How to make 2022 ‘The Year of Learning’

As the new year approaches, I find it's a great time to reflect and express gratitude for the things that are most important in my life: my family, friends, Microsoft team, and (of course) the?opportunity?to learn.?

Learning has been a core value of mine since I can remember. Growing up, the holiday gifts that encouraged me to use my brain in new and exciting ways were consistently the gifts that I found most?valuable. That’s still the case today.?

With this in mind, I’d like to share some takeaways from a new initiative we’ve been testing out across Microsoft’s entire sales force: Learning Days. My hope is that in doing so, you feel inspired to give the gift of learning to yourself and your team in 2022.?

Learning Days in a nutshell?

Within a very competitive talent environment, nurturing our own development internally is critical to any organization's success. That said, creating the time and space needed to learn is often left up to the employees. This disconnect is what motivated our team to piloting Learning Days across Microsoft’s 60,000+ sales organization.?

An?incredible team came together to determine how we could create a programmatic way to schedule and celebrate learning. Trust, freedom, and the flexibility to try new things lie at the heart of this idea; with the hope that through Learning Days, our people can build, reflect, and put their skills to action.?

Based on organizational data and much discussion, we intentionally allocated 10 days during the year where employees could participate in their own development, distraction-free.?

The Impact of Learning Days??

Six months into this endeavor, we’re seeing some great results.??

For employees, Learning Days have helped them focus on building the professional skills they need to do their jobs more effectively. It’s also helped them feel more connected to each other and the company, while boosting morale.?

Our business is benefiting as well. By giving employees time to learn, they are in turn bringing new, diverse, and ground-breaking ideas to the table. For the more technical employees, many are using this dedicated time to study for and earn technical certifications, up-leveling their productivity and paving the way for greater innovation.?

I see one additional benefit to this work: it’s helping?reinforce a culture deeply rooted in a growth mindset.??

Make 2022 the year of learning?

We are still experimenting and learning a lot about this program, but if you’re interested in trying out Learning Days within your organization, here are my top five learnings:??

1. Define what Learning Days mean to you and your team.

• Set the objective and make sure everyone knows it, understands it, and supports it.?

2. Understand your resources?and how many days your team or organization can leverage for Learning Days, scheduling them in a way that works best for your team.?

• Across the 10 available days in Worldwide Learning, we opted to set up 1 day/month, refraining from scheduling in December or at the turn of our fiscal year. Other teams across Microsoft prefer 2-3 days/quarter, or 5 days/half and had the flexibility to allocate their time as it made sense for their team.??
• Consider time-zone implications. If you lead a global team like I do, recognize that a Friday Learning Day for people in Australia is still a normal Thursday for people in the US; this means you need to lead by example and not schedule over your global team’s protected time.??

3. Create an expectation for employees that there are no exceptions; time to learn is just as important as?customer meetings.?This also means?that when truly unmovable commitments occur, you are willing to uphold your commitment to learning by granting them a “make-up day.”?

4. Empower your learners, allowing people to spend their time the way they see fit, learning what they prefer to learn.?

• Consider creating hybrid Learning Day experiences for your team, allowing them to join both programmed (but optional) learning sessions as well as giving them the white-space to explore topics on their own.??
• Encourage them to share their plans with each other, but don’t require it. My team chooses to regularly share (and thereby inspire) what their learning plans are across Teams channels and our internal blog.??

5. Show executive support.

• The ultimate key to success is modeling the program for your team. You can’t expect people to feel safe budgeting time if the team’s leader isn’t!?
• Consider sending an invite directly from your calendar to the team blocking their time and even turning on a Learning Day specific out of office message.?

As 2021 comes to a close, it’s a pleasure to reflect on everything my team in Worldwide Learning has accomplished, and bringing Learning Days to life is a such a highlight.?I’m eager to hear how?you inspire your teams to nurture their skills and find fulfillment in learning and growing together in the year ahead.?

Wishing you a Happy Holiday season ahead and see you all in the New Year!??