Colin Willis

72 points

Denver, CO

Colin Willis is an industrial organizational psychology consultant at HireVue. He recently obtained his doctorate in IO psychology, where his research focused on studying learning at work. Colin is an avid supporter of using science, data, and technology to improve the workplace.

Open Enthusiast Author

Authored Content

Building an organization that's always learning: Tips for leaders

Research shows that informal learning is essential in open organizations. How can we measure and foster it?

Become a lifelong learner and succeed at work

In open organizations with cultures of adaptability, learning should be continuous—and won't always happen in a formal setting. Do we really understand how it works?

Authored Comments

colinwillis

23 Jul 2019

Building an organization that's always learning: Tips for leaders

Thanks, James!

I didn't have any turnover data (the study only included active employees and no follow-up on turnover). I did look at how one's opinion about the learning culture in the organization affected their subsequent learning and performance. The results were inconclusive on that front, but I did find clusters of different perceptions - a negative cluster and two positive clusters. Those who had a negative opinion also reported less engagement in learning. Based on prior research, I'd expect that those two things feed into one another (less learning on-the-job leads to negative perceptions about learning culture, which in turn lead to less engagement in learning, and so on). I'd hypothesize that those people are more likely to leave the organization (due to a perceived lack of support, fewer opportunities for growth and development, etc) but data is certainly needed to test that claim. Interesting idea!