Learning at work day highlights skills gap

A workshop on how to be a guerrilla artist and a seminar on how to bake bread are among the activities taking place today as part of this year’s Learning at Work Day.

The theme of the Day, which is co-ordinated by Campaign for Learning, a charity that believes learning is key to social inclusion, is ‘Future Matters’. The aim is to highlight the skills gaps that will needed to be addressed as global and local economies continue to change.

Tricia Hartley, the charity’s chief executive, said: “National Learning at Work Day is about promoting the benefits of learning in and through the workplace, but also about providing opportunities for employees to have enjoyable experiences on the Day that inspire them to take their learning journey further.”

There are four themed activity areas. ‘Learning leaders’ is intended to explore the skills that make an effective leader such as risk-taking, motivation, decision-making and having a clear sense of direction.

‘Shifting skills’ is meant to help staff understand their current skills and how transferrable they are; how they learn in order to develop new skills more readily and what different techniques they can use to do so.

The aim of ‘Sharing knowledge’ is to find ways for individuals and departments to share knowledge and skills on a formal or informal basis, while ‘Developing soft skills’ is intended to highlight those intangible but important skills that are often difficult to teach.

Examples of Learning at Work Day activities in action include the Learning and Skills Improvement Service in Coventry’s series of ‘How to’ activities run by employees for employees, which include ‘How to be a guerrilla artist’ and ‘How to use phone apps’.

Restaurant chain ASK Europe is hosting a number of knowledge-sharing events that range from how to bake bread, play guitar or use formulae in Excel to exploring how psychometric tools are used in job selection and personal development.

Professional training provider Kaplan Hawksmere, meanwhile, has set up a project management challenge called ‘The Magic Minefield’. The event will involve participants undertaking a business task in silence during their lunch hour, with the aim of developing team work skills and self-awareness.