By Aniruddha Guha Sarkar, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Interra Information Technologies Inc.

 

The corporate industry is constantly changing. In this constantly changing and competitive environment, where companies are trying to be the best in the market, both the employer and the employee needs to make constant efforts to be creative and innovative and stay up to date.

 

Lifelong learning is an indispensable tool for every employee and organization. In this ever-growing competitive environment, it has become important for organizations to promote learning and improving the skills of existing employees as per industry standards. It is only when the organization promotes learning as a culture, employees get the essence of being valued and that they are an important part of the organization. This does in return help in improving the productivity of the employee and reduces redundancy. Constantly improving one’s skill set and continuous learning improves the capability of both the employee and the employer.

 

In order to reach the next level, employees need to develop themselves. It is only by proving oneself is how one can reach the next level. The concept of reaching the next leave should not be because of the fact that he/she has been at that level for some years. Employees need to constantly prove themselves and should make some contribution to the organization.

 

Continuous learning

Employees get encouraged to work harder if there is continuous learning. So, in order to improve the productivity of the employee and to reduce the redundancy, an organization should promote in-house learning and skill development as a culture. This makes employees feel valued and important and part of the organization. This helps in the outcomes.

 

Knowledge and information, on anything and everything, is now available at everyone’s fingertips. Not utilizing this opportunity will make employees remain where they are. Organizations must have certain objectives when it looks at skill development and Continuous Learning.

 

When looking at building the human capital pool, it should be built on the vision and objectives set by the organization. Organizations must see that employees are up to date in terms of skilling and continuous learning. Since such an investment by the organization is made towards its employees, it becomes important for the employees to implement that in their work. An evaluation must be done of employees who have undergone such development training. Training received must benefit both the employer and the employee.

 

One feels motivated to work harder when they feel that they have grown and have developed certain skillsets. Encouragement is seen as an investment which brings actual returns. It is very important that employees are made wanted and valued and gives the opportunity to grow and show what they are capable of.

 

Improvement in skills and continuous learning increases the confidence in that person and does not need any kind of assurance from their peers. The brand value increases due to additional knowledge. Different and difficult situation and problems can be solved if employees are able to think out of the box.

 

Individual learning and skilling at the end of the day help the team as a whole. Knowledge and skills gained by individual employees must share his knowledge with his peers and help others to grow. Constantly keeping updated to what is happening around, it helps change one’s perspective and changes the attitude of the person.

 

Learning and innovation go hand in hand. Yesterday’s success will not be sufficient for tomorrow.

Managers need to be the key to unlock the potentials hidden within employees and team member. Managers should be the ones who need to encourage/motivate their team members to constantly learn and upgrade their skills. Whether a team leader or a manager, it is an important part of their jobs to develop a team. It is not only for freshers, but it is important that existing employees constantly train and develop themselves with new skillsets and work effectively to sustain in the industry.

 

It is important to get into the habit of reading something which will help in advancing your knowledge. Employees need to take it a habit of taking out some time from their busy schedules and reading something. One needs to build a good and strong network of experts and ask constant questions about the innovations, updates and recent trends taking place in their respective domains. This will also help one to become a member of an association, where one get access to experts from other companies in the same domain.

 

Something new can be learned every day if one does his/her own research about the recent trends and what other organizations are doing. One also needs to observe what’s happening around him. At the end of the day, it is important that the knowledge gained be implemented/applied.

 

Keep updated

Talking from an IT service firm perspective, as technology is being invented every moment, it becomes all the more essential for employees to keep themselves updated and update their skills to meet the industry perspective.

 

It is always expected that employees have a curious attitude. Employees should explore different topics and should not be afraid to get clarity. Support will be all the way ones career if the employee is inquisitive in gaining knowledge and the intent is sincere.

 

A piece of advice will be that experiment and try new things and keep the momentum going.