How to build a learning culture?
Georgia Blundell is a Learning and Development co-ordinator at clothes retailer Seasalt. She talks to Stellar Labs about the privilege of being one of Learning Tech’s 30 under 30 group and the opportunity to meet learning experts and mentors early in her career. Georgia’s passion to build a learning culture, help people develop their self directed learning skills and improve the reputation of apprenticeships show she’s highly committed to L&D across the board.
How to build a learning culture?
Georgia Blundell is a Learning and Development co-ordinator at clothes retailer Seasalt. She talks to Stellar Labs about the privilege of being one of Learning Tech’s 30 under 30 group and the opportunity to meet learning experts and mentors early in her career. Georgia’s passion to build a learning culture, help people develop their self directed learning skills and improve the reputation of apprenticeships show she’s highly committed to L&D across the board.
Welcome to the stellar labs podcast. Future learning today at Stellar labs, our mission is to bust the technology skills crunch with effective, measurable engage in training. We consult on design and deliver the technical and people skills and competencies you need in business. In these podcasts you'll hear from industry experts and practitioners from the worlds of technology and training. They'll share their experience, insights and inspiration and their visions for the future with you. Keep listening to start your future learning here today. Hello, I'm Stella Collins, chief learning officer at Stellar labs. Today's podcast episode was recorded live at the learning technologies conference 2020. Good afternoon everybody. This is Stella Collins. We're on the Stellar labs podcast from learning tech again. And I have got with me Georgia Blundell who's learning and development coordinator at sea salt women's clothing, women's retail. I don't know how you described that Georgia?
Georgia:We describe ourselves as a Cornish lifestyle retailer.
Stella:Okay. And they are indeed settled in beautiful, lovely Cornwall, for anyone who knows Cornwall. It's a gorgeous part of the UK that is kind of a rather romantic and distant area from many places. But it's a really lovely place.
Georgia:It is. The head office of Sea Salt is based in Falmouth and we've got about 70 stores now throughout the UK, Ireland and we've just launched into the USA as well. So it's a really exciting time for the business.
Stella:I'm interested to talk to Georgia because she's one of the 30 under 30, which is a group sponsored by learning tech by the conference. You've all been selected, especially for the honor, the accolade and it's there to support you with mentoring, additional support because you're the learning people for the future. So tell us a little bit more about 30 under 30 Georgia.
Georgia:I was really privileged to be selected for the 30 under 30 cohort for the inaugural group this year, it's the first time they've done it in London. They've had previous cohorts in the US and so far after the end of the first day, it's been an amazing experience so far. We've had the opportunity to meet with a collection of industry leaders within Learning and development, including yourself and now Nigel Paine, Bob Mosher, so many other industry leaders that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to have one on one conversations with if we weren't kind of necessarily in the 30 under 30. So I've already built a network of professionals that I can go to for support and advice in the future. And I think it's a really great idea to introduce people into that development and also enable them to grow in the future with that support behind them.
Stella:And I imagine also as the, the group of 30 under 30 that you're also your own growing network as well.
Georgia:Yeah. Personally, I'm working in Sea Salt as an own development coordinator. I've only actually been in the industry six months, but I've had great mentors at work which have enabled me to enhance my knowledge and skills of learning and development. And this is actually my first time in the learning technologies conference. So it's a little overwhelming, the amount of information there is to take in. But I'm really, really enjoying it.
Stella:And I know Georgia originally through her boss James Hampton who is a real learning and development enthusiast with a massive interest brain-friendly learning and about applying that within, what is quite a difficult context, within the retail sector because it's not like people have time to go and sit in classrooms or even to perhaps spend time doing e-learning, you're really having to learn on the job, arent' you?
Georgia:Exactly. Yeah. And the struggle that we're finding at the moment; because our stores are located throughout the UK, we want to be able to provide the same amount of learning to people in head office to our stores, our distribution center, customer services throughout the whole company. Because we'd like to be able to create a learning culture throughout the organization where everyone is self directed and is motivated to learn. So it's just finding that way of achieving that. And with your course, hopefully we'll be able to develop and understand how people learn and the best ways to approach it with them to keep them engaged and approach it that way.
Stella:So just for the listeners, Sea Salt are already using brain friendly learning. They've had a couple of sessions with us, we followed up and we're making sure that what we're trying to do is change the culture and to change it from a very much a learning as, you know, something that's imposed upon you. Something that you go and seek something you're looking for, something you're excited about. So it's that kind of culture shift we're looking for. So it's perhaps not just the the L&D team we will work with, but it's actually getting the learners to really feel passionate about wanting to learn and increase their own self development, I guess.
