little steps: taking advantage of workplace training - Laura Lundahl Baga

How do you change industries? How did you move from public policy, public funding work, and grants, to technology? I get this question several times a week, every week. Though I hear the question often, I am almost always caught off guard. Like, wait...what, did someone do that? This is my honest reaction, because I forget that it's a thing, or that it's even unusual. Because it doesn't have to be.

Every year I see more and more affirmation that it's not a university education that is going to qualify you for a job. Yes, for some jobs of course, university training is an absolute. You don't want your oncologist to have been trained primarily through workplace training programs, right?

But for shifts from one industry to another, consider where you already work as your starting place. For example, take a look at some of the professional education available at few of the organizations I have worked for or who've been clients of mine:

The Office of the Secretary of State
The US Federal Department of Health and Human Services 
University of Washington
Seattle Pacific University
Polycom 
Dell 
EMC

These training programs are free, and most from accomplished and sometimes world-renowned speakers. When I worked at or with these places, I took advantage of every single training opportunity presented to me. Sometimes lunch and learns, and often more formal accreditation programs. Didn't matter to me much the context - if I could fit it in my schedule I became educated on it, for free.

As a result, I audited a course a the Harvard extension business school, took an AWS informative workshop, am accredited in about a dozen Dell, Polycom and Cisco technologies in employer-led training, and the list goes on.

As a younger worker, I learned Photoshop via a course valued at over $5,000, and mastered office tools such as Visio. I even audited a Social Policy course at the University of Washington - which was fun, to compare it to the Midwest schools where I did my graduate work at the University of Northern Iowa and Walden University. Stark difference between a city school like the UW and a Midwest school surrounded by farmland.

This was all free to me as an employee, but I noticed that most of my peers weren't taking these courses. As many of you may know, I was homeschooled in my elementary years, so self-driven learning is sort of part of my DNA.

But really though, why was attendance in these optional courses so low? They were available in all settings to every single employee - that means coffee cart worker, admin assistant, and VP alike. When BAs are commonplace today, and MBAs are almost expected in even entry-level management roles, wouldn't other training put us ahead in practice and professionalism?

If you take a look at Laura Lundahl Baga, on www.LinkedIn.com/techfundingguru, or on www.idenadvancement.com, you'll see the industry shifts I'm talking about. Are you getting now how those shifts were this possible? Workplace training! And leaning in. :) But yes, workplace training.

Ask yourself today: What workplace training does my job provide that I can get started with now? Even if you're a nanny, and the family you work for wants to pay for your CPR courses - take advantage of this.

Everything about these offerings, even if you are not incredibly interested in the courses, points to progress for you. This is a unique time of modern career-life, when people are now moving frequently from opportunity to opportunity,  according to their dreams and personal interests, to grow their careers. Open your eyes to what's already being offered to you, right where you stand, and unexpected worlds might be possible.

 -- Laura Lundahl Baga