October 23, 2018 at 3:27 pm
I think you need to think of yourself as a one person consultancy and plan accordingly; assume nothing is permanent and regularly review your current employer's performance. An employer who doesn't value investing in their employees doesn't sound very enlightened and probably not a good indicator that your future is very promising with them.
October 23, 2018 at 6:53 pm
All I can say is <headdesk><headdesk><facepalm> .
I'd also like to know when it became the employer's job to provide training for tasks on a job that the people were hired for because they supposedly had "experience" with such things. <headdesk><headdesk><facepalm> And how did these people "get the job" to begin with even though they can't even get the current date and time after 10 years on the job? <headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk><headdesk>
Steve, this is one of the best articles I've seen. People at least need to "try".
--Jeff Moden
October 23, 2018 at 7:31 pm
skeleton567 - Tuesday, October 23, 2018 6:47 AMFrom my perspective of being a retiree who spent 42 years in IT, I would have to recommend that you separate the education thing from your employment decisions. Granted it's a good thing when your employer will fund training and provide time. But in the long run, you may need to handle this by yourself. Over my time I had both employer funded training, and also did it for myself.Many states have community college systems which provide a pretty good selection of technical training in evening hours and at very reasonable cost. Several times during my working years there were technical changes that I wanted to explore or areas that I needed training in order to keep advancing. I often enrolled in evening classes, a couple times even driving 50 miles after work and having to arrive late, then drive 40 miles home arriving around 10 pm, in order to develop a new skill. Another time there was an opportunity which required me to learn Fortran very quickly. I obtained the software and several books, and taught myself enough in a month enough to get the position and a nice salary increase.
Especially now, with the availability that we have of software on our personal systems, there is little reason to delay your learning hoping your employer will do it for you. Take control for yourself. The cost of an evening class or two could be returned in the first couple months of a nice salary increase when you do make an employment change. Or, (horror of horrors) you may need to forego a vacation this year to take a class on your own.
These are decisions for which you need to take responsibility instead of sitting around and waiting for someone to do it for you.
"Besides - your employer benefits too much from your skills for it to be acceptable for them to simply sit back and assume you will absorb the entire burden.
That doesn't absolve me from my own training. That said - if any employer forces me to absorb my own training without any help chances are I will start training for my NEXT employer.
Obviously the goal of furthering your own training would be to help make it possible for you to actually land a position with that potential new employer. I spent 11 years in IT management, and I don't believe I ever hired anyone based on 'potential' skills after I paid for training. I hired the skills they already had, or at least the training with potential.
So yes, that is exactly my point - start training yourself for you next position.
Rick
One of the best days of my IT career was the day I told my boss if the problem was so simple he should go fix it himself.
October 24, 2018 at 4:34 am
carl.eaves - Tuesday, October 23, 2018 4:53 AMNot sure if it's the same over there, here in the UK a lot of companies will fund training but if you leave within a certain period of time you have to pay it back.
Company I work for pays for training up to a certain amount. We have a team dedicated to training employees about the business in all areas. They asked employees to record sessions and classes to help everyone understand the business. It's like we have a dedicated education portal we can take and get certified in different areas of the business. It's really cool. I've submitted a number of courses that I've developed to help others understand the basics of databases, ETL, machine learning, and so forth. By me doing this, it helps my non-technical co-workers understand how to talk with me and what I can do for them.
College is a big one that most of my co-workers love. We get that paid for as well up to a certain amount. One member of my team just completed his masters with it. He is way more educated than I will ever become. I'm glad the business has helped him achieve this. Now if only I could actually go back to school to take advantage of this offering too!
I have no fear in this neither does the organization. I wish more were like this. We should be helping people get to the next level regardless of what they may mean for us.
October 24, 2018 at 5:06 am
I've often wondered as to whether the model of offering university students (or even prospective university students) a starting position in a company with half of the university tuition covered by the company would work. The student would work half-time and the spend the rest of his/her time at lectures, smoking weed, preparing for exams etc. The student would be required to stay on at the company for a required length of time upon graduation. A win-win situation for both employee and employer.
This would give many companies access to students, graduates and the learning & rigour that are acquiring in university as well as easing the burdens of university fees and lack of work-experience on the young people in question.
October 24, 2018 at 6:05 am
Sean Redmond - Wednesday, October 24, 2018 5:06 AMI've often wondered as to whether the model of offering university students (or even prospective university students) a starting position in a company with half of the university tuition covered by the company would work. The student would work half-time and the spend the rest of his/her time at lectures, smoking weed, preparing for exams etc. The student would be required to stay on at the company for a required length of time upon graduation. A win-win situation for both employee and employer.This would give many companies access to students, graduates and the learning & rigour that are acquiring in university as well as easing the burdens of university fees and lack of work-experience on the young people in question.
I think that a whole lot of companies would look at that as a bad investment, in most cases, unless there were some serious cherry picking going on. Like you alluded to, not all students are created equal and to be saddled with a bad student or, more likely, several bad students and be stuck with paying for their education and performing poorly on the job.
I also think that a lot of students wouldn't want to be limited in such a fashion even if it proved of high benefit to them.
All of this has been tried in the past with different jobs and the results have been seriously mixed with a huge bulge at the "meh" level.
--Jeff Moden
October 24, 2018 at 7:59 am
Jeff Moden - Tuesday, October 23, 2018 6:53 PMSteve, this is one of the best articles I've seen. People at least need to "try".
Thanks, Mr. Moden.
I , too, struggle with people that don't try. You don't need to try all the time, but I'd think that you shouldn't much more than a year without learning something you'd put on your resume.
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October 24, 2018 at 11:55 am
For most of us in IT, there is no "Golden Parachute" or a $10k / month pension waiting for us when we turn 60. All we have to show for our work is a paycheck and the skills we accumulate along the way. If you're not learning, then you're robbing yourself of a future.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 31, 2018 at 1:09 pm
This reminds me of a quote I heard. Someone on TV was interviewing a business consultant, and he said: "There's one thing worse than training an employee and having him leave. That's not training him and having him stay!"
November 1, 2018 at 7:00 am
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
November 1, 2018 at 7:08 am
Eric M Russell - Thursday, November 1, 2018 7:00 AM...at the end of the day we all have to own our careers.
That right there is, I think, the most important thing. It's not on your employer to get you training, it's on you to get you training. If your employer will cover or help cover the costs of such? Bonus!
But it's up to you to pursue it.
November 1, 2018 at 7:50 am
jasona.work - Thursday, November 1, 2018 7:08 AMEric M Russell - Thursday, November 1, 2018 7:00 AM...at the end of the day we all have to own our careers.That right there is, I think, the most important thing. It's not on your employer to get you training, it's on you to get you training. If your employer will cover or help cover the costs of such? Bonus!
But it's up to you to pursue it.
Another point is that most technological innovation within an organization originates from the bottom and flows upward. As database professionals, we should be proactive and learn about things like Azure and analytics, so we can then make architectural recommendations to management. Passively waiting for management to provide training or innovate a better way of hosting servers means you're stuck in a boring career. Also, reacting to management's own attempts at innovation is chaos, because chances are you won't be included in the loop until all the decisions have been made, and you will have little time to catch up with your learning.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
November 1, 2018 at 7:59 am
wodom - Wednesday, October 31, 2018 1:09 PMThis reminds me of a quote I heard. Someone on TV was interviewing a business consultant, and he said: "There's one thing worse than training an employee and having him leave. That's not training him and having him stay!"
"Red" Adair said something similar... "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur".
--Jeff Moden
November 1, 2018 at 8:14 am
Eric M Russell - Thursday, November 1, 2018 7:50 AMAlso, reacting to management's own attempts at innovation is chaos, because chances are you won't be included in the loop until all the decisions have been made, and you will have little time to catch up with your learning.
Eric, I think you just nailed the whole argument for keeping your own training current. This is an excellent observation.
Rick
One of the best days of my IT career was the day I told my boss if the problem was so simple he should go fix it himself.
November 1, 2018 at 8:36 am
skeleton567 - Thursday, November 1, 2018 8:14 AMEric M Russell - Thursday, November 1, 2018 7:50 AMAlso, reacting to management's own attempts at innovation is chaos, because chances are you won't be included in the loop until all the decisions have been made, and you will have little time to catch up with your learning.Eric, I think you just nailed the whole argument for keeping your own training current. This is an excellent observation.
It's still a losing proposition: you can't go train in every craziness in hopes that this will be the crazy that someone will pick. So instead we will end up becoming short-term prospects since we just cede the field to being consigned to old, dead technologies.
A lot of other industries end up with a training need, requiring a training culture. Healthcare for one thing: you don't see nursing staff having to fight for every training program, since a. the org cannot run without them and.b they HAVE to keep up their training or cannot be treated as a nurse. It has to be a shared effort, and a shared conversation: knowledge workers need to stay current, and the orgs that need them need to help them stay current, whether by participating financial, giving you time to do self training, perhaps even just lightening your assignments for a little while to give you some thinking/study time, etc...
I firmly am a believer in the personal part of the shared responsibility, but at the same time I can't help but feel that we are our own worse enemy in terms of letting the status quo on training be acceptable.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
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