It may be hard to believe, but there are still people who are sceptical about investment in learning. Let us not treat them as ignorant. Instead, let us bring them into the light and help them to see the value that continued learning can bring to themselves and their organisation.

Workplaces aren’t populated exclusively by career development people. Other professionals, e.g. in the fields of operations or finance, may look at the cold, hard numbers being spent on training and not always see its true value.

Even more so for the rapidly-evolving technology sector within which software testing / QA becomes increasingly important. It evolves so quickly that today’s solutions and systems can become tomorrow’s obsolete ‘legacy’ technologies quicker than anyone could predict. While learning different technologies we may discover that what we learned a few months ago is now irrelevant, because the technology and business landscapes have shifted, again.

To keep up with this increasingly rapid pace of changes, employees need to continually develop new knowledge and skills to enable their organisation to compete effectively. Successful people and organisations already know they must continuously learn and look for ways to improve themselves. There are always new skills and techniques to adopt, certainly within the world of technology and software testing / QA. It’s simple, if you don’t invest in learning, you’ll lose out.

For individuals, learning helps to broaden their horizons and improve self-development. New knowledge may enable them to identify new opportunities for their organisation, or identify more efficient ways of working. Also, following (external) courses expands your network, including potential new customers.

So, it’s fair to say that the ability to adapt and learn faster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Learning new things can be tough but, the more ambitious goals we set, the happier we are, especially when we achieve them. Happier people are more productive and engaged. They stay longer with their organisation, because they feel valued by the investments in their development. This directly reduces an organisation’s recruitment, selection and on-boarding costs.

People who’ve acquired new knowledge or skills can pass on that information to others. One of the best feelings is inspiring others by teaching them what you’ve learned.

True, because of learning new things, employees become more valuable and attractive to other organisations. However, by the same argument, they become more valuable – that is more efficient, effective and productive – to their own organisation. And as they are happier and more engaged, this side-effect should not be any problem at all, on the contrary! It’s an organisation’s responsibility to sufficiently interest, encourage and motivate wanted employees to stay working for them, and not take their knowledge and skills elsewhere.