Dive Brief:
- A Braskem Americas employee made a $2 million mistake over a bad deal, but wasn't fired because the company uses a development strategy that factors risk and delegation into its L&D plans, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.
- Mark Nikolich, CEO of Braskem Americas explained that, "The company wants employees to stretch and take risks. The company accepts this behavior as part of the learning process, and they don't penalize them when they make mistakes within planned scenarios." The company uses every opportunity as a way to teach employees, and to improve company processes.
- The approach that Braskem uses in teaching employees important business skills honors the diverse way that people learn, and provides a safe environment in which to build skills without fear of being terminated.
Dive Insight:
Humans learn in multiple ways, and one way is by making mistakes, being retrospective, and doing things differently and better the next time. What can companies take away from an example like this? Instead of putting a real-life deal on the line, it can be beneficial to design learning content around scenarios that will happen at some point and allow employees to face some failures along the way in a controlled environment.
Partnering with clients on this can be one way to accomplish a realistic scenario, with helpful feedback offered by the client during the learning process. This could help more employees find training that meets their needs as they learn how to problem-solve.
