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Comment by sanderjd | Hacker News Reader

I think this is sort of like unlimited vacation time policies: if you really want people to take advantage of it because you really believe in its value, you actually have to constantly nudge many, maybe most, people to do it.

In the case of training / education, a good solution may be to provide more structure. Get a group of people to sign up for an actual structured class (or run one yourself), and set the expectation that they actually go to the meetings and/or do the work for it. Just "figure out some time to read some books on your own" will work for some people, but lots of people thrive on more structure than that.

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Another commenter also made a very good point: you've gotta let off the gas a bit. If everyone is going flat out, the surrounding pressures will cause people to prioritize being responsive to those pressures.

But that requires a fundamental change in organizational productivity culture and means this kind of policy probably needs to be implemented -- and critically, measured -- at the corporate level so people collectively recognize that learning time is sacrosanct.

No big deal!

Yep, and this is another way in which it reminds me of vacation policies. People have trouble imagining when they'll be able to take time off when the foot is always on the gas. So even if managers are truly bought in to the idea that time off is actually critical to a productive workforce (and I think most leadership I've worked for actually does buy this), it's still easy to create an environment where that doesn't happen.

I think a lot of employees also convince themselves that if they unplug for a long vacation (which used to be pretty much inevitable), their career will be hosed or the company will fall apart.

I took a number of month long vacations before there was much in the way of internet and I had people come up to me and basically be in astonishment that I could do that.

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