Post written by Marlon Ribunal.
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The number one reason why employees get bored to death is the lack of opportunity to grow professionally. Stagnancy in anyone’s profession or career is detrimental in his or her career development. The economic turmoil leaves a dent on the capacity of many companies to sustain substantial employee development programs (EDP). Many companies now cut on their EDP budget, or worse, eradicate the program altogether. The employees in this case need to shell out their personal resources if they want to go for training which is impractical to do for most people. How to maintain a pace wherein an employee gains momentum in acquiring essential skills so as to keep his interest in his job? Here are the Ten (10) tips to do just that.
1. Get Inspiration From Peers
When boredom strikes in the workplace you can find the strength to move on in your peers. “Misery loves company”, so they say. But this is not the kind of company we’re looking for in this situation. Stay away from losers. You don’t need them. Be inspired by passionate people. Share their enthusiasm and love for work. Join them in lunch. Hang out with them because passion is contagious.
2. Self-Train To Gain Additional Skills
If you can’t afford to enroll in a formal training program, there are many other options you can take advantage of. For example you can learn by reading books. Amazon.com have lots of discounted book that you can order. Another option is learning through the interwebs. Google or Bing the topic you’re interested in and, voilà, there’s your powerful online learning tool. Also look for video training that are available freely online.
3. Take Advantage Of The Local Community College
Go to the website of your local community college and check out their course offering. The tuition for an hour-unit is relatively cheap. In California the fee for a unit is around $25-$30. A single course usually has about 3-4 unit. The school is also a good environment to be in as it brings together people wanting to learn. It is also a place where you usually experience the spirit of persistence.
4. Free Online Courses From Top Universities
MIT offers its Open Courseware to public for free. You can take advantage of this offering and learn from top professors and instructors that are known worldwide. Other universities have the same offering as well. You can search lists of universities online and you’ll be surprised how many schools are offering some of their top courses for free, like this list of 10 Universities With Free Courses Online.
5. User Groups And Special Interest Groups
Search your area for user or special interest groups that share your interests. Chances are you can find a couple of them. Look for technical user groups in your area. These user groups usually conduct monthly meeting wherein they have a speaker talk about a particular topic of interest. This is also a great opportunity to network with other professionals.
6. Get Your Social Network Accounts To Work
There is more purpose to your social networks accounts than mere amusement. Yes, you can use them as a tool for learning. Twitter is a good example of this. Find your best tweet-friend and establish a good online relationship with him or her. Duplicate that effort and you’ll form your online tribe. This is your support team that is only 140-characters away when you need help.
7. Create A Blog
Blogging is not just a simple venue of expressing your personal opinion or, in some other cases,
rants.WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad are some of the free platforms you can use to blog. One of the biggest benefit of blogging is it hones the author’s softskills – Writing, Research, and Communication skills in particular. If you are writing about technologies, the process will require you to learn the technologies themselves.
8. Free Seminars
Check your local paper for list of free seminars that might be of interest to you. Other free magazines have list of such events also. Other online classified services such as Craigslist have a listing for free events or seminars also. You can put own your Google black ninja belt and search for other groups or companies that offer seminars for free.
9. Magazine Subscriptions
Magazines are great sources of knowledge. Other companies are offering technical whitepapers for free in exchange of some of your personal information such as your email and phone number (you can be creative in this, if you know what I mean). The advantage of magazines over other media is the style of the content presentation. The topics are broken down into pieces which makes the general concept of the article easy to understand. Some of the articles are step-by-step tutorials, depending on the theme of the magazine you subscribed to.
10. If Nothing From The Above Works…
Quit your job and find a new one. Sadly, if nothing else works you are left with no other option but to quit. An environment that ceases to inspire growth is an unhealthy one that you need to stay away from. Stop the torture and move on. One thing to remember – Don’t burn bridges.
Have you ever experienced workplace boredom creep in in your system? If you’ve been working for a decade chances are you’ve encountered an episode of workplace boredom. What are the things that you did to combat it and bring back the passion?
Marlon,
You’re quite right. A company that doesn’t invest in the ongoing skills/knowledge development is a sad place to be. We have had cuts in my company left and right, but thankfully, they are still paying us to go to career development seminars (only one seminar per year, but heck, I’ll take it). It keeps us sharp mentally, and makes us better workers overall.
Jennifer recently posted…In defense of “childless by choice”–a mother’s random musings
Jennifer,
Good for your company that they are at least offering one seminar at their expense. We know that companies have to be conscious about budget specially in this kind bad of economy. The employee will understand if the company is showing they’re making an effort to send employees to training. This encourages the employees to seek out training on their own.
:-)
Marlon Ribunal recently posted…6 Things The Navy SEAL Team Six Can Teach Us About Getting Things Done