Learning Cessation Turns into Career Erosion

EMInfo Reader: I’m finding more candidates for job change who want to secure employment that doesn’t have them constantly learning new things and a playing the student on a regular basis. 

Dr. Burtnett: The candidates you are describing---common among the mid-to-late adults in the workforce--- would like to position themselves where their existing competencies and skillset are going to stand up to the durability tests required by employers and hopefully negate or minimize how much new knowledge the must learn and how many fresh skills they must master.

Unfortunately, the technological revolution that has occurred in the American and global workplace over the past century has left few occupations and workplaces untouched. Too many mid-adults to seniors view “lifelong learning” as the never-ending curse that forces them to refresh their career and occupational competence over and over again. Eyeing the wind-down and exit phase of their career development, older workers facing this challenges are looking for the least interruptive path to retirement.

As work, workers, and workplaces have changed in modern times, in-service and continuing education have become an essential element in how firms, agencies, companies, institutions, and organizations function. It is how employers remain powerful and productive and survive in competitive environments. 

Workers today are engaged in a variety of techniques from remote learning on the Internet to traditional classroom experiences, often conducted in the actual place of employment. Supported by their employer, they are learning via new and innovative strategies range from independent study to team experiences to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). Never have learning vehicles be so varied.

Answering this question reminded me of a middle school student I had as a young teacher more than a half century ago. One day in response to frustrating personal experience, he blurted out: “I can wait for school to be over and I’ve learned all I need to know.” The problem then and magnified even more today---our need to know in order perform and be productive has no end. The day we stop learning is the day our competencies begin to erode.