We at iTech are asking our customers if they are ready to receive the next set of PTFs or upgrade their OS to something newer. As Pete showed in a recent presentation, there are benefits to the processing you’re responsible for by doing these updates. Anyone who has worked on almost any platform has had to apply one patch that fixed that one annoying issue that you can finally cross off your daily list.
But what about you and your career? Our worlds are busier than ever with so many demands; are you taking the time to improve your personal situation in one small way?
For me, one thing that has added to my success over my career has been the incorporation of “update time” for me. I am not writing this to get into the motivational speaker circuit or to increase the number of people who are using our iTech website. Below are just some of the things I do or have done that equated to improved work experience that also improved my skills to improve my career. None of these are perfect but neither are our worlds. Mostly this is not things you have not heard about, but hopefully, these items serve you as a gentle reminder they are meant to be. Many can be accomplished by blocking off just one hour a week.
Cross-training
In larger shops, there tend to be people specializing in certain subjects. Then those people are always the go-to for those same issues. Hopefully, your management will recognize these bottlenecks in your organization and approve scheduled cross-training meetings. I was put in charge of working within my group and/or bringing in someone from another group to review a skill monthly. This was so successful in reducing the need to call people when they were out. And because not everyone likes presenting, this was accomplished with both casual screen sharing by the SME to the very formal presentations.
If approved, inevitability, the presenter might not be able to make the assigned date. What a terrific opportunity to go to your favorite vendor’s website and play a relevant video or two 😊.
Networking/Collaboration
I have been fortunate on more than one occasion to find a coworker who was already expanding their skills but wanted to work with someone. We did some checking and there were 2 or 3 of us who were interested in the …
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