Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it • Hacker News Board

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#91

Post by settsu » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

My entire professional "office" career, if not my entire working experience since starting full time as a bicycle mechanic at 16 years old, has been wholly reliant on the opportunities to do something I wasn't perfectly 100% qualified for (it should be noted that I am a white male.)

I wouldn't knowingly join an employer that pigeonholes anyone across their organization. I'd also propose that a role with little or no horizontal or vertical professional mobility is probably a good candidate for automation and a human shouldn't be subject to it for longer than necessary anyhow.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#92

Post by chewyshine » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

Folks, there's so much cynicism here. If you want to learn and invest in yourself, do it! If you want to sit back and wait for your employer to invest in you, don't be surprised when it doesn't happen. Orgs need to make smart investment decisions. If you're not feeling supported it may be that the org doesn't view you as HiPo and that's clear feedback on your current value to the organization.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#93

Post by greedo » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

Bootwizard wrote: post #9

I'm currently a frontend engineer. I told my team lead a while back that I'd like to transition to the server side, especially since our server team is woefully understaffed and our frontend team is overstaffed. He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.

In my company, if you transfer to another team, you're a traitor. Your current mgr can block your transfer, so it's suicide to try to switch teams.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#94

Post by msluyter » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

When I was a dev lead I came up with the concept called a "learning spike," where a developer would pick a focused topic to dive into for a set period of time[1] and then do a short[2] presentation of learnings to the entire team. This would be backed by an official story in Jira or whatnot. The goal would be for the developer to choose something that sparked their interest (within the loose boundaries that it be at least marginally related to the team's work.)

I figured this would be great in a number of ways -- developer deepens their knowledge of some topic, possibly even has fun, practices their communication skills by sharing with others, and the entire team learns something. Although the idea was technically backed by management, it didn't really catch on. I think the problem was that the short term opportunity costs were too high when everything was on fire (which was often).

[1] 2-3 days max, probably.

[2] "Short" is the key word here.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#95

Post by mirekrusin » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

Bootwizard wrote: post #9

I'm currently a frontend engineer. I told my team lead a while back that I'd like to transition to the server side, especially since our server team is woefully understaffed and our frontend team is overstaffed. He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.

You should have said you already did and would like to start today.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#96

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #86

Braggadocious wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ever think about how much we subsidize businesses by paying for college ourselves? The older I get the more I think the university to corporation pipeline is a fucking racket. It also sucks for employees because here comes these kids who were allowed to learn about all the new technologies you wish you knew with zero distractions and other obligations, now comin' in hot on your heels to take yer jobs en masse, an…

University is a total racket. We pay these institutions to be treated like their low level employees to provide job training for companies. Corporations have successfully offloaded their training responsibilities onto a process that used to be much broader than vocational training.

And if you try to study some of those broader topics, you're a sucker - don't study philosophy when an extra accounting or STEM course would be a "better" use of your time. So you super specialize and then after 4 years of college and 5 years in industry you're burnt out you have few other skills, so the only option is to get back onto the education treadmill to bet on another highly specific vocation where you once again start your career as a junior.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#97

Post by gregd » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

Bootwizard wrote: post #9

I'm currently a frontend engineer. I told my team lead a while back that I'd like to transition to the server side, especially since our server team is woefully understaffed and our frontend team is overstaffed. He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.

I'm utterly dumbfounded at someone who manages people, stating this. I budgeted for training on a per employee basis when I created my yearly budgets.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#98

Post by msluyter » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

That you should “always be learning” is absolutely true. It helps with neuro-plasticity and keeps you engaged. That said, as a manager I find it hard to get direct reports to accept sometimes that it is not only okay, but required, by me that they learn new things. I do what I can to encourage it, offer to buy books for people, give time to do online course work, etc. They often complain that they don’t feel like the…

Check out my comment re: learning spikes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21763789

Having an actual story to back the learning process might help making employees feel more comfortable with it.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#99

Post by Mountain_Skies » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

Braggadocious wrote: post #82

Bootwizard wrote: post #9

I'm currently a frontend engineer. I told my team lead a while back that I'd like to transition to the server side, especially since our server team is woefully understaffed and our frontend team is overstaffed. He told me "Sure but you'll need to learn all that stuff on your own time". So I never did it because I'm interested in doing other things at home.

You ever think about how much we subsidize businesses by paying for college ourselves? The older I get the more I think the university to corporation pipeline is a fucking racket. It also sucks for employees because here comes these kids who were allowed to learn about all the new technologies you wish you knew with zero distractions and other obligations, now comin' in hot on your heels to take yer jobs en masse, an…

You're correct but the difficulty is finding an alternative. Training employees who are then free to take their skills to another company that didn't bother with training gives that company the ability to lure workers away with higher salaries. There is a bit of tragedy of the commons in the skilled labor pool.

Re: Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it

#100

Post by GhostVII » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 4:19 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #96

yters wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University is a total racket. We pay these institutions to be treated like their low level employees to provide job training for companies. Corporations have successfully offloaded their training responsibilities onto a process that used to be much broader than vocational training.

And if you try to study some of those broader topics, you're a sucker - don't study philosophy when an extra accounting or STEM course would be a "better" use of your time. So you super specialize and then after 4 years of college and 5 years in industry you're burnt out you have few other skills, so the only option is to get back onto the education treadmill to bet on another highly specific vocation where you once…

At my school I was required to take many courses on broader topics. Personally I didn't like it, I took as many CS courses as I was allowed.