It may come as no surprise to learn that by keeping your professional skills current, you will keep yourself in demand for potential employers. But how about the employer you already have? It’s all too easy to become complacent at work and forget that, by keeping your skills up to date, you can make yourself more valuable within the position you already have.

Guest blogger Jake Redknapp

Maximizing your skills at work is a great way to improve the worth of your existing position. It’s good for your employer and it’s also great for you. Not only will you find that learning will help you to stay abreast of new developments in both technology and technique, you may find that your work comes more easily as a result.

How to Make the Most of Your Skills
The best way to make the most of your existing skills is to use them, but learning is also a vital part of polishing your skills at your current job.

Learning can be accessed in various ways; either directly through your employer or by using an external learning resource. Some employers offer training incentive programs, which allow you the opportunity to learn at work and attend seminars, conferences or training sessions which will help you to maximise your existing skills.
Applying and using your existing skills may not always come easily, but the first step is identifying key areas in which your strengths could play a vital role. Applying your skills to these areas is all part of making yourself an indispensable employee.

Learning New Skills at Work
So you have a good set of skills, which has been enough to win you employment and ensure that your position is ongoing. But now you want to learn new skills, and may be wondering how to go about this.

The first step should be to determine whether the skills you wish to learn would be of benefit to your present employment. If not, it’s more than likely that your employer would not be interested in helping you achieve this goal. However if they would benefit your employer in some way it’s always best to draw up an outline of how this might be the case, and present it to your employer as part of a case for your undertaking in-house learning development.

The Benefits for Employers
Learning new skills, and maximizing existing ones, on the job is not only important for employees, it’s important for employers too. Having a highly skilled workforce has been proven to boost profit, and training employees is a time-tested way of preventing those employees from looking elsewhere for employment.

If you’re an employee wanting to polish your skills whilst at your current job, take full advantage of the incentive there is for your employer to help you do so. There are no downsides to learning – only benefits.

Jake Redknapp writes about human resource issues and news for small businesses, including in-house training and stress management courses for Watt Works.

In House Training & Consultancy at Watt Works is a method of maximizing your skills at work. Watt Works offers professional development across various industry sectors, including business, customer service and education.