5 ms·

I think that your company had to send its employees off to formal education in a classroom (or similar) setting is indicative of the problem highlighted by the

by uiri 9y ago

I think that your company had to send its employees off to formal education in a classroom (or similar) setting is indicative of the problem highlighted by the person you are replying to. Your employees would not have been anywhere near as successful with some combination of textbook, lectures on video (e.g. on VHS), and a study group made up of other employees. Lifelong learning means being able to acquire new knowledge and skills outside of the traditional educational setting. Often, a University will claim that its students are not there to learn specific subjects but to learn how to learn. A lot of that learning is studying and solving problems outside of lecture time. These are the skills which are lacking because of a cultural perception that learning happens in a class.

dv_dt 9y ago
I think the resources of the employee are more the constraint than the manner of education - especially on the low end of the salary scale, both money but also available and/or ofsettable time. Without support of the employer, especially hourly employees would have a much more difficult time re-training.
- KGIII 9y ago
  In our case, they were still given adequate salary. "I want to learn to..." "What do you need from me in order to...?" I've covered everything from salary to child care. By the way, the costs for salary and benefits were a fairly small percentage of overhead. A decent print room can be more expensive than even the highest paid employee.
  - dv_dt 9y ago
    That is wonderful, but I feel that employers with the wisdom to implement policies like yours have been shrinking in number. I think this is something of the consequence of making every person individually carry their own financial weight, resulting in bad public and private policies in a number of areas. But it's the pressure on businesses to extract maximized profit in their 'core competitve area' too... it leads naturally to the thought that employees should pay their own time and money for their own training. I think every suffers a little loss of efficiency in that way.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      I have no control but I am pretty positive that doing this sort of stuff resulted in great profits and value for the company. We had a trivial amount of turnover. I opened in 1991, but really started hiring in 1995. I sold for a decent nine digit sum in 2007. In that amount of time, I can recall fewer people leaving than I have fingers and toes. In the end, we had a bit over 225 people and offices in three States. I am lacking a control group, and I haven't the ethics to make one, but I'm convinced this was what enabled us to do what we did, as well as we did it. I'm not very articulate, so I hope that helps. It bothers me to hear that people don't have their company invest in them. It wasn't me who made it all work, it was them who enabled me to go much further.
KGIII 9y ago
I am addressing the part about not being lifelong learners. My experience suggests this is not quite accurate and that people will do so, if they can.
- jasode 9y ago
  >I am addressing the part about not being lifelong learners. I'm not disagreeing with you but I do want to point out that your semantics of "lifelong learner" is not the same as msluyter's: msluyter's "lifelong learner": self-directed, self-motivated learning driven by inner curiosity. Perhaps another word would be auto-didact[1]. KGIII's "lifelong learner": the learner's brains can continue to receive new knowledge well into old age especially if an outside factor (e.g. you the employer) provide structured education Your definition isn't wrong... but it differs from msluyter's so you're talking past each other. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Maybe? In this case, it was they who took the initiative - I just provided the means. If that makes any sense?
  - watwut 9y ago
    The "motivated by curiousity" part should be irelevant imo and so should be preference for self direction as opposed preference for classroom setting. More meaningful definition is the one about what the person does - continuously learning whole life. Whether it is curiosity or feeling of duty or attempt to mimic some role model in the past or pragmatical strategy should not matter.

by uiri 9y ago

dv_dt 9y ago

I think the resources of the employee are more the constraint than the manner of education - especially on the low end of the salary scale, both money but also available and/or ofsettable time. Without support of the employer, especially hourly employees would have a much more difficult time re-training.

KGIII 9y ago
In our case, they were still given adequate salary. "I want to learn to..." "What do you need from me in order to...?" I've covered everything from salary to child care. By the way, the costs for salary and benefits were a fairly small percentage of overhead. A decent print room can be more expensive than even the highest paid employee.
- dv_dt 9y ago
  That is wonderful, but I feel that employers with the wisdom to implement policies like yours have been shrinking in number. I think this is something of the consequence of making every person individually carry their own financial weight, resulting in bad public and private policies in a number of areas. But it's the pressure on businesses to extract maximized profit in their 'core competitve area' too... it leads naturally to the thought that employees should pay their own time and money for their own training. I think every suffers a little loss of efficiency in that way.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I have no control but I am pretty positive that doing this sort of stuff resulted in great profits and value for the company. We had a trivial amount of turnover. I opened in 1991, but really started hiring in 1995. I sold for a decent nine digit sum in 2007. In that amount of time, I can recall fewer people leaving than I have fingers and toes. In the end, we had a bit over 225 people and offices in three States. I am lacking a control group, and I haven't the ethics to make one, but I'm convinced this was what enabled us to do what we did, as well as we did it. I'm not very articulate, so I hope that helps. It bothers me to hear that people don't have their company invest in them. It wasn't me who made it all work, it was them who enabled me to go much further.

KGIII 9y ago

I am addressing the part about not being lifelong learners. My experience suggests this is not quite accurate and that people will do so, if they can.

jasode 9y ago
>I am addressing the part about not being lifelong learners. I'm not disagreeing with you but I do want to point out that your semantics of "lifelong learner" is not the same as msluyter's: msluyter's "lifelong learner": self-directed, self-motivated learning driven by inner curiosity. Perhaps another word would be auto-didact[1]. KGIII's "lifelong learner": the learner's brains can continue to receive new knowledge well into old age especially if an outside factor (e.g. you the employer) provide structured education Your definition isn't wrong... but it differs from msluyter's so you're talking past each other. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism
- KGIII 9y ago
  Maybe? In this case, it was they who took the initiative - I just provided the means. If that makes any sense?
- watwut 9y ago
  The "motivated by curiousity" part should be irelevant imo and so should be preference for self direction as opposed preference for classroom setting. More meaningful definition is the one about what the person does - continuously learning whole life. Whether it is curiosity or feeling of duty or attempt to mimic some role model in the past or pragmatical strategy should not matter.