This blog post was made in collaboration with Oriel Partners.

Creating a learning culture is easy to say and hard to do. Most teams want continuous learning, but training gets delayed, courses go untouched, and knowledge stays stuck.

PAs see this first-hand. They sit at the centre of the business, close to leaders and teams, juggling priorities while spotting where learning breaks down.

That position makes them powerful. More than organisers, PAs can be catalysts – turning learning from a side project into something woven into everyday work.

Read on, and you’ll see the practical ways PAs can make learning culture real.

What we mean by a learning culture

When I speak with business leaders, a theme comes up again and again: they know their people need to learn faster, adapt quickly, and build new skills. They also know this relies on more than training courses. 

A real learning culture is when learning feels like part of everyday work, not a separate task on a to-do list. It’s when knowledge is shared openly. When mistakes are treated as opportunities. When professional growth is actively encouraged.

The companies that achieve this develop skills, as well as building resilient, confident teams and an organisation ready for whatever comes next.

The barriers that hold learning back

In reality, most leaders struggle to turn good intentions into a strong learning culture.

• Time is the first obstacle. Training gets squeezed out by other responsibilities and everyday work.

• Resources are another. Budgets are limited, and existing processes often feel clunky or outdated.

• Then there’s confidence. Employees hesitate to admit skills gaps or step outside their comfort zone without psychological safety.

I see these challenges often. And I’ve also seen that PAs, sitting close to both leaders and teams, are uniquely placed to help overcome them.

How personal assistants enable a learning culture

I’ve spent years placing PAs into organisations, and I’ve seen how the role has changed. It’s no longer just about diaries and admin. Today’s PAs are problem-solvers, communicators, and connectors. A PA’s unique skill set makes them uniquely placed to enable learning, often in ways leaders don’t initially anticipate.

Here’s how PAs can become the backbone of a strong learning culture:

Championing knowledge sharing

Knowledge often gets lost or stuck in silos – tucked away in slide decks or shared only in passing conversations. PAs are in a rare position to unlock it. They move across teams, hear updates from leaders, and sit in meetings that not everyone has access to.

I’ve seen PAs create simple but powerful systems to spread that knowledge. 

• Some pull together weekly “learning roundups” to share new ideas across departments. 

• Others set up informal “lunch and learn” sessions where colleagues present recent projects.

These aren’t grand programmes, but they make learning visible and encourage people to share knowledge without overthinking it. When knowledge flows, employees feel confident to speak up, and fresh perspectives start shaping everyday work.

Embedding learning in day-to-day tasks

The strongest learning cultures don’t just rely on training sessions or online courses. They build learning into the flow of work. PAs can help here by weaving reflection and learning into existing processes.

• I’ve seen PAs suggest adding a quick “what did we learn?” moment at the end of project meetings. 

• Others keep a running record of lessons learned and circulate it for future reference. 

These small interventions turn routine tasks into learning opportunities, and when PAs do this consistently, they normalise continuous improvement. Employees stop seeing learning as an extra job on top of their responsibilities and start seeing it as part of their professional growth.

Organising training sessions and programmes

Training only works if it’s delivered well and followed up on. This is where PAs shine. Their organisational skills make them perfect for managing the logistics: 

• Scheduling training sessions

• Curating training content

• Ensuring employees have access to online courses

• Following up with employees after training 

A personal assistant could quite easily create a quarterly “learning calendar” that lists upcoming sessions, links to resources, and highlights when feedback is due. It sounds simple, but the result is likely better attendance, more engagement, and stronger accountability.

PAs can also leverage tools that reduce friction: for instance, using a platform like Coassemble to take existing documents or slide decks and turn them into engaging, interactive training content. That means less time reinventing material, more energy spent ensuring the learning sticks.

By taking ownership of these details, PAs help ensure training isn’t just a tick-box exercise but a genuine driver of employee development.

Helping business leaders model a growth mindset

Leaders often want their teams to embrace continuous learning, but they don’t always show it themselves. PAs can play an important role in changing that.

For instance, a PA might:

• Prompt their executive to share insights from a conference at the next team meeting.

• Build space into the leader’s schedule for reflection and knowledge sharing.

• Encourage managers to post a short “what I’m learning right now” note on internal comms channels.

These nudges may seem small, but they’re powerful. When employees see leaders openly developing their own skills, they feel more comfortable doing the same. That visibility is what transforms learning culture from words on a strategy document into lived behaviour.

Spotting skills gaps and allocating resources

Because PAs are so close to the day-to-day running of a business, they often spot issues before anyone else. They might notice that a team is struggling with a new tool, or that the same mistakes crop up in reports. These are signs of skills gaps, and PAs are in a perfect position to flag them.

In practice, this could mean:

• Suggesting targeted training sessions

• Sourcing online courses

• Feeding observations back to HR or L&D teams

• Reallocating time and resources so employees can focus on building specific skills

By surfacing these gaps early, PAs help organisations adapt quickly and prevent small issues from becoming systemic problems.

Fostering psychological safety

A learning culture can’t thrive without psychological safety. If employees don’t feel safe admitting what they don’t know, they won’t take risks, ask questions or share ideas.

PAs can quietly support this environment by:

• Encouraging open dialogue in meetings by ensuring everyone has a chance to speak. 

• Framing mistakes as learning opportunities rather than failures.

• Modelling vulnerability themselves by admitting when they don’t have an answer and showing that it’s okay to continue learning.

This creates a ripple effect. When employees see that curiosity and experimentation are valued, they’re more likely to step forward with new perspectives and ideas.

Keeping learning momentum alive

One of the biggest challenges leaders tell me about is sustainability. Training happens, enthusiasm is high, and then the energy fades. PAs can be the antidote to this drop-off.

I’ve seen PAs do the following:

• Send gentle reminders about applying new skills

• Follow up on action points from training sessions

• Set up short “refresher” check-ins weeks later

These small actions make learning stick. PAs are excellent at being the person who ensures knowledge is acted on, not forgotten.

Bridging communication channels

Finally, learning culture depends on clear communication. Employees need to know what opportunities exist and where to find resources. PAs are often the glue that holds these channels together.

They can:

• Manage team newsletters

• Keep shared drives updated with learning materials

• Post reminders in Slack or Teams

By making learning opportunities easy to find, PAs remove the friction that stops employees from engaging. In this sense, they act as facilitators, making sure learning isn’t hidden but front and centre in everyday communication.

Practical ways PAs can start today

Big changes often start with small steps. From what I’ve seen, the most effective PAs don’t wait for express permission; they spot simple ways to build learning into everyday work and act on it.

• Send a weekly learning note. A short email or Slack post highlighting a resource, new idea or lesson learned keeps knowledge moving without being overwhelming.
  
  

• Host a learning lunch. It doesn’t need to be formal,  just a space for colleagues to share insights from a recent project or online course.
  
  

• Add reflection time. Ending meetings with “what did we learn?” turns a routine catch-up into a moment of growth.
  
  

• Curate resources. Pull useful articles, training content or courses into a shared folder so employees know where to find them.
  
  

• Prompt leaders. A gentle reminder to share a takeaway from a conference or training session signals that learning is valued at every level.

These are light-touch actions. But when they’re done consistently, they help transform learning from an occasional event into part of the organisation’s DNA.

PAs can be essential enablers of learning culture

Taken together, these contributions make PAs an essential part of creating a learning culture. They connect people, embed reflection into daily routines, keep leaders accountable, and ensure knowledge flows. Without them, many of the best intentions leaders have about organisational learning would remain just that: intentions.

By recognising the impact PAs can have and giving them space to act, businesses unlock a thriving learning culture, one where employees continue learning, adapt quickly, and feel confident to grow.

And if you’re wondering whether to hire a PA, we’ve explored it in more depth here.