Working learning gap – good intentions are not enough

Why good learning resolutions fail in everyday working life and what we can do about it

Monday, 8:00 a.m., freshly showered and full of energy: ‘This week, I’m finally going to learn the new software that’s been flashing on my desktop like a forgotten Christmas tree for three months.’

Friday, 5:30 p.m., tired and exhausted: The icon is still flashing – and you’ve clicked on it exactly zero times this week, but you’ve answered 47 ‘urgent’ emails and talked about meetings in 23 meetings.

Welcome to the club of failed learning resolutions! You are not alone. In fact, you are a member of a very exclusive, but unfortunately far too large, community of people who suffer from what is known as the working learning gap. That sounds very scientific and important, but it actually just describes what you were just thinking: ‘Damn, I didn’t do it again.’

The good news? It’s not because of your character, your discipline or the fact that you secretly prefer watching cat videos (although they can be very educational). It’s because of the system, and systems can be changed.

What is the working learning gap?

Imagine you are standing in front of a gorge. On one side is a sign that says ‘working’ – there await your daily tasks, pressing deadlines, colleagues who ‘just have a quick question’ and, of course, your boss, who wonders why the project isn’t finished yet. On the other side is another sign: ‘learning’ – where exciting new skills, innovative approaches and the good feeling of finally understanding something new await.

Between the two sides lies a deep gorge: the working learning gap. And while you’re still thinking about how to get across, someone from the work side calls out: ‘Where are you? There’s a fire!” So you jump back to your familiar tasks, and the learning side is postponed for another day.

The nasty thing about it is that, unlike other learning problems, it’s not about you having learned something wrong at school. It’s about the fact that you know what you need to learn, you just can’t find the when and how in your busy working day.

The working learning gap is therefore the discrepancy between your honest intention to continuously educate yourself and the harsh reality of a schedule that looks like a game of Tetris just before game over. And unlike private learning, where you can decide in the evening on the sofa whether you’d rather watch Netflix or take an online course, your professional future is at stake here.

When good intentions collide with reality

To understand how treacherous this working learning gap is, let’s take a look at a typical day in the office – let’s call our protagonist Max Mustermann (a name as creative as his learning plans are sustainable).

Max works in the IT department of a medium-sized company. His job: to keep the company running smoothly from a technical perspective. Sounds simple, right? The problem: the software world spins faster than a hamster in a wheel after three espressos. Every day there are new updates, features, tools – and Max is expected to be up to date, of course.

Monday, 7:55 a.m.: After a relaxing weekend, Max starts up his computer feeling motivated and sees 17 new notifications about updates. ‘Great,’ he thinks, ‘I’ll work my way through them this morning.’

Monday, 8:03 a.m.: ‘Max, can you take a look? My computer is making strange noises.’ (It’s the fan. It’s always the fan.)

Monday, 11:47 a.m.: After four more ‘just a quick’ requests, Max finally makes it back to his desk. Even the great ticket system doesn’t really help. The updates are still waiting. But now it’s almost lunchtime…

Monday, 2:30 p.m.: ‘Max, we really need to talk about the new project!’ His boss understands his work and the prioritisation of requests, unlike the department that commissioned the project. So, meeting until 4:00 p.m. After that, he has to process two tickets marked as ‘urgent’.

Monday, 5:45 p.m.: Max looks at the update notifications that are still unread. ‘Tomorrow,’ he thinks. ‘Tomorrow for sure.’

This story repeats itself every day – not only for Max, but for millions of professionals worldwide. The paradox is that the more important continuous learning becomes (and it is becoming increasingly important, even or especially in the age of AI), the more difficult it is to find time for it. It’s like trying to read a book while someone is constantly turning the light on and off and commenting loudly on it.

It becomes particularly bitter when Max attends conferences – in the hope of finally getting some input there. But instead of inspiring lectures on the latest technologies, he hears the same thing over and over again during coffee breaks: ‘I just can’t keep up anymore. Developments are so fast, I don’t even know where to start.’ And everyone nods sympathetically, because they all know the problem.

Self-directed learning: miracle cure or misunderstanding?

And then it comes, the supposed solution to all problems: self-directed learning!

