The vast majority of employees don’t educate themselves after their formal schooling ends. We even use the term “post-education” as if we are somehow done with learning. Ask yourself a simple question: how many of your employees have been willing to spend even $100 over the last year to improve their education? Chances are very few. The point is this: if you don’t put employees into a formal training program the odds are they won’t train themselves…and become more valuable in the process.
According to the Pew Foundation most Americans read less than five books per year with few of those books related to business acumen. (Just look at the top selling books on the N.Y.Times best seller list or on Amazon). Yet the graph below makes it abundantly clear that to earn more you have to learn more. There is a widening gap in income levels and it is primarily related to one’s education.
The sad reality is that left to their own devices most employees would do little or nothing to further their education. This means the only viable solution places them into a system where continuous learning is part of the company culture. We’ll talk about surveys in a future article but what you think the response would be if you surveyed your employees as it relates to their “voluntary” education?
Book readership according to a Pew Foundation Study. To train your employees take a look at ThinkHR Learn.
