A learning organization

To stay relevant in the market, be ahead of the competition, and to attract/keep talent, the company’s members’ need to be continuously learning. If the members are not learning, they are not growing.

Most companies know that the employees are its biggest asset. What they know and how they act can differ greatly. Learning has to become a core part of a company’s DNA. It has to be embedded so strongly in the company that employees themselves are proactively learning new things and staying updated. The management needs to provide the right environment where learning is encouraged, incentivized, and acknowledged. Just a few people here and there sent off to a corporate training won’t move the needle.

Learning Day

Recently, I came across Learning Day on the OpenAI website. It said:

At OpenAI, each Thursday is Learning Day: a day where employees have the option to self-study technical skills that will make them better at their job but which aren’t being learned from daily work. 

Creating an environment of learning and making it part of their DNA is a powerful initiative by any company. College degrees can help you get a foot in the door but it won’t help you thrive once you’re inside the door. As continuous learning becomes ever more crucial, the employees and companies that will stay ahead of the game are the ones that take learning seriously, really seriously. Companies that take their employees’ learning and growth seriously spend more on training, calculate its ROI, push each other to become better, and make it a part of their work schedule like OpenAI.

Some stats:

Average training expenditures for large companies increased from $17 million in 2017 to $19.7 million in 2018. The number for midsize companies rose $600,000 to $2.1 million in 2018. But small companies decreased from $1 million to $355,731 (back to slightly below the 2016 level). Source: 2018 TRAINING INDUSTRY REPORT