The term sounds modern, efficient and, above all, cost-effective. Many companies have discovered it for themselves and are surprised by what they have actually found.

Misconception No. 1: The penny-pinching approach

The mindset: ‘Why hire expensive trainers when our employees can learn on their own? They’re all adults and motivated!’

The reality: Max is given access to an e-learning platform with 2,847 courses and the friendly message: ‘Choose what is relevant to you. You now have the freedom to learn at your own pace!’

Max stares at the course list like a deer in the headlights. Where should he start? What is really important? And when is he supposed to do all this between the ‘just a quick’ requests and the urgent tickets?

The result: Max clicks through the platform once, marks three courses and never opens them again. The company (apparently) saves money, Max learns nothing, and everyone is frustrated. Mission successfully failed.

Misconception No. 2: The self-organisation trap

Even more insidious is the idea that self-directed learning can solve two problems at once:

• Problem A (individual): Max is poorly organised and cannot manage his learning time.
• Problem B (organisational): Max is working on five projects at the same time, has no idea how much of his time to invest where, and is given new ‘urgent’ tasks every day that push everything else aside.

The supposed solution: ‘Max needs to learn to organise himself!’

This is like advising someone standing in a burning house to simply learn better time management so that they can calmly plan the firefighting efforts. Self-organisation cannot help Max when his boss sets new priorities for him every day or when there has not been a single free slot in his calendar for three months.

Overcoming the working learning gap

Here’s a revolutionary idea: what if learning doesn’t have to be a lonely endeavour? What if it actually works better when you don’t do it alone?

The efficiency-effectiveness twist

Imagine Max is a super-efficient learner. He gets up at 6:00 every morning, does his online course and acquires new knowledge. After a month, he’s an expert on the new tool. Mission accomplished!

But wait, what about his four colleagues who also need the same tool? They’re doing their own courses in parallel, stumbling over the same problems and (hopefully) finding the same solutions. Five people, five times the same work. That’s efficient for the individual, but pretty ineffective for the team.

Better idea: Max learns the tool and then explains it to his colleagues. Why is this brilliant?

1. Max understands it better: if you explain something to others, you have to have really thought it through. (Try explaining to someone how to ride a bike, and you’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know.)
2. Colleagues learn faster: Half an hour of explanation from someone who has just had the same problems is often worth more than three hours of video tutorials.
3. The team becomes stronger: Shared knowledge brings people together and ensures that everything doesn’t fall apart when Max is on holiday.

The end of training rewards

It used to be like this: “Max, you’ve been particularly hard-working this year and have shown great commitment. As a reward, you can go to the expensive conference (or expert training course) in Munich!” Max went, listened to interesting lectures, ate well and came back with a stack of ideas (as well as 1.5 kilos more on the scales) and good intentions.

What happened to his new knowledge? It disappeared into his head like holiday photos on a forgotten hard drive. The company had spent a lot of money, Max had had a great time, but no one benefited in the long term.

New rule: Those who learn, share. Max attends the conference (training course) and then reports back to the team. He summarises the most important findings, discusses them with his colleagues and considers together what can be implemented in the company. The personal goal from Max’s end-of-year review is then not ‘attend conference xyz,’ but ‘develop a plan and share knowledge on topic abc with colleagues.’

Suddenly, a single investment becomes a multiplier effect. And Max? He understands the content much better through explaining and discussing it than if he had just listened passively.

Self-organisation requires organisation

It sounds paradoxical, but it’s true: in order for people to learn in a self-organised way, someone has to create the organisation for it. It’s like agile teams: they don’t just suddenly become self-organised, they need a framework, rules and sometimes a Scrum Master to make sure the framework is adhered to. Because self-organisation also requires (surprise, surprise!) leadership.

For self-directed learning, this means that someone has to block out learning times, moderate learning groups and ensure that ‘learning’ is not the first thing to be cancelled when a project gets dicey. That’s a modern leadership task to overcome the working learning gap, right?

Practical solutions for companies and employees

Enough of the (humorous) theory, what can you actually do? Here are a few approaches that really work (and that you haven’t already read about in 47 other productivity articles):

For managers: From lip service to a culture of learning

1. Learning time is working time – period! Stop saying, ‘Just learn on the side.’ That’s like saying, ‘Just breathe on the side while you’re underwater.’ Block out real learning time in the calendar (for your employees) and defend it against all ‘urgent’ requests and projects.