Georgia:Yeah, definitely. And I think it doesn't matter whether in Sea Salt you're a sales advisor or the chief financial officer, everyone would like that or we'd like to think everyone would like to continue learning. And I see learning as a never ending process and that you're always able to develop your skills and knowledge and kind of enhance your knowledge in certain areas or you can expand it to lots of different areas. I think we're moving into a world where there's less specialists and kind of more generalists and that there's a lot of people that know a lot about a lot of things rather than a lot about a certain specific areas. So I think that's a really exciting time to be a learning development and I'm really excited about the future.
Stella:Excellent. I'm sure you're aware there's a group of women in learning here at learning tech. What's been your experience of being a woman in the learning industry?
Georgia:I've come straight from university into Sea Salt, I started in recruitment there and the company Sea Salt specifically is very women orient orientated, in the sense that we're aimed at women who as our customer. But there's also a lot of women within the business as employees. And I've really felt that I've had a great start to my learning and development career as a woman. And it's great that places like learning technologies conference are able to embrace that and really kind of advertise that women and men are the same cause I don't necessarily think it's about women having more opportunities than men. It's just making them equal. And I'm trying to encourage that equality.
Stella:Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. It's about us all having being valued for the skills we bring. And sometimes that's different skills and sometimes it may be the same.
Georgia:I think it's interesting to have conversations with men though and see what they reflect on within learning and whether there's a difference of opinion with women as well. So it's an ongoing phase of just making sure that people see men and women as equal.
Stella:Excellent. What's some things that you're really passionate about learning for the future?
Georgia:I think for me, I'd really like to embed a self directed learning culture within Sea Salt and possibly other companies in the future. I think it's becoming more of a necessity rather than something that people would just like to do. I think there's a lot of negative connotations with apprenticeships and I'm really working hard at the moment to attract talent down to Cornwall through our graduate scheme and our apprenticeship scheme. And I think the stigma of apprenticeships really needs to change. I know there's T levels coming in which are slightly different, but it's having just been in national apprenticeship last week, I think there's a lot more that apprenticeships can offer businesses now than they used to. And with the new standards, I think that's really showing through. So I'm interested and really looking forward to promoting apprenticeships as a key asset to a business. I think leadership is massive for the future and enabling leaders of organizations to be able to use their skills effectively to inspire lower skilled employees to reach their level and ensure that there's trainings throughout the business for all levels.
Stella:I think that's really important, isn't it? We don't just train the leaders. We really need to train everybody at every point or at least help them learn, even if we're not training. It's about creating that learning environment.
Georgia:And through a kind of an engaging learning platform, I think you're able to do that if you do it right. So I think there's a lot of scope for being able to find different types of content to target different audiences and make them feel that they're worthwhile. So we've got a lot of part time staff within Sea Salt and we want them to feel as valued as our full time staff.
Stella:So it's not about having different content for different people or different methodologies. It's about making sure everybody feels valued.
Georgia:Yeah. And going back to personalization, which has been a big topic for learning& technologies. It's what they want to learn about and how they would like to develop their own skills and knowledge and really finding how we can help them to do that.
Stella:so I guess there's always a bit of a tussle or kind of a dichotomy between the idea of personalization. You know, I want to learn what I want to learn. When I first went into L& D it was very much,"yes, you can just learn anything you like", and then companies began to get people out learning flower arranging or basketball when actually what we need them to learn is some kind of technical skills. And I think there's that tussle between personalization but making sure that it's actually valuable for business.
Georgia:Oh yeah, definitely. It needs to align to the business and strategic goals and that's something that I'm trying to work on at the moment: when apprentices come to us and say that they'd like to study an apprenticeship, is this really business critical? With the support of my manager James, who's amazing. He's allowed me to kind of focus aligning the apprenticeships and all our training t o whether they meet the business goals and whether they're really going to ultimately drive sales and improve customer satisfaction.
Stella:Fantastic. Georgia, it's been a real pleasure to speak to you. I wish you the very best of luck with the 30 under 30 and your career. Please say hello. Say hello to James when you get back to Cornwell for us.
Georgia:I will do, and I'll be reading your book on the way home on the train.
Stella:Oh, great. Okay. Lovely to talk to you, Georgia. Bye.
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