as it develops new lines of communication often across, through and outside traditional business structures. Dotted lines of communication and support can threaten traditional structures of command and control.

To make mentoring effective it must be a strategic decision. Led from the top to move those traditional vertical lines of command and control to a newer often called networked structured models of leadership support.

Making mentorship effective typically consists of several key components. Successful mentors have to be good listeners, not just to hear the problems mentees are facing but also to understand the backgrounds and perspectives that have shaped and formed mentees experiences. Buying into mentees, seeing their potential and learning how to share stories and experiences is central to making a good mentor.

Mentee to mentor matching is therefore a vital skill, knowing why a mentor was selected to be paired with a mentee provides not only confidence but also clarity of the overall objective of the mentoring programme. Good mentors should be clear to understand what mentees long-term goals are and how they see the mentor assist them towards achieving them. That can be career goals, or skill and experience goals.

Effective mentoring always starts with good matching that builds a good mentoring relationship. That does not mean simply getting on or having some shared interests, but in mutual respect that enables and challenges both mentor and mentee to grow as people. A relationship that can open up both parties and evolve over the long-term.

What mentoring does for the mentors

Mentoring is not just for mentees. While it is their outcome that matters as a measurable result of mentoring, there are several reciprocal metrics which are as important in soft skills metrics in modern organisations.

The McKinsey’s S7 model of hard S factors, Strategy, Systems, Structure is now matched by soft S factors in Style, Staff and Skills. It is today that soft skills is where the biggest competitive advantage can be seen in organisation development. Mentoring, the style of supporting staff with skills is very much driving how shared values are being disseminated through, across and into a business today.

McKinsey S & Model

For mentors learning about different people’s challenges within the business, from departments, backgrounds and generational experiences all open up new learning for even the most experienced mentor. Working with the next generation of professionals creates new challenges especially in a mentoring relationship. It is not command and control, or even a direct line of authority but one built upon mutual respect.

For many mentors it is an excellent opportunity to develop softer leadership skills and to use their know-how, valuable networks and experiences to shape new people into the company. Giving back is also a powerful motivator for many mentors, a chance to use their experience to grow new talent.

Successful Mentoring Framework

To achieve a successful mentoring programme there are four key P’s Framework. which provide the foundations of any successful mentoring programme. These successful foundations are the definition of where any mentoring programme designer should start.

The first P in the framework is a clearly defined PURPOSE. This should ask the question why are we mentoring someone? What are the meetings and possible structure for? Both parties should clearly define the mentee’s specific goals, challenges and expectations. The purpose of the matching mentor to mentee should identify what the mentor offers the relationship in resources, connections and relationship building.

The second P covers PREPARATION. For a good mentoring programme both parties need to prepare, putting their respective and matched agendas together. From identifying initial goals, both some quick wins as well as longer development goals, from the mentee though to mentors identifying possible mentoring paths of support. Mentors need to prepare deeper questioning on key topics and what experiences to share to make key points.

The third P is PARTICIPATION. Mentoring is a long-term, often monthly arrangement, it is distinctive period but requires ongoing participation and commitment. Do both parties really value it? Participation is therefore essential form both sides, seeing it as important. Being present, having an agenda, venue, active full listening throughout, ensuring notes and action plan are made and followed through.

The fourth and final P is POSSIBILITIES. The outcome from participation is that the plan of possibilities from the initial plan to the evolving roadmap of the mentoring programme is mapped out in detail. A good plan exploring all possibilities and in priority format to achieve the original goals is essential.

Mentoring Challenges

Mentoring starts as a good idea, and many people volunteer especially is the sponsors are Senior Leadership Team led. But for many mentors there is little training on how to make mentoring work.

Mentoring often fails because the mentor does not know how to set up their role as a mentor. Meetings can end up being chats and moans if not structured. They become nothing more than a nice to have with little progress and experience story-telling by the mentor if the mentor does not know how to structure their support. The 5C model of problem solving is useful here in creating high-value mentoring programmes.

The 5 Cs Problem-Solving Model for mentoring

This framework provides structure for successful mentoring conversations:

Challenges: Identifying and defining the specific difficulties the mentee is facing.
- Think SMART goals not “better at wishes”
Choices: Exploring various paths or options available to address the challenges.
- Create several options and scenarios routes 1,2,3 to support mentees
Consequences: Discussing the potential positive and negative outcomes for each choice.
- Change shapes and reshapes people and relationships, make sure that mentees have a wide base of skills for any new role or relationship.
Creative Solutions: Brainstorming novel ideas, with the mentor sharing experience to offer new perspectives.
- Bringing new ideas and researching all possible options should be discussed and evaluated with mentees with consequences and requirements in commitment fully discussed.
Conclusions: The mentee makes a final decision and commits to specific next steps.

