How Online Libraries Can Help Your Employees Learn Smarter, Not Harder

Last Updated: December 16, 2021

For HR leaders, it’s imperative to support their employees’ continued education and personal development. In today’s digital workplace, HR departments are reinventing how they foster growth and development in their employees.

“Work smarter, not harder.” We’ve all heard the age-old adage, and all probably have our own personal definitions for what the phrase means in our own world. However, at its most basic, the phrase suggests using your thinking skills to minimize tasks and extra steps, so that you use your time wisely and more effectively to get things done quickly.

In the fast-paced world that we live in, our culture naturally gravitates towards things that make our lives easier, more convenient and more efficient. This is true for all elements of life, from how we keep up with friends and family, how we get from place to place, how we eat and monitor our health to how we consume information.

The professional landscape is as competitive as ever and professionals are committed to seizing every career opportunity. This includes attending professional development seminars, networking, and personal development through books, podcasts, and seminars.

Luckily, personal and professional development books are one of the fastest growing segments in the publishing industry and with the development of electronic publishing, there is more content than ever.

This is where learning and development departments are providing resources for their employees to “work smarter, not harder,” or in the case of consuming information to support professional development, “learn smarter, not harder.”

Instead of pointing their employees to the wide world of Google in search of resources, learning and developmentOpens a new window leaders are partnering with services that provide a database of curated content from trusted and vetted sources, condensed into an objective summary or abstract that is a quick and easy read for busy employees. This “compressed knowledge” provides relevant information in a quickly accessible form, enabling learning and development executives to find the right books and media from the sea of content to help their teams and companies grow and thrive.

There are a number of ways that HR executives can implement these types of database services to empower their employees, from onboarding to management training, to continued education. Having a database of compressed knowledge for employees to voluntarily and involuntarily take advantage of ensures that they have all the resources at their fingertips to continue to be successful while acknowledging the fast-paced life of today’s busy professionals. Employees can read up on professional development content, but also topics around health and wellness, politics, and more, supporting a well-rounded individual, which in turn leads to a well-rounded employee.

For example, one of the world’s largest energy providers, with over 36,000 employees, recently modernized its learning processes. Due to structural and operational changes, the company needed an efficient, cost-effective solution, including digital learning platforms providing answers to increasing employee learning and development needs.

Among the features of the company’s new HR platform was a learning management system offering resources that incorporated an online library focused on delivering objective, non-fiction abstracts, providing employees instant access to thousands of business books and video summaries. Users have the ability to access the content anywhere, anytime, whenever it suits them best and wherever they need the information –allowing employees to take learning into their own hands instead of having to adhere to a fixed schedule and location-dependent resources.

The company worked closely with the online library to identify learning requirements of the various departments and to select appropriate topics. Other learning resource providers also took place in discussions to maximize learning benefits for each individual employee. Learning consultants from the online library service are assisting the company in implementing its 2020 Executive Leadership Program to help executives embrace their roles as leaders and encourage them to become pioneers of change, with the online library service assembling relevant reading content and encouraging discussion and collaboration on its online platform.

For HR leaders, it’s imperative to support their employees’ continued education and personal development so that both they and the company can grow and prosper. By investing in their employees with resources that cater to the always-on, fast-paced world that we live in, they are supporting a positive company culture focused on company performance, as well as the individuals that make it all happen.

Patrick Brigger
Patrick Brigger

Co-Founder and Chairman, getAbstract

Patrick Brigger studied and obtained his doctorate at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. From 1995 to 1998, he was an associate and then head of the department at the Signal Processing Research Unit of the National Institutes of Health, Washington D.C. Later, he founded a software development company and an IT consultancy near New York. In 1999, together with Thomas Bergen, he co-founded getAbstract, now the world's leading provider of compressed knowledge. From 2005 to 2010, they lived in Miami to develop getAbstract in the USA. Today, Patrick manages Operations from the headquarters in Lucerne, Switzerland. Patrick is committed to the education of future generations and is on the boards of the local school and the Efficiency Club Lucerne, and a member of the Executive MBA Advisory Board of Furtwangen University. He is a passionate sailor and aviator, enjoys playing tennis with his three sons and dancing with his wife to South American rhythms.
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