It is consistently tiring for those younger than I to hear that you have to be a continuous learner. Being present in the industry and living day to day in a never ending series of days that change hour to hour and minute to minute, you learn from the firehose. The firehose is unrelenting. And even when you get used to it, it will grab hold of you and teach you a thing you did not know. At times it is at the expense of your embarrassment. Mostly it is adding another shit sandwich to the pile with a line of people asking you to eat theirs first.
Then you have management that can amplify that F'ing hell based on the latest initiative with the shiny new name. They sell it to you with smiles and enlist your effort because it will be "WE" this time.
Then people have the audacity to have the expectation for you to learn. You have to feed yourself and others. Pick up the kids. Pick up yourself. Talk to friends and loved ones and be the center of calm for them because, let's face it, you have been ever since you entered into this industry. And they expect you to keep up to date? Really?
And when you do get up the time and energy to haul your ass to a continuing education course, you have to get a signature from a person who is unapproachable or unreachable for a signature. Really?
I was that signature for multiple years now. For at least the past 20 years. I apologize for those who I had made their educational journeys harder or where you thought I would not sign off. I don't ever remember not approving course money. But that is not what I am talking about here.
I want to talk about balancing some what should not be new thinking that I am beyond proud the next generation has brought to us "old folk". We should pay not just in money but in time. We as companies, hell, as supervisors need to budget the investment in your growth. This is not just about retention. This is about respect. This is about value. And we owe it to this industry to catch and release the best people back into the industry stream.
I made it a point to tell people that my job in the seat that I was in was to make you so valuable that it was hard for me to retain you.
So as all good things start from the collective, here is something I suggest. Band together and make it happen.
I want you to think about what it takes to be well rounded. Is that 2 hours of study a week? Is it 10? Budget it in your work week out of the 40 hours. Don't ask for permission. Here is how you rationalize it.
Blank Pages:
Use the impracticality of the day to day chaos where "no day is ever the same" to list out the things that you want to KNOW better. Let's face it, we know a little about a lot of the things we do day to day. But let's think about mastery of that subject.
Get in the mindset that you need to reset what you learn and challenge the fundamentals. When assigned something that you have done before some time ago take the opportunity to baseline. Do a literature search. Read the guidances, but not just the FDA or region you are in. Look at professional societies and see what they are up to. Find the person with the purchase cards and advocate to buy ISPE or other documents to build a library. Build your own library (more on that in another post). Read through ICH, GHTF, PIC/s, USP, ISPE, ISO, and anything else you can get your hands on. Skim through. If it's not directly applicable, put it in your library. YouTube has hours and hours of FDA conferences.
Talk to your Quality Elders. Tell them what you are up to. They have libraries and may be willing to share their workflows and libraries. Stand on those frail and weary shoulders.
Guerrilla Learning
Pick the subject and schedule a project for you or a group of you's based on the keywords of Efficiency and Turn Around Time.
Make a short syllabus or plan as to what you are going to do and then make a clear endpoint of what you want to get out of it (presentation, template, checklist, SOP updates).
Schedule meetings once a week for an hour with the right people. Make sure they understand that this is a learning thing, not a social thing.
Work on the goal. If it is understanding a guidance, or watching a video from the FDA, it does not have to be a class you pay for. This is about learning.
Take what you learn and make that endpoint so you can all demonstrate or use the output together.
Show the output to your leader. If they have half a brain they may piss on it a little but they will see a value. You could even try to find out what their needs are in terms of the above endpoints and work on that problem together. Maybe it's a presentation or template on communication of Management Review outcomes so that the team gets better communication on the health of the Quality System.
Make your little subterfuge become something beneficial to your leaders. You will see dividends. If they are a-holes, then just keep doing it. One to 2 hours per week. You will notice it. They will notice the output and value.
Use what you learn in a meaningful way. And if you don't lift your colleagues up, then I hope you stub your toe on every table you walk by.
The Old Traditional
There are some places that are clamped down on time and in scrutiny. Get out of those places as soon as practical. But for those places I would look at their employee reimbursement for education program. The most practical thing I can tell you is to leverage a choice for management to get behind your education. For small companies sign up for a class together. Make it known you are taking a class and see who wants to join you. Study together. Share what you learn at work. Yeah... that gets back to what I was saying earlier. Nobody has time for that but it is a good thought.
Next most practical thing is to do brown bag or lunch and learns together. Ask your leaders to just come and answer questions. See if they have old presentations that they kept because they had value. Even if it is outside of what you do. Learn and round yourself with different perspectives. Short of that, get together in a room and you have one person take center stage and just talk about themselves and what they did in different roles. It will turn into a jam session and you will build a tighter team.
Also don't be afraid of talking about soft skills. These are crucial because what we really do is 90% soft skill and 10% on point of our jobs.
Stay well. Be hungry to learn.