Hi Laura.  This is a bit of a common problem wherever I have worked and I have done a couple of things which I hope might help you.  The first is to include attendance as an objective or priority in your performance management system.  I use an on-line system here and I can add objectives in to people’s objectives direct from HR (after letting people know first).  In that way you signal the importance of attendance to the organisation and it becomes something for discussion between the manager and staff member at check in time.

The other thing I have done is to include it as part of the development outcomes as part of a Talent Review process.  Again you signal the importance, and gain agreement among the senior leaders in the TR process that the programme is considered to be part of the person’s development.  I have also made completion a condition for promotion – this ca be more controversial but it certainly gets people involved in the discussion – which is definitely an outcome you want.

Hope that helps in some way.

Good luck.

Hi Laura

We do the same as Martin has suggested above and it has improved attendance.  On the point about it being shown as important, it has made people more willing to attend rather than it being a tick box exercise for them.

Hi Laura,

We agree that it can sometimes be hard to get leaders to take their own development seriously. A few things that you could do to support a self-owned, learning culture:
– Make learning attractive and appealing: For example, consider giving it a clever name or make it compelling so people want to do it. O2 have what they call ‘learning shots’- giving away the bite-sized nature of their content and making it sound fun. To get people to consider other ways of learning apart from the traditional classroom-based training, Deutsche Bank created a multi-channel engagement campaign, ‘What will you learn today?’, which emphasised the message that learning something of value doesn’t mean time in a classroom.
– Personalise it: Could there be some benefit to finding out how your leaders want to learn? That way you can provide learning content that suits the varying needs of your learners. Consider using a short Typeform survey asking your people how they like to learn – on the job, through mentoring, videos, books, etc. and what skills they want to develop and then use this to decide your next steps. The key is driving people to own learning at the point of need and providing choice so they can learn what they want and in a way that suits them best.
– Create the right learning environment: Consider creating an opportunity for community learning for your leaders or at least a place for them to connect and share. The L&D team at Service Titan created a ‘learn2lead’ channel on Slack where the L&D team and leaders can post LinkedIn learning content and other useful leadership development resources – building a community of learning and sharing.
At Getty Images, they have a custom of ‘WeLearn Wednesdays’ where every Wednesday, they share one recommended Udemy course through Slack, their internal social media platform. One especially effective tactic included having a senior leader share what she was learning by posting a photo of herself learning at her desk on Slack.
– And finally, the key maybe in using the ‘pull not push’ technique so try and showcase the leaders who have undergone the training and use them as an example to show how they have used the training to make a positive change in their team.

Hope this helps! Good luck

Sun