A study from Gallup found that organizations that invest in employee development are twice as likely to retain those employees and are 11 percent more profitable. But for professional development programs to succeed, employees need time to explore and experiment.
Take the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, for example, where Mani Ganesan, director of technical operations, designed team sprints that ended with “innovation days.”
“Teams can experiment with different prototypes to address any pain points,” Ganesan said.
Having the time to discover and test new solutions has been monumental for his direct reports — and his own career.
“This experience has been invaluable in shaping my professional growth,” he added. “I have learned how to design, vision and iterate using the latest cutting-edge technologies, such as AI, to solve business problems efficiently.”
Similarly, at Workhuman, Art Director Kevin Fischer said access to LinkedIn Learning and Figma courses has allowed him to sharpen his skills in prototyping, build faster demos, and create more refined design assets, all of which directly benefit his current role.
“I’ve found myself regularly referencing what I learned, and it has noticeably improved the way I work, allowing me to design smarter and faster,” he said.
Built In spoke with Fischer and Ganesan about how their access to professional development opportunities has allowed them and their teammates to accelerate their careers.
Workhuman provides SaaS HR solutions that help companies meet today’s biggest human capital challenges.
What new skill or role did you want to learn? Explain why this was important to you.
Since joining Workhuman, the L&D team has played a key role in my personal and professional growth. One standout opportunity was the Big Rocks, Big Results course, which helped me improve my time management, identify and focus on key priorities, navigate challenging conversations with more confidence and embrace a growth mindset to reach my goals.
Through that experience, I gained clarity on the next step in my design career: deepening my skills in Figma. I realized that more advanced Figma training would not only help me create demos, prototypes and design assets more efficiently but also equip me with new tools to level up my overall design capabilities.
How did your employer help support this time of learning and/or professional development? Be specific.
Workhuman has been incredibly supportive of my learning and professional development. I initially took advantage of LinkedIn Learning, which offers a wide range of video courses covering business, technology and creative skills. It was a great starting point for exploring areas I wanted to grow in.
As I gained clarity on my goals, especially after completing the Big Rocks, Big Results course, I realized I wanted to dive deeper into Figma to strengthen my design capabilities. When I identified an advanced Figma course that aligned with my career development, Workhuman approved my professional development request. That support allowed me to sharpen my skills in prototyping, building faster demos and creating more refined design assets, all of which directly benefit my current role.
What was the outcome of this experience? How did it impact your future growth in your profession?
The advanced Figma course was incredibly thorough and practical. I’ve found myself regularly referencing what I learned, and it has noticeably improved the way I work, allowing me to design smarter and faster. The skills I gained have helped me build stronger foundations for my projects, which makes getting started less intimidating and accelerates my overall workflow.
In terms of future growth, the experience has empowered me to bring ideas to life more quickly and with greater confidence. It has given me a solid platform to continue developing as a designer and take on more complex and creative challenges.
As part of the central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston works to promote sound growth and financial stability in New England and the nation.
What new skill or role did you want to learn? Explain why this was important to you.
The new skill that my team and I wanted to explore was using artificial intelligence to automate the process of manual issue triaging. The recent advancements in AI technology have led many enterprises to adopt it without clearly identifying the specific problems it can solve. Our team’s approach was to focus on the problem first and then explore if AI could be a safe and viable solution.
As the team responsible for monitoring, logging, alerting and troubleshooting issues related to instant payment transactions on the Federal Reserve’s FedNow® Service, we often found that the end-to-end triaging process was time-consuming and burdensome for our site reliability engineers. They had to sift through various logs, monitoring dashboards, metrics and traces to identify the root cause of customer issues. This repetitive and complex task was taking a toll on the SREs and was also delaying the resolution of customer problems.
Automating the triaging process using AI was important to us because it would boost productivity, offload repetitive analysis tasks, enable real-time problem detection and automate root cause analysis. Autonomous AI agents and models are well-suited for predictive analysis, routine task elimination and continuous learning and adaptation. By implementing such a solution, our operational team could focus on strategic initiatives rather than getting bogged down in the details of issue sorting.
How did your employer help support this time of learning and/or professional development? Be specific.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston actively encourages its employees to upskill and reskill through structured training programs, bootcamps, courses and certifications. Career development goals are a part of our team objectives, performance reviews and rewards for employees willing to learn and apply their newfound knowledge to their day-to-day work.
During every FedNow Program Increment, the last sprint is dedicated to innovation days, where teams can experiment with different prototypes to address any pain points. In the last couple of Program Increments, we were able to take various AI courses to gain a fundamental understanding and get hands-on experience through problem-first based bootcamps.
What was the outcome of this experience? How did it impact your future growth in your profession?
The learnings we gained through the bootcamps, certifications and courses enabled us to safely and responsibly apply our newfound knowledge during the innovation sprints. We were able to develop a prototype for an autonomous root cause analysis triaging system, leveraging AI-native tools. This co-pilot for SREs reduced the mean time to detect, mean time to resolve/recover, facilitated faster root cause analysis and improved event correlation.
This experience has been invaluable in shaping my professional growth. I have learned how to design, vision and iterate using the latest cutting-edge technologies, such as AI, to solve business problems efficiently. This has expanded my skill set and has given me a deeper understanding of how to leverage emerging technologies to address real-world challenges in the financial technology industry.
