Don't Compromise!

In the UK, this week is Adult Learners’ Week. We may all use phrases like ‘lifelong learning’ and ‘the University of Life’, but there’s still a lot of ignorance in the world – and, as school reports used to say ‘there is plenty of room for improvement’ – so any initiative that promotes learning gets our vote.

As NIACE point out:

Adult Learning develops skills and increases knowledge; research also shows that learning is good for your health and mind. It’s a great way to maintain a healthy and motivated workforce.”

As a company that provides learning and development interventions to other organisations, we’ve always been conscious that failing to keep up our end would mean we’re not practising what we preach. (We hope we don’t need a sentence that says ‘we take learning seriously’, but for those that need it spelling out …) We also believe learning should be engaging and fun, and our experience of Adult Learners’ Week 2008 seems to bear that out.

Last year, we developed a theme of work/life balance, and explored a range of topics that included IT, the environment, culture and health. Using a whole range of communication styles – to reflect different preferences amongst our staff – we learnt about touch typing, email best practice, recycling, 360 degree feedback and our carbon footprint. We found time for running/calorie counters, wines, smoothies and chess too.

Some of these activities meant those of us whose daily work doesn’t involve direct client contact got to experience aspects of our work as our customers do. Some opened up a knowledge sharing culture, and other were morale boosters – fun does have its places, and we’d like to think our offices are one of them.

We evaluated the face to face sessions we held, and scored 4.6 out of 5 – worth a round of applause, if only from ourselves. We also come out of the week not just more willing to teach and learn from each other, but with a recycling bin and splinter-free benches too. We’re grateful, the planet is grateful, and those bits of us that used to get splinters are happier too.

For 2009, we’ll be sending each other email tips of skill sharing, managing information, visualisation (some of us can be a little er … wordy), and internal communications, and focusing on our soft skills and our readiness to learn (all in line with themes of this year’s Learning at Work Day, taking place on Thursday.) And we’ll be setting up a book swap scheme too. We’ve already discovered a lot of hidden talents and previously unknown passions and enthusiasms, and we’ve learnt about each other as well as from each other.

And you still have two days till Learning At Work Day. If you’d like to take a few simple steps to a more skilled, healthier, motivated workforce, there’s one simple message – take them. Lifelong learners are generally, happier, more skilled, healthier and have better jobs. Your and your team have the rest of your lives ahead of you, so why not get started?

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