Speaker on June 30, 2023

Self-direction, proactivity, and lifelong learning are important themes in our society: these behaviors are necessary to remain employable in a rapidly changing labor market. Yet, if you experience insecurity about the future of your job and career, it can be difficult -if not impossible- to take career initiatives such as building a network or learning new skills.

Put differently, the exact thing that requires workers to learn and develop new skills is, paradoxically, also what obstructs such learning and development.

Unfortunately, merely telling, training or coaching people to be proactive and develop new skills doesn’t seem to help them much. In this presentation, I will outline why we should shift our focus from stimulating people to be proactive to creating an environment that enables them to do so.

Based on recent findings, I will address questions such as: which environmental factors contribute to (proactive) learning? Are these factors the same for all workers in all situations? How can we (re-)design jobs and careers in such a way that they enable workers to learn and develop? And how can we use AI and technological innovations to achieve this.