Giving individuals assignments that complement their work, or allow them to experience new opportunities, abound inside companies, but we rarely ask workers to do anything outside their normal responsibilities. Here are some ideas to provide individuals with more business insight and experience without a formal learning process:

• Train a new hire or develop an orientation process for new hires to help them to be productive as soon as possible
• Develop a ‘calendar of events’ for your role which would enable someone else to take over in an emergency – what are the things that are required daily, weekly and monthly
• Conduct competitive intelligence
• Organize a lunch and learn with a guest speaker in your industry
• Create a master-mind group for your role / function
• Write a blog article “10 things XXX should know about XXX” (such as 10 things patients should know about the in-hospital pharmacy or 10 things patients should know about dietary restrictions)
• Develop a presentation for other departments within the company that explains your department’s priorities and working processes
• Create a workflow chart for your department and look for opportunities

What are the skills that are developed from these very generic on-the-job assignments? Decision making, interviewing, coaching, writing, facilitating, analyzing, planning, speaking and more. With just a little thought you’ll be able to come up with more personalized learning experiences that will benefit both the individual and the company as a whole.