The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Continuous learning is hard.

We’re all busy with the day-to-day of our jobs and it can be difficult to find the time to learn new skills or sharpen existing ones. On top of that, previous poorly executed training opportunities may have left a bad taste in the mouths of those of us who took the time out of our busy schedules for something that didn’t meet expectations.

But according to a recent article from the Harvard Business Review, continuous learning is more critical than ever. “If you’re not evolving in this ever-changing world,” HBR writes, “you may not only get left behind the competition — you could find that your current skills aren’t even needed anymore.”

The good news, however, is that HBR highlights five strategies that can help busy (and let’s be honest, sometimes overwhelmed and just plain tired) workers get into the habit of continuous learning:

Challenge your beliefs about your capacity
Start with topics that solve urgent problems
Don’t limit yourself to formal programs
Make an emotional connection to learning
Work with your brain, not against it

To learn more about these strategies — including how to overcome the research-backed finding that “within a day, you only remember half of what was presented [in a learning opportunity] and after a week, only about 10% of it” — be sure to check out the top spot on our list below of must-read articles for talent professionals.

And further down our list, you can also learn why we may be in a time of white-collar gloom and blue-collar bloom; how we may be entering an age where we all have an AI-powered coach at our fingertips; and what Baby Boomers may regret most when looking back at their careers.