Behinds the screens - 10% Learning time

At Trade Me, we invest in your development by giving you 10% ‘learning time’, also known as ‘planting time’. This time allows you to plant the seeds that will help you, your teams, and ultimately our business, grow and flourish.

Putting it into practice

Our Central Technology Team (CAT) holds a planting day every third Tuesday of the month. CAT makes sure their stakeholders know that day is blocked for learning, not delivery, to free them up from day to day work. Team members can work on a mini-project, experiment with new tools or languages, do an online course or research developments in a specific field.

Here’s how some of our people use their Planting Day.

Raghu:

“As a Data Engineer, I like to look at the current trends and best practices globally in designing data pipelines. Planting day gives me the space to do that and pushes me to keep learning beyond my BAU role. I also use planting time to create new proof of concepts and to complete professional certifications like Snowpro and Coursera.”

Megan:

“Personally, I like visiting Trade Me’s library (yes, we have a library, with a really cool ladder!) to get ideas for my day job. Online courses are also popular, or exploring articles, books or podcasts on soft skills. People new to the team often create a Personal Development Plan on their first planting day to guide their future learning”.

Henri:

"It's great to have the whole team learning at the same time and not having to worry about delivery. We can either learn or develop something as a group or by ourselves. Recently, I’ve used my planting time to sharpen my knowledge of blockchain, Cloud and management.”