This Judge REALLY Hates Discovery… So He’s Just, Like, Not Going To Let Parties Do It Anymore
Talking About Mental Health at Work Is No Longer Taboo. It’s Essential
Creating a Learning Organization Is No Longer an Option– It’s a must.
The Magnificent Seven: Blunt Observations from Judge Jeffrey Cole
This has always been the key, but I suspect too many employees lacked the power to say it. Some of my best friends are people I met at work. I met my wife at work. Clearly, I am not against interacting with coworkers. I am, however, against anything that forces me to interact in a certain way with a group of people I didn’t choose to interact with.
That is just time spent doing a thing that isn’t important to me after we have spent the last couple of years learning how important it is to dedicate time to the important things.
Figure out what is important to your people and they will participate. Waste their time with frivolous nonsense, and they won’t. It’s really that simple.
The folks from this survey understand two things.
1. The skills they have today won’t be enough to be successful tomorrow. Technology is changing the work we do at an ever-increasing clip. If they are in a job that isn’t keeping pace, or giving them the opportunity to keep pace, it’s going to end badly for them.
2. If an organization isn’t recognizing the need for their talent to continuously learn it is not only offering a job without the kind of future they are seeking, but it’s probably not offering itself the kind of future it needs. People see this. Your top people know it’s true. They see a sinking ship long before you do. A ship that keeps doing what it’s always done without growing and adapting to change is sinking. Maybe not today, or the next year, but eventually, they know.
We all started somewhere. We all started in some entry-level jobs. We all learned and grew. Good workplaces develop their entry-level people, turning them into experts. It would be a shame to spend all that time developing people and then losing them because you never gave them the same respect they would immediately get by going somewhere else. Somewhere that never knew them when they were in an entry-level position.
The people who worked to learn and build their knowledge and skills deserve better.
It’s from Australia, but the part that I have looked at so far could be useful for everyone trying to figure out how to build and maintain a workplace that supports mental health. (Check your local laws, though, as the legal references are obviously related to Australian workplace safety rules)
This brings me to that final point. Having a learning culture requires a plan for each employee and for different types of jobs. It requires coordination between the official training department, managers, HR, and the subject matter experts throughout the organization. It may look a bit messy. It may include some mix of internal training, external resources, job shadowing, self-study, and group learning. I’d argue that a true culture that promotes and encourages learning would leave open all of those possibilities. I’d also argue that your training staff isn’t just there to teach classes but to provide and coordinate all of those options. They are there to “provide opportunities to learn and grow”, whatever those look like for all of your employees who wish to do so. They are key to retention but they cannot do it alone. The culture must reward and encourage learning and growth in meaningful ways or all the training staff in the world won’t make a difference.