The Power of Compound Knowledge for HR: 6 Steps To Earn Learning Dividends
“Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.” — Warren Buffet
Knowledge is a lot like interest. It compounds exponentially. The more you learn, the more you know, and the better and faster you are at solving problems, overcoming challenges, and finding ways to innovate in whatever you do.
That’s why those who embraced continuous learning earned, on average, 8.6% higher wages than those who didn’t. They were also 17% more likely to have good jobs.
In a field like HR, where our work touches every part of the organization, having a wealth of knowledge to draw from is not just an added bonus. It’s a foundational element that makes all the difference between an average and a great HR professional. Let’s talk about what compound knowledge is, its benefits, and how you can use compound knowledge to have a successful HR career.
Contents
What is compounding knowledge?
The ROI of compound knowledge for HR
6 steps to leverage compound knowledge for HR success
Knowledge application process template
What is compounding knowledge?
Compound knowledge is a concept that learning and skills build upon themselves over time, leading to exponential growth in understanding and expertise. Similar to compounding interest, new knowledge is connected to and enhances what you already know, which allows you to understand and apply complex concepts more efficiently.
There are three phases to the compounding process. Let’s look at them through the lens of HR.
- Initial learning phase: This is when you acquire foundational knowledge — including HR essentials like the different HR functions, employee relations, and basic employment laws. This knowledge serves as the building blocks for future learning. Because you don’t have a knowledge base yet, growth in this phase can be slow and time-consuming.
- Growth acceleration phase: Once you’ve built a good foundation, you’ll be able to understand more complex concepts at a faster pace. This makes learning more efficient and helps you gain a broader and deeper understanding. At this stage, you’ll advance from foundational HR knowledge to more complex topics like data analytics or talent management.
- Expertise accumulation phase: You’ll experience rapid growth in expertise as you transition from competency to mastery. Every new skill and the knowledge you acquire adds substantial value because it’s built on an extensive base of previous learning. You’ll be able to tackle sophisticated challenges related to strategic HR management, organizational psychology, or leadership.
The ROI of compound knowledge for HR
Let’s take a closer look at some key benefits of compounding knowledge:
- Enhanced decision-making: Compounding knowledge enables you to make better, faster, and more strategic decisions. For example, when you have a deep understanding of both employee law and organizational behaviors, you’ll be able to assess issues not only from a legal perspective but also from an interpersonal dynamics perspective. This helps you make well-rounded and informed decisions that support both employee needs and organizational goals.
- Increased adaptability: With a broad and deep base of expertise, you’ll be agile and responsive to new challenges. Adaptability helps you navigate changes and seize opportunities to enhance the HR function. This skill is particularly important today as organizations increasingly look to HR for guidance through disruptions, transformation, and new developments.
- Increased productivity and efficiency: Having substantial HR knowledge allows you to be better and faster at your job. Routine tasks become easier and more intuitive, freeing up time for more strategic and value-adding projects.
- Long-term career success: When you build your knowledge base and multiply your skills, you position yourself as a valuable part of the organization, capable of moving from operational roles to more strategic positions. Continuously learning also shows employers that you’re growth-oriented, driven, and ready for more responsibility. This opens doors to advanced career opportunities and leadership positions.
Buffet’s story shows that there is no shortcut to long-term success. The only way you truly achieve and sustain progress is by building your knowledge and expanding your capability. Buffet might have been naturally talented in finance, but no one can get to the finish line relying on talent alone. They dedicate time and effort to learning.
Buffet is also a good example of an ideal T-shaped professional — someone with broad general knowledge and capability and a deep specialization in a specific area.
Beyond his financial expertise, he is known for spending as much as 80% of his typical day reading, constantly adding to his knowledge base in finance, business, psychology, and history. Being T-shaped allows him to make calculated, informed decisions that consistently outperform his peers.
6 steps to leverage compound knowledge for HR success
To effectively and efficiently build your knowledge to succeed in HR, you need to be intentional about the what, when, and how of learning. In this section, we’ll break down the process of compounding knowledge into six easy-to-follow steps.
1. Define career objectives
Setting clear career goals helps you gain clarity on what you need to learn and how you should learn. You’ll also be able to track your progress more effectively when you know what you want to achieve. Without clear goals, your learning can become aimless. You might still acquire new knowledge but not make any meaningful progress.
Going back to the Warren Buffet example, his approach to reading is highly intentional. He focuses on materials directly related to his field of expertise (business reports, financial statements, or economic news) or those that are business-adjacent (such as psychology).
To define your career objectives, you need to:
- Break down your HR career objectives into short-, medium-, and long-term goals. Long-term goals should be five years or more in duration
- Break down your career path into key roles or competencies
- List specific areas of learning and experiences aligned with each step of your career path
- Set short-term and long-term milestones to track your progress.
This is by no means an easy process, especially if you just started your career in HR or are thinking of making the switch to HR. But the good news is that you don’t have to map out your career objectives from scratch.
This HR Career Map tool gives you an overview of 50+ HR roles, what they are, key responsibilities, and salary expectations. Discover what your own HR career path can look like based on your interests, skills, and goals. After you’ve selected your current and ideal roles, you’ll get an estimation of how long it’ll take for you to reach your career goal and the number of learning hours you need to invest.
2. Determine your knowledge and skills level
After identifying your career objectives, assess your current knowledge and skill levels. This will help you understand where you excel and where you need to fill in the gaps to improve.
To make this assessment, you first need to understand the skills and knowledge a successful HR professional should have. This person should be a generalist in five core HR competencies and a specialist in at least one functional competency.
In other words, a successful HR professional is T-shaped. Being T-shaped allows an HR professional to successfully navigate the rapidly changing world of work and drive business value across the full HR spectrum. Read more about the T-shaped HR Competency Model.
Using this model, you can assess your knowledge and skills level based on the five core competencies and the competency of the HR domain you specialize in or want to specialize in. Sometimes, a self-assessment might not give you a complete or objective picture. In that case, you can seek feedback from your peers, mentors, or supervisors to get additional insights.
You can also take the T-Shaped HR Assessment, which provides you with a detailed report on how you compare to your HR peers, how you score across the five core HR competencies, and where you need to improve.
Using these insights, you’ll be able to identify specific learning objectives. For example, if you’re strong in data literacy but need more specialist knowledge about Compensation and Benefits, you can sign up for a Compensation and Benefits Certificate Program to increase your expertise.
3. Choose the best way to learn
How you learn has as much of an impact on compounding knowledge as what you learn. Self-study is always a great learning option. But, depending on your level of expertise, learning style, and budget, you might get better results by combining self-study with other learning methods.
But before we discuss the different learning methods, keep in mind that regardless of how and where you learn, you can only maximize the benefits of compound knowledge by making learning a continuous and lifelong effort.
You can alternate between periods of higher-intensity and lower-intensity learning, but learning should never stop because that’s when the compounding effect diminishes or disappears altogether.
Now, let’s take a look at different ways you can learn. If you’re looking to get into the field of HR, college or university degrees (which are plentiful nowadays) are a great starting point. But they are often not a right fit if you have a busy career, as they require significant time investment, have fixed schedules, and are relatively theoretical.
That’s why you should also consider getting certified in HR from institutions like SHRM or CIPD. These certifications require you to get recertified every few years, so you’ll have the motivation to learn and expand your knowledge to keep up continuously.
You can also consider signing up for HR courses or certificate programs. Many different options are available, from offline, instructor-led learning like workshops, seminars, or boot camps to online, self-paced learning. To make the most of your investments, go for the platform