04 Apr Continuing Education: What you should be learning to shine at work
No matter your job description, there will always be the need and opportunity for you to continue to grow your knowledge and skill base. Introducing: Continuing Education.
While in some cases this means industry-specific skills and knowledge, such as going to conferences, attending seminars, or completing courses, it also means personal development. Persisting on your own journey to improve your overall skills and abilities to continue to perform at your best at work will pay dividends over even a relatively short period of time.
Here are some areas that you can focus on to help you shine on the job!
Leadership skills
Whether you’re already a leader in your position or want to grow into a leadership role, growth in this skill set is an asset to any job position.
Learning how to be a good leader takes time and practice. One of the best ways to learn may be to find a mentor or coach who you admire as a good leader – they’re likely to be happy t help you.
It’s also important to understand what your existing strengths are in a leadership capacity. Identify them, then play to these strengths when it comes to personal growth and development.
While working on your weaker areas is an important part of becoming a great leader, part of your ability as a leader comes from knowing when you can excel at tasks, and when you should pass tasks off to others. Learning to properly delegate is a great place to start.
Time management and productivity
There is an increasing amount of content that encourages you to examine your productivity and time management abilities.
In a world filled with constant distraction and constant connection, it can be difficult to even recognize times when your productivity levels drop. Maybe you spent the last hour on Facebook instead of working on your day’s assignments. Did you realize you were scrolling around for that long? Oops.
Address this by spending some time on blogs or information sites about time management and efficiency. For some offline learning, look into some books you can read to help you improve your skills. A couple great places to start: Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World) or Four Hour Work Week.
In addition, there are tons of seminars and courses offered on productivity. Consider speaking with your employer about attending a few that are relevant to your role and industry. You could even suggest bringing in someone to facilitate a workshop for the whole office, since improving productivity will benefit your entire team’s operations.
Technological advances
With the rapid rate of change in technology, success in any job (in any industry) requires competency and skills in areas of technology and digital practices.
It may be the ability to design websites and run online platforms. Perhaps you may lean toward the ability to successfully run a company’s social media account. It may even be something as straight forward as the ability to understand and use specific software and computer programs (IT, anyone?).
Whatever it is, it’s important to stay up to speed with technology and continue to learn the necessary skills and changes as they occur.
Technology advances too quickly, programs and algorithms shift too rapidly, and new updates happen too frequently for you to fall behind on the technological side of your job. Continuing your education in this field should be a top priority when it comes to you growing and developing in the workplace.
With these potential areas of improvement in mind, start thinking about where you could most benefit from furthering your education. From there, speak to your employer about working together to find opportunities for you to learn, develop, grow, and shine!