2. The product development trick: A clever manager once told his employees: ‘You all also have the job of further developing our processes and tools. To do that, you need learning time.’ Suddenly, learning was no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ but an official work assignment. Ingenious, right?

3. Make project workload realistic: If Max is working on five projects at the same time and is also supposed to learn on the side, that’s not a self-organisation problem, it’s poor personnel planning (aka weak leadership). Take an honest inventory: Who is working what percentage on which projects? You’ll be surprised and hopefully come up with some measures.

4. Systematic learning groups: Form teams that regularly exchange new insights. But not as an additional appointment, rather as an integral part of existing meetings. Fifteen minutes of ‘What have we learned this week?’ can work wonders. With this approach, the working learning gap will become smaller week by week.

For employees: From victim to learning hero

1. The category hack: Instead of saying ‘I still have to learn this tool,’ create a higher-level category. For example: ‘I am developing our customer service.’ Suddenly, learning is no longer an isolated add-on, but part of a larger, important project. It is still important to break down the overall goal into smaller intermediate goals.

2. The 15-minute rule: Forget about large learning blocks, they don’t work anyway. Instead: 15 minutes every day before you open your emails! In a year, that’s over 60 hours of learning time. And 15 minutes is so short that no one can interpret it as ‘laziness.’

3. Learning by explaining: Find a learning partner and explain new concepts to each other. This even works via video call if you’re working from home. Two people, double the learning success, half the time.

4. The experimental attitude: Stop seeing learning as a heavy duty. See it as an experiment: ‘Let’s see if this works.’ Experiments are allowed to go wrong; that’s the whole point. It helps immensely to formulate a hypothesis for the experiment. The aim is to prove it. If not, it’s no problem: there’s still a result. And if it goes really wrong? That’s fine too! Every crash landing is training for more resilient wings.

For everyone: Structural changes

1. Develop a culture of error: Create an atmosphere where it’s okay to say, ‘I don’t know that yet, but I can learn it.’ Nothing kills motivation to learn as effectively as the fear of appearing ignorant.

2. Introduce reflection rituals: Once a month, 30 minutes: What have we learned? What worked? What didn’t? Where did we fall into the working-learning gap trap? Honest reflection without blame. And please: the monthly learning-about-learning session is not a coffee break, it is the pulse of your learning culture.

3. Measure learning time: What gets measured gets done. But be careful: don’t measure the hours spent on the learning platform, measure the actual knowledge transfer. Did Max explain the new tool to three colleagues after his course? That’s a success!

Conclusion and outlook: From the gorge to the bridge

The working learning gap is real, annoying and frustrating, but it is not insurmountable. The problem is not that people are lazy or don’t want to learn. It is because of systems that treat learning as a luxury, even though it has long since become a necessity.

The good news is that systems can be changed. All it takes is the courage to take an honest look and say, ‘Okay, our current approach isn’t working. Let’s try something new.’ When learning becomes part of your company’s (or your department’s or team’s) DNA, development and adaptability are no longer add-ons, but the operating system.

The even better news is that you don’t have to wait for your company or your boss to solve the problem. You can start today – with 15 minutes, a learning partner, or the simple decision to explain something new to a colleague the next time you learn it.

The working learning gap is a gorge, but gorges can be bridged. All it takes is the right materials, a little planning, and the realisation that bridges are best built together.

And who knows? Maybe in a year’s time, you’ll look back and think, ‘Funny, I used to find learning so difficult. Today, it’s just part of my everyday life.’

Notes:

PS: By the way, if you’ve read this article to the end, you’ve just invested about 15 minutes in learning something about learning. See? It’s already working!

And if you’re interested, here’s an informative podcast episode in German by Dierk Söllner with Simon Qualmann for further inspiration: https://www.dierksoellner.de/lebenslanges-lernen-ganz-nebenbei/

Would you like to discuss overcoming the working learning gap as an opinion leader? Then share this post in your network.

Dierk Soellner has published more posts on the t2informatik blog, including