Having your own time to try out whatever you like is immensely helpful for a developer, thats why at the companies I work for I campaign (successfully for now)

Having your own time to try out whatever you like is immensely helpful for a developer, thats why at the companies I work for I campaign (successfully for now) to have “learning days”. You do whatever coding / learning you want, but you are obligated to share your discoveries with your colleagues. Companies benefit with more motivated, engaged and loyal employees, and you get to progress as a dev. Sometimes managed to convince people to do this once a week, sometimes once a month, or somewhere in between. For example now I’m doing it once a fortnight. Everyone recognizes that learning is an integral part of the profession, so I think companies should really accommodate that, rather than expect people to carve out personal time for it.