Involving yourself in training and development activity can increase your enthusiasm, enjoyment and commitment to your work. It can stimulate workforce motivation, increase retention and loyalty and enhance knowledge and skill. It's necessary, though, to match the best development approaches to your learning preference.
What's your style?
By understanding your preferred learning style, you can choose the type of training or coaching most suited to you. Seeing and doing, reading and reflecting, observing and experiencing, trial and error are all different ways to acquire knowledge and understanding. Do you:
- enjoy learning the theory first
- prefer to learn to do things before understanding why
- like to weigh up how you already do things before making changes
- like to look at theory alongside the practice?
Learning approaches that differ from the traditional classroom-based 'talk and chalk' can really suit an early years and childcare practitioner. Experiential learning, combined with structured coaching, mentoring and shadowing, is an effective way of developing your practice without necessarily taking time away from the workplace.
Record it
Don't just keep a list of the training courses you've completed, but reflect on, and record, all the development you've done. Identify how it has changed and added value to your practice and demonstrate how you have implemented a benefit to your workplace as a result.
Consider the value of the coaching or training by how far it will impact on your practice and others', and whether it:
- is relevant to your job role and progression
- makes a measurable difference to practice
- enables you to adapt your own practice and influence others'
- improves standards and quality within your workplace
- enables additional or enhanced skills to be acquired by the workforce
- is enjoyable, inspiring and lasting
- has a qualification or certification as an outcome.
Career tips
- Keeping fresh and current make you more employable.
- More career opportunities open up to you when there is breadth to your skill base.
- Training shouldn't be a checklist, but a developmental process.
- Reflect your learning into experience by modifying your professional style.
- Observe high-quality role models, and use this to reflect on your own approach.
Tina Jefferies of people development organisation The Red Space Company provides coaching and training programmes in leadership and management. Visit www.redspacecompany.com.