Continuous Improvement through Continuing Education
Scott Stephenson
Fmr. Chairman and CEO Verisk Analytics, Fmr. Senior Partner BCG
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” — Henry Ford
Continuing education keeps your skills current, teaches you new skills, and helps you stay on top of leading-edge technologies. It can even open the door to other positions in your company you might not ordinarily pursue. It’s also been my experience that organizations that support the education and development of their workforce have employees who are happier at their jobs and stay longer at the company—which can lead to greater employee engagement.
When companies focus on developing their people, employees can hone their problem-solving skills, try new approaches, and do more thinking out of the box. That environment fosters continuous improvement. A well-educated workforce that values professional development becomes the face of the organization—and that sends a great message to customers. The right learning opportunities can create and ignite a spark that might not otherwise be lit—driving individual innovation. And innovation and strategic thinking can help propel any company forward.
Learning also involves curiosity and a self-starting approach. For example, we live in a world in which machine learning is becoming more important and reaching into every corner of life. Generalists might be tempted when they see an article on machine learning to assume it doesn't apply to them. I recommend instead to read the article, write down the unfamiliar terms, look those up, and read the articles referencing those terms. Folks will surprise themselves with how quickly they climb the learning curve. We needn’t default to technical experts when these issues relate so strongly to where business and life are headed.
Verisk makes a significant investment in training and education, and last year we increased that investment over the year before. That includes tuition and program reimbursement for structured degree programs, industry-specific designations such as the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and the Data Science Certification program, and conference and seminar participation. At Verisk, we’ll keep promoting and supporting continuous improvement through continuing education.
Data Architect | Data Engineer | Database Migration Expert | Postgresql | MongoDB | Redshift | RDS AURORA Databases | Database Migration Expert | Performance Optimization | Python Pandas | Learner
2 年Best article I read since weeks ! learning should never be stop for skills , situations / circumstances Finding right approaches and improvements and improvement in self are indeed a necessity !
Gen AI & Blockchain Technologist | Data Analyst | Outsystems Developer
7 年Good read! By fostering learnability on the job you're setting up your employees on course to long-term employability and the ability to unlock deeper insights and innovation for your customers.
Chief Technology Officer at Kpler
7 年Great piece! When you are born you have your entire life ahead of you. As a child all you have is curiosity. You can build anything! You can become anything you want! Right now you have your whole life ahead of you so why not believe that with a little curiosity you can still build anything and become anything you want! Live life, think big, and design the world around you!
Global Steward | Servant Leader | Innovator
7 年Great piece Scott. I agree that curiosity is key. Promoting a continuous education mindset is something I greatly value about our Verisk family.