One thing great leaders have in common: They never stop learning

The most successful persons are the ones who never stop learning, who have an aspiration to grow and desire to adapt to new challenges and develop innovative ideas.

Continuous education is therefore an important potential source of professionalization, since it offers people engaged in a trade the opportunity to update their knowledge or move career.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Mahatma Gandhi

Choosing to be on the path of continued learning is not only an individual choice but is an incentive and reward to your team. Motivating your team members to develop their knowledge can have different benefits for them and as well for your company:

• Increase the skills and qualifications of your employees
• Ensure compliance with the rules in force
• Contribute to professionalization and empowerment of employees
• Develop a collective identity, a shared culture
• Mobilize employees on new or ambitious objectives
• Give a good image of the organization inside and outside (modernity)
• Promote internal mobility of employees (horizontal or vertical)
• Adjust qualifications to jobs / jobs when new employees arrive in the organization
• Compensate the structural or occasional shortages or biases of the initial training of the employees
• Open the organization to external contributions by inviting experts or sending employees to train elsewhere
• Stimulates change in general and specific innovations
• It is a recognition of merit to your best talents

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Why continuous education is key in today's world?

How many times have you heard “we train skills and hire attitude”? Your commitment to continuous education demonstrates your proactive attitude, your willingness to grow and to be up to date. It also shows an incline to change and therefore not being afraid of going out of your comfort zone.

Today we must have the right balance between the Art and the Science, between the “Savoir-Faire” and the “Savoir-Être”. Therefore, the most sought after skills and attitude in the hospitality industry are the following:

• Leading and coaching the millennials and adapting the HR policies to them
• Adapting to different clients
• Delivering an experience rather than a product or service
• Using new technologies and communication methods to improve efficiency
• Transformational Leadership
• And the usage of the “Big Data” becomes primary in the hospitality industry

Continuous education should be seen as an investment, not a cost

With the rapid technological advances causing a dramatic increase in the demand for highly skilled people and the evolution of the modes of production that have made adaptation to change indispensable in most jobs, training has become a strategic investment for organizations. Executive education stimulating adult learning is a key to move people forward in their career. Therefore start investing in your team and in yourself!

Author: Linda Papasidero - Consultant at Lausanne Hospitality Consulting

This article first appeared in Lausanne Hospitality Consultin News on July 13, 2017.