TZL 1307

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O P I N I O N

Learning strategy

M ost leaders agree that employee recruitment and retention is the number one issue facing AEC firms today. At the same time, employee growth and development is our talents’ top priority. Why is it then that most firms don’t have a formal or strategic employee learning and development program? Your peoples’ top priority is development. If you want to keep them, you need to identify the ideal learning and development strategy for you and your firm.

25 percent of the time. This would be 40 hours of a typical 160-hour work month. In this scenario, the remaining time would consist of work on routine assignments with previously mastered skills. If we apply the 70/20/10 rule, 10 hours per week would be focused on learning and development “Leave the status quo, continuous overload, and the threat of disruption and displacement to others by prioritizing more effective learning and development for you and your firm.”

Peter Atherton

Connecting these dots is a direct path to greater organizational growth, attractiveness, and profits. To get to where we want to be, we can leverage both proven models and innovative practices. THE 70/20/10 MODEL. The 70/20/10 learning and de- velopment model works, especially in professional services. The idea is for 70 percent of our time to be “on-the-job” training with challenging stretch assignments focused on future needs and growth goals, 20 percent with one-on-one supervisor coaching and mentoring, and 10 percent with relevant outside training, coursework, or reading. To put this in context, let’s assume we want to formally teach and develop our talent only

See PETER ATHERTON, page 10

THE ZWEIG LETTER August 5, 2019, ISSUE 1307

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