Technology – learn it, because you will need it.
Technology became an integral part of our lives, not only in business.
Those of you, who are tech savvy and always out on the look for the newest gadgets, apps, coding language etc., be proud of yourselves, the current era is heaven for you – enjoy!
However there are quite some of us to whom it is not necessarily a passion or at least not to the highest level. However, don’t forget you are also using a lot of technology enabled things in your daily life (apps, self-cashier at the store etc.) and with the right motivation you can learn almost anything.
Remember, it is a journey 😉 As a sports person, I tend to think about life as a marathon or rather an ultra-run. Endurance, longevity and continuity is key just like in a marathon – half marathon – long distance biking – you name it. One step at a time.
As an HR professional I have always been advocating for learning and continuous self-development. Developing employees is in the interest of the organization as well. The better skilled the employees are, the better outcomes can be achieved.
On the other side, in the current era of up/re-skilling in our VUCA world it is important to learn things that are non-company related. Knowledge, that then becomes part of your unique selling proposition, transferrable, anything that one can cross-utilize regardless of employer, country, market whatever is important for your field and your own career aspirations.
To bring a personal example, I am currently looking into People Analytics more and more, while I listen to podcasts / TED talks and read HR related articles on a regular basis to stay up to speed with trends and news in my profession. I also have longer term goals in regards of learning some real technology related things in connection with my profession. I have found a few online courses about databases connected to analytics. I currently use mainly Coursera, where I have recently completed a People Analytics course, and I also would like to further deepen my excel knowledge. I always enjoyed playing with data downloaded from HR systems as I find talking facts & figures is the best way to drive fruitful dialogues with business leaders.
As for type of learning, pick whatever suits you the best!
In our technology enabled world we have the opportunity to learn through podcasts, videos, online learning platforms and applications and endless online available reading materials.
As a teaser and to get you started on dedicating your March for Technology, these are my questions to you:
- Name the two most used application/tech novelty/gadget, whatever, that you are using every day
- Name two that you have started to use during the last month
- And think of a new one that you will start to explore this month! 😉
S T R E T C H yourself a bit!
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