Learning & Development Academy Brochure 2014 | Page 4
Personal Development
It’s thought that only 10% of career development comes through formal courses,
conferences and training. The rest comes from experience (70%) and exposure (20%).
The learning activities described in this section will give you a flavour of the most
effective non-classroom based ways to develop your professional abilities.
Taking on additional responsibilities
Job shadowing
Whether it’s taking on a challenging new project
If there’s someone who has a particular skill
or assignment, or picking up an area that you
or set of knowledge that you admire, you could
haven’t worked on before, this is with a doubt
consider shadowing them. Job shadowing is
the most effective way to develop your skills.
essentially spending time observing them doing
Perhaps there’s an area of work that you have
their work, watching, listening and learning
an interest in, or something you know you need
what the job is about and what is involved in a
experience in before you’re ready to take the
typical day.
next career step. If it’s not part of your job now,
consider how you could build it in – then speak
with your manager.
Secondments
A secondment involves a temporary move to
Acting up or covering for a
colleague
another department or company for a period
of time, usually from several months to one
This means learning how to do some or all of
or two years. If you’re interested, speak with
another person’s job. It could be to cover for
leave or to ensure that more than one person in
the organisation knows about a particular
your manager then arrange to meet with HR to
follow up.
project or process. Giving another person’s job
Reading/desk research
a go is also a great way to test whether you
Highly underrated as a learning activity, there
have a longer-term interest in those areas.
are some incredibly powerful and truly
inspirational resources out there. For some
ideas including books, papers, articles,
360° Feedback
webinars, websites and podcasts see the
A powerful tool for raising self-awareness
Kantar Development and Resource Guide.
and helping you select the areas of personal
development to work on. Our 360° tool is based
on the Kantar leadership model and is regularly
used in the business.
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