Whether you're looking to move to a new career, or simply improve your job prospects in your existing job, improving your existing skills and learning new skills is a good way to make yourself more secure in your job.
Narrow Skills Could Leave You Obsolete
Cross-training isn't just for people that want to be a jack of all trades. Even the most skilled of specialists can benefit from cross training. That's not to say that you should try to learn how to do every single job within your company - that would be spreading yourself too thin, however, knowing enough about how things work in the area surrounding your immediate specialism will do you a lot of good.
Cross-training allows you to expand your skill set, ensuring that if your company no longer needs someone who can operate a Seam welding machine, you'll still have a place in the company because you know how to use other welding equipment. Right now, you may be the best seam welding machine operator in the entire company, but what would you do if that machine got replaced? If you can learn how to operate other welding equipment or CAD/CAM equipment, then you will be able to quickly move into a different part of the company.
Adapting Is the Key to Long Term Success
Eugene Evans is a high profile game developer that has been working in the industry for 30 years. Three decades in the world of computerised entertainment is an incredibly long time. The platforms that Mr Evans started his career on are now museum pieces. The tools that he works with have gone through numerous changes, and consumers have gone from expecting short, self-contained single player adventures to complex 3D games with persistent online elements and regular updates.
Mr Evans is still a major figure in the industry today, and this July he will be speaking at Develop conference in Brighton, explaining how the ability to adapt, learn new skills, and understand emerging market trends is the key to success.
Whether you're a welder, a telephone engineer, an accountant, or an author, learning new skills is important. Learning new skills will keep you from getting bored. It will put you in a good position when you come to ask for a pay rise. It could even help you to discover something that you enjoy even more than your current job. Even if you decide you hate the new skill, you'll have learned something by practicing it, and you'll know that you shouldn't waste any more time pursuing that skill.
All it Costs Is Time
If you're lucky enough to work for a large company, see if you can cross-train within that company. You could spend a day learning how to use welding equipment from one of the other employees, or you could get some vocational management training.
If you need classroom based training, it's worth looking at grants, loans, and free courses aimed at people that have been out of school for a while and need to update your skills. You might be surprised at the amount of assistance that's available.
This post was written by Crispin Jones on the behalf of Westermans, suppliers and retailers of different welding equipment including seam welding machines. To find out more on welding equipment like seam welding machines, follow this link to visit their site.
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