[event] Rise of the competent people

Yesterday I attended the yearly Kluwer Meet and Greet. (See also last year's post on Manon Ruijter's keynote.) They presented the results of the second Learning Indicator survey. I'm not going to tackle all the findings, I'm just going to pick out those numbers that are close to my heart. As you know, I'm a believer in the rise of peer networks of competent people that work in a fitting ecosystem. In short: power to the connected peers! So, do the Learning Indicator results point to the emerging self-reliant professional who takes his competence development in his own hands? Let's see:

• 88% of people say they are willing to take education; for managers this is even higher (94%)
• 72% of people also want to do that in their own time (excluding HR and managers this drops to 62%)
• Equally 72% claims they are willing to pay from their own pocket for their training when their employer won't (again, this drops to 63% excluding managers and HR respondents). They are on average willing to pay up to 250 euro out of their own pocket.
• People are most interested in developing personal skills (36%), software skills (28%), communication skills (26%)
• Employees prefer to learn from and also get the most from (1) colleagues, (2) classroom training, (3) domain specific sources (eg books, magazines, etc)
• 68% thinks the initiative to learn should come from themselves (as opposed from HR or the manager - by the way HR folks think it is firstly the manager who decides on learning)
• 44% says they share their knowledge with others
• The study concludes the willingness to learn is great among employees in this part of the world

In one of the breakout sessions I attended a presentation on how the TriFinance company creates and cultivates an environment for people to grow. Earlier I blogged on the "HoCo friendly" environment at the ministry of social affairs. Now I have an example in the private sector, and more specifically in a the financial sector; not exactly known for its progressive views on HR. TriFinance created a company that believes their growth will result automatically from the growth of their people, and that collective thinking results in collective creativity. They see themselves as a 'career hub' that people join and later leave at some point in their career. A very intriguing presentation indeed.