“Life-long learning”, “continuous education”, “learning to learn”, “learning organization” are the terms we have been encountering not only in a business environment, expert and scientific circles, but also in the every-day life. Rapid changes on the labour market have made an increasing number of adults aware of the fact that innovations, professional grounds and permanent human resource development are something they have to intensively think of. The population of employed persons cannot rely anymore on knowledge, skills and competences acquired by formal education, since they are not competent on a long-term basis if they lack continuous professional training and development.

The significance of investing in human resource development is recognized not only by the employees, but also the organizations which examine training needs of their employees, current trends on the market and thus create diverse training programmes on the job. Such programmes range from formal, which are time-consuming, to less-structured learning such as trainings, seminars, conferences, coaching, discussions, mentorships, and those spontaneously acquired by the employees via daily problem solving by observing others or cooperating with them via team work.    

Opportunities for work-based learning have become very diverse, but the accompanying challenges have remained the same. Despite the fact that nowadays the employees are much more aware of the necessity of learning and development, their motivation, aspirations and capacities are still something incurring as an obstacle for successful work-based learning. What is also present is non-harmonization of learning with the needs and experience of the employees, their working time, choice of organization/individual that has the role of a trainer/mentor, as well as the issue of testing of the acquired and its application in practice. All these and another numerous challenges have to be faced via the promotion and encouragement of work-based learning, taking into account clear expectations of the employees, as they are the targets that have to understand that permanent desire for learning, life-long learning, continuous education, training and acquisition of new skills are the requirements of today’s employers.

There is a famous Latin saying: Not moving forwards means moving backwards. Therefore it is important that the employees bear in mind, if they want to achieve progress in their workplace and in the area of their expertise, they have to continue with their education and develop their skills as Knowledge is power.