shaping-the-future-of-learning-and-development

Last week, the Speechmatics team were encouraged to take part in Learning at Work Week, with three unique sessions planned in throughout the week. This year, Learning at Work Week coincided with Mental Health Awareness Week and so we took this opportunity to include a workshop focused on mental health.

This years’ theme was “Shaping the Future” so we carefully curated sessions that would help and support our employee’s growth for the future. As Office Manager at Speechmatics, I feel that it is important to encourage a positive attitude towards learning at work and learning about broader topics than the ‘day job’ is vital to development.

I want to help generate greater employee engagement with learning, and so it was a great opportunity to facilitate employee’s growth with these activities. Learning at work helps to encourage a broader perspective on how learning and development happens and how employees can take advantage of new ways to learn. It brings employees from different parts of the business together, breaking down silos and encourages an open atmosphere at work. The sessions that were run throughout the week were as follows

Personal Resilience

Ruth Brown, CPSL Mind We welcomed Ruth Brown of CPSL Mind to our offices in Cambridge to give a workshop on personal resilience in the workplace. Ruth discussed the importance of recognising signs of poor mental health both in ourselves and others. It was a useful and engaging workshop and started off perfectly, with everyone standing up and explaining why they were fabulous. Positive mental health allows people to work more productively and to make truly meaningful contributions to their team, so a huge thanks to Ruth for coming in!

Accessibility Awareness

Dean Wales, Screen Systems

Dean Wales of Screen Systems shared his knowledge and expertise on accessibility and deaf awareness. He discussed the importance of accessibility and how Speechmatics is helping Screen Systems to stay grounded to their purpose as a business, making video content accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing through subtitling. The talk coincided with Global Accessibility Awareness Day, so it was perfect timing for Dean to talk on this topic. We even learned to sign the alphabet!

Ethics in AI: Our certain destruction in both the short and long term Sam Ringer, Speechmatics The Trinity Centre in Cambridge hosted us where Sam Ringer presented a frightening discussion on Ethics in AI. Sam explored the future of AI and discussed the dangers it may bring. As scary as the talk was, it was a super discussion which I believe will be discussed in a webinar on 26 June 2019. You can read more and register here. The dynamic of the week worked really well as we were able to encourage learning about mental health, as well as discuss topics that relate directly to what we do here at Speechmatics such as AI and accessibility. I’d like to say a massive thank you to all of the speakers who presented during the week. Also, a huge thanks to the Speechmatics team for their active involvement in the sessions, it made the week truly valuable. Interested in learning more about the Speechmatics team? Check out our website to meet the teams! For more information on any of the topics raised above, please get in touch. Charlotte Brown, Speechmatics