It is always up to the mentee to make the final decision and to make the first step. Mentoring moves at the pace of the mentee’s movement.

These 5C’s help mentors become effective mentors, and provide the structure to making mentoring matter. Get in touch here today to learn more.

Like to know amor about mention then see theses links:-

Director Mentoring 6 Great Reasons to Be Mentored by Richard Gourlay

Learn more about Mentoring by Richard Gourlay here:- Richard Gourlay Mentoring

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Leadership Development by Richard Gourlay

Great LEADERSHIP starts with your VISION

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, Dumfries and Galloway, Vision 15/03/201901/09/2025Comments are Disabled

Great LEADERSHIP starts with your VISION

Having a Vision for your business is the most important leadership trait for a successful leader to have. For leaders to lead they must have a strategic vision for their business. A clear future state they want to achieve. One which provides not only an optimum place within their market they want to be; but one which inspires, motivates and drives the organisation to achieve. Heres is why Great leadership starts with your vision.

Great leaders may be charismatic, they may even be likeable, but for them to be successful they must be able to communicate and inspire others through their vision. A vision is a future place within tomorrow’s market.

Leadership Vision

Leader’s must create a vision which is not only aspirational for themselves but motivational for the all stakeholders.

A recent survey of 1,439 chief executives and senior HR people from 707 organizations across the globe, found that the outstanding trait of successful leadership is the ability to create and communicate a VISION.

This is the single most important characteristic for success. Amongst those interviewed a clear vision scored an impressive 92% amongst such high level people in business. This demonstrates just how important a characteristic this is in creating a successful leader.

“Without a clear vision no leader can succeed today in business”

Creating a VISION

Creating a vision is not easy. Leaders are busy people fighting to keep their business on track, dealing with day-to-day issues and making decisions based upon facts and figures. That last point is therefore a real challenge for leaders in developing a vision. This is because there are no facts and figures about the future. The future, by definition is unknown. Instead leaders must rely upon a range of forecasting tools, from gut feel or by benchmarking agianst others, to develop their vision of what the future might look like.

Each of these options in forecasting the future are fraught with danger and risk. Both in terms of making decisions based upon inaccurate perceptions or the damage to their credibility as a leader. Following others through benchmarking is always the safest option for leaders. But this limits leaders to be a follower within any market sector, rather than to lead it from the front in their sector.

Great Leadership deals with Change

For leaders to lead, they must be able to deal with change. Change happens in-perceivably until it is obvious. Every day we grow older but it is only when we look back we see how we have aged. The same is true for a business in any market. Even when change is driven by disruptive new entrants, the change that enables new players to enter a market is caused by subtle sometimes in-perceptivable changes within a market. Change is everything and is happening all the time. Subtle innocuous and minor alterations in a market can become future key drivers of change which create new opportunities are areas which leaders need to keep aware of and proactively respond too.

Change is the only constant in any business. The market is always moving either through Macro market factors or through Micro market factors. Good leaders need to be continually scanning and monitoring both and assessing likely positive and negative impacts upon their business, their customers and their channels to market and value perceptions of their brand.

Challenges for Leaders Vision

Failing to validate and then alter a business model to reflect changes in the market towards the delivery of a vision. This is the single biggest single reason chief executives fail to succeed.

Leaders have to carry people with them for their vision to be live. Poor communication skills are at the heart of why visions and therefore leaders fail to succeed. Leaders must be able to create, verbalise and rationalise to others their vision to generate buy-in and carry their senior people with them. Being able to visualise their vision and communicate it to a wide range of stakeholders often stalls or causes failure in strategy delivery.

For a vision to succeed leaders have to build relationships. This starts in developing trust in their future and develop a team culture all working towards that vision. The inability for leaders to invest in developing their vision often results in the lack of trust and development within the senior team. This failure to develop leadership soft skills, is a major area leaders must invest in to improve their effectiveness as a leader.

Leadership is both Science and Art

Leadership is a balance between science and art. Creating a vision is often seen as an art, but for a vision to connect with senior stakeholders visions require a scientific rationale. It is the old adage we buy with the heart and justify with our head. A solid vision is both a visual message but one backed up with both direct and indirect evidence of that future state in which the leader’s vision sits. A successful vision pulls people together through shred valued values across the organisation what creates and sustains those values.

Great Leadership requires Communication Skills

The importance of being financial and operationally literate to the CEO role is always seen as core leadership skills. These hard skills are often key drivers of leadership assessment. Which is why so many CEO’s come from finance and operations leadership backgrounds. Today these competencies are seen as important for any CEO role.

In todays’ business environment CEO’s are being selected based upon having a demonstrated track record of delivering strategic vision. The ability to inspire others through delivering a strategic vision is now being seen as the most important track record for successful leadership.

Succession Planning

The importance of succession and smooth transition is becoming more important element for successful leadership. Companies today are investing time and effort in succession planning. Well planned succession planning ensures long-term shareholder value and the ability of avoiding the football management culture of overnight change. Poor leadership choice often leads to cultural conflict and short-term reactionary thinking leads to rapid and unsustainable change. Both these mentalities damage the long-term sustainability of a successful business. The leadership teams ability to develop successors who are able to support and follow through a vision is becoming an integral part of the CEO role.

Business leaders all recognise that talent management plans, including succession management have become essential for sustained performance in today’s organisations.

If you want to develop your company’s position then there needs to be a clear vision for it. Vitally answering the questions where it is going and why? If your are looking for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden. Let us see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at Cowden.

Or learn how to plan your business successfully see our video to learn more:- http://www.richardgourlay.com

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Values matter in BUSINESS more than ever

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, competitive advantage, Dumfries and Galloway, Marketing, Strategy, Vision 13/04/201401/09/2025Comments are Disabled

Values in Business must be transparent

Business leaders face many challenges, some immediate and others which are not so obvious but can be far more dramatic to business success. In today’s business world the way you provide your product or service and to whom, says more about you than how much business you do. How you do your business now determines your current credibility and future success. Credibility is as much about your values in becoming successful as about the success you have. Values in BUSINESS must be transparent and lived by everyone inside the organisation.

For longterm success your values as an organisation as demonstrated by everyone inside your organisation matter to both existing, and potential customers, in choosing to do future business with your ad your brand. People have choices and they can now exercise them more freely than ever before, that means customers can access information instantly and make choices that are more informed. Examples such as Ikea’s staff misinforming undercover Times reporters about their sustainable and certified sourced products at a number of shops are one symptom of Ikea’s rapid growth and its underlying boardroom culture, allowing the core values to erode and trust in its reputation suffer. The damage to brand reputation from such as activities such as “greenwashing” create longterm brand damage as brands jump on popularity wagons.

Values Must Live in the Moment

Almost everything in life is in today’s world is in real-time and instantly communicated to circles of ever increasing influence and far beyond. A restaurant having bad night can have a poor reputation before the starter has even been cleared away, as customers post live feed back to sites such as Qype or Trip Advisor. Therefore, before the waiter, maitre d’ or chef knows what’s happening the world outside, potential customers already do, through instant social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook, and are cancelling their reservations in droves. Live experiences matter when they happen not in the apology afterwards.

Leadership teams must ensure that their business values are being lived ever day in what is called real time. The real experiences customers face every moment are the living touch points of a brand experience. Asking employees to make decisions and to own the decisions they make is vital for brand to live in the moment, but they have to be supported by the leadership team and not criticised for making the calls they make. If the call they make is in the best intentions to support the customer but is outside the experience you wanted to give the customer then that is not the employees fault it is leadership teams in designing the experience.

Why clean lavatories matter?

The old adage that if you want to know how clean the restaurant kitchen is, inspect the lavatories! This is because they tell you how the restaurant values cleanliness, is a great example of modern customer awareness of living values. Do you live your values or just post them on your website? Is the question customers want to know in establishing and experiencing trust with you, and your brand.

Seeing under the skin of a brand, or behind the marketing facade a brand promotes is now easy due to transparency in legislation, global media sources and a digital world. There are few places to hide as a brand in what and how they undertake their operations. From sweat shop labour, to brown paper envelopes down to paying influencers there are no places to hide, that’s why clean lavatories matter to customers.

Rail companies learning fast

A recent story of the man on the train talking too loudly causing enraged customers to Tweet complaints about his behaviour which was picked up by a duty manager hundreds of miles away who then contacted train’s conductor to track down the loud caller and asked him to quieted down.

This story is very much testimony to the growing demands of customer expectations, immediate online response, not waiting for passing train staff to react. This story is part of the reputation shift that train companies are actively pursuing to listen and understand customer’s real needs and expectations.

Values in Business must be owned and lived from the top.

The values that a business lives really matter to customers and to the brand reputation. Values are not bland statements in brochures, websites or company walls, but living attributes in how people behave (even when no-one is looking). Values start at the top, and must be owned, lived and driven by the leadership of an organisation. It is no-one else’s responsibility but the leadership’s to ensure they establish, spread and re-enforce those values throughout their people.

Learn more about strategy and how to build yours in your business, click here or on the book below.

Strategy: The Leader’s Role by Richard Gourlay