Corporate Employees – Empower yourselves with training and development

We live in an age where competition amongst peers and friends is the only constant. The formula to being a successful corporate employee is more than maintaining strong relations with influential people and possessing good networking skills. Proving your track record at performing on a corporate level, and showing the will to improve your existing state, matter even more.  As a corporate employee, continuous learning and development is not just beneficial to the organization, it is actually beneficial to you.

Think about it- Ancient China was known for its royal guards and commoners extensively practicing different forms of martial arts and perfecting the art of warfare. At first glance, it may seem like a common practice with the intention to protect the kingdom and all who lived within it, though this is true, the actual intention was to protect one’s life, family and belongings first, and what comprised of individuals empowering themselves individually, transpired into the collective strength of a kingdom.

We as corporate employees are the same when we strive to better ourselves at skills, knowledge, and attitude towards our work, we aren’t just empowering ourselves, we are empowering our organization as a whole. In return, we as individuals stand a better chance at being recognized within the corporate circles. It is firmly believed that geniuses and successful individuals have throughout the ages used every bit of free time to empower themselves, to them spending free time on anything but self-betterment is a catastrophic misuse of time.

Although in the modern times it is equally important to spend time on resting and leisure, it is still advisable to divide your total free time between self-development and fun. It is often the only differentiator between successful individuals and those who fall just short of it, and it is just a matter of you understanding why it’s important.

In this article, we take a look at how you as an employee can make a move towards self-betterment, while as an organization, how beneficial it is to support the employees in this wonderful venture. 

Ask your organization for the training you desire- Employees seldom appreciate the advantages of identifying areas of improvement and asking their employers for further training. As an employee actively interested in improving your work, asking your employers for work-related training, creates nothing but an opportunity spotted by the employer at further streamlining their current process. More often than not, they identify you as capable individuals, completely aware of the surroundings, and actively interested in improving it. When you bring training and development needs to the attention of your employers, it represents the characteristics of a natural leader, ready to introspect, learn, and adapt

Incentivize training-  Organizations looking to improve the overall quality of the workforce, understand the importance of learning and development; however, what they often miss out is incentivizing the training program. Incentivizing successful attempts at learning something new, with monetary or other methods of acknowledgments, motivate employees to actively participate and learn more. Promotions, recommendations, and increase in pay, when tied to successfully attempting and learning critical new skills, gives the employees a reason to learn and develop. However, employees must not associate monetary and other perks as the only incentive to train; most times, self-betterment, skill building, and improved knowledge base is incentive enough for you to pursue these goals.

Move to social learning- As growing up children, we often spent countless hours a week before our tests, learning and studying with close groups of friends and study buddies. This often resulted in a form of social learning, where we taught our buddy a topic we were good at, and they, in turn, would teach us something they are good at. This is a prime example of social learning, something we as adults have forgotten to harness. Sharing knowledge in a corporate social environment, amongst peers, can open a whole new world of possibilities. Think about it- we learn, witness, and experience something new on a daily basis. When all of us commit to sharing our varied everyday experiences, all of a sudden, we are armed with the information of 3 maybe 4 people. Harnessing the ability to learn socially in a corporate environment is genuinely advantageous. 

Introduce complex/high qualifying topics- Another dimension of learning is complexity and importance of the topics in question. Organizations and employees may sometimes be put off from introducing and learning complex topics. The reality, however, suggests, learning complex new topics and successfully mastering it, present a far greater reward structure with it. Organizations which introduce complex topics and incentivize its successful certification with increased chances of promotions, and responsibilities, not only identify and shortlist potential leaders; but, provide an opportunity for more individuals to attempt these certifications, further empowering the organization and its employees collectively. 

Provide technologically advanced training platforms- Organizations that realize the importance of training and development, many times are disheartened by the efforts involved with traditional training, mainly the costs, time, and energy. Learners sometimes find traditional training to be outdated as well, especially since the 21^st century way of consuming information and news is via the internet, online. What these organizations are increasingly realizing are the benefits of taking their training online in the form of eLearning courses hosted on advanced systems like the LMS. Embracing these concepts and allowing learners access to advanced technologies, will only make this endeavor more successful.

In conclusion, training and development should ideally start from you as an employee, as a method of proving yourself to be a valuable asset, instead of waiting for your organization to consider someone else as an asset, who actually took the time and effort to self-empower themselves. For organizations, training and development can never take a back seat, instead provide your keen learners with a reason and a means to pursue training, in the end, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.