激勵員工不斷學習，只需要走這三步

When I was hired as vice president of marketing for a growing startup, I knew I had a lot more to Learn about search engine optimization (SEO). As is the case with most professions, a staggering number of different specialties fall under the umbrella of marketing, and just because you work in the field doesn’t mean you’re knowledgeable in every discipline. Luckily for me, the company I joined values continued learning, and I was able to receive one-on-one instruction and enroll in online courses to develop my SEO expertise.

當我被一家正在發展的新興公司聘用爲市場部副主管的時候，我就知道我需要學習的不僅僅是搜索引擎優化（SEO）的知識。正如很多專業人士，市場部擔負着數量驚人的不同專長的發展任務，並且不能因爲你在這個領域裏工作，就代表你瞭解每一個行業的規則了。我很幸運，我就職的公司很重視繼續教育，我也能夠接受一對一的培訓和參與在線課程，培養SEO方面的專業知識。

The experience reinforced several things for me: the importance of supporting employees in continuing their education, that a long career means we never truly stop learning, and that it’s important to seek help when you need it. Moreover, the business benefits of continuing education are powerful. Companies that offer tuition assistance or other education benefits often have much lower turnover rates, and employees typically apply their new skills to the workplace.

這個經歷加深了我幾個認識：支持員工繼續接受教育的重要性，漫長的職業生涯意味着我們不會真正停止學習，還有在自己有需要的時候去尋求幫助。再者，受益於繼續教育的公司是強大的。爲員工提供助學金或其他教育福利的公司通常員工離職率更低，而員工通常也會把他們的新技能運用於職場當中。

My company, Varsity Tutors, works through a number of channels to create a supportive environment where team members never stop learning. Here are three ways you can help your own employees keep learning:

我所在的公司，Varsity Tutors，是一家利用多途徑創造支持團隊成員繼續學習的環境的公司。下面爲大家介紹三個方法，幫助你鼓勵你的員工保持繼續學習的熱誠：

1. Streamline your team’s access to expertise.

1. 安排團隊學習專業知識。

As the emergence of learning formats like massive open online courses (MOOCs) and stackable credentials suggest, people prefer easy access education on their schedule. This includes employees, who are consistently balancing demands at work and at home. As a result, one of the best ways to keep your team learning is to ensure their access to expertise is simple and straightforward.

正如大型開放式網絡課程（“慕課”）的興起以及大量有效的證據證明，人們更喜歡日程安排中簡便可得的課程。這包含了那些常常需要平衡工作與家庭的員工。結果表明，保持團隊繼續學習的其中一個最佳方法，就是保證他們接受的專業知識的途徑是簡單而直接的。

As an example, one of the things that I’m most proud of at our company is that we provide 52 hours of free tutoring to everyone who joins our team -- roughly an hour each week throughout the year. Employees can share these hours with their families, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of this benefit that our staff members use on themselves -- not just to learn new skills that can be applied to their jobs, but to pursue personal passions like writing fiction, speaking a foreign language, or drumming (that last one’s me). Learning can and should be about much more than adding another bullet point to your CV, but almost no one will take advantage if the process is overly complicated or unclear.

舉一個例子，我對我所在的公司最感到驕傲的其中一件事情就是，我們爲每一個加入我們團隊的成員提供了52個小說免費接受培訓——一年下來大約每週一個小時。員工們可以和家人一個共度這些學習時間，不過我們都很驚喜地發現員工們本人使用這些時間所獲得的好處——不僅僅是學習到工作中所需的新技能，還能追求個人理想，例如寫小說，說外語，或者打鼓（最後一個是我的）。學習的意義能夠也應該不侷限於爲個人簡歷增添亮點，而且幾乎沒有人會利用到這一點，如果這個過程是過於複雜或者模糊的。

2. Offer specific development opportunities.

2. 提供具體的發展機會。

I strongly believe that many professional development opportunities are too general to be of much help to anyone -- the very nature of a classroom or a corporate retreat means speaking to a group with varying levels of subject knowledge, rather than the individual. People can quickly become uninspired when they’re being taught something they already know and don’t actually need help with. Detailed, team-specific professional development, while more time-intensive, is generally far more effective.

我強烈地相信許多職業發展的機會都太籠統了，難以幫助到任何人——課堂教育或企業倒退的本質之處，在於要對一個包含不同學術知識水平的團體負責，而不是個人。人們在被教授一些早已認識或者他們根本不需要任何幫助的時候，常常很快就會失去積極性。詳細的，針對團隊的職業發展，雖然需要投入的時間，但是實際上是相當有效的。

Some of our most heavily trafficked pages are ones that highlight the ability to “learn by concept.” These are pages that are optimized to drill you on a conceptual area that you’ve done poorly on during a diagnostic test -- in other words, they’re driven by topic-specific metrics. We use a similar approach for company business. Each week, we hold a business review that exclusively utilizes data to measure performance. It moves us away from the generalities that can be used to guide executive meetings and forces us to confront objective business challenges.

有些我們感到最糾結的簡歷就是那些突出“概念學習”的能力的。這些簡歷都是經過優化的，讓你往一個診斷試驗很低分的概念領域裏向下鑽——換而言之，這些人受具體話題侷限所驅使。對於公司的生意，我們使用了一個相似的方法。每週，我們召開工作檢討會議，單獨利用數據來評定績效。這樣讓我們從能夠用於指導行政會議的籠統轉移開來，驅使我們面對客觀的商業挑戰。

3. Share your growth and supports theirs.

3.分享你的成長並做他人的後盾。

A person must be willing in order to truly learn, and many times, learning in the workplace means first admitting that you don’t know something or would like to improve your performance. People are understandably reluctant to do so in front of colleagues, so it falls to leaders to create an environment that encourages personal growth and the pursuit of knowledge.

爲了真正學習到知識，必須是自願的，並且許多時候，在職場裏學習意味着首先要承認你對某些事情是不瞭解的，或者願意提高自己的績效。我們很理解人們不願意在同事面前這麼做，所以這個責任就落在了領導們的肩膀上，去營造一個鼓勵個人成長以及追求知識的環境。

One of the best ways to do so is to share your own professional development, as well as to establish that learning is important and natural. Whether this means discussing resources you’ve found with other staff members or setting aside time in team meetings to talk about employees’ latest forays into professional development, you set the tone.

想要做到這件事的其中一個最好的方法就是，分享你個人的職業成長過程，同時也要讓對方相信學習是重要的也是自然的。不管這需要你與其他員工討論你早已找到的資源，還是另外安排團隊會議討論員工最近職業發展的突擊結果，形式都由你來決定。

Ultimately, each person learns differently, but all employees can benefit from continuing education. By offering easy access to expertise, tailoring professional development opportunities, and fostering an atmosphere that supports learning, you can begin to lay the groundwork for your team to continue their education throughout their careers.

最後，每一個人都用着不同的方式學習，但是每一個人都能從繼續教育當中獲得益處。通過提供簡便的學習專業知識的突擊，量身定製職業發展機會，然後營造一個鼓勵學習的氛圍，你就可以開始爲你的團隊成員在個人職業生涯繼續學習打下基礎。

聲明：本雙語文章的中文翻譯系滬江英語原創內容，轉載請註明出處。中文翻譯僅代表譯者個人觀點，僅供參考。如有不妥之處，歡迎指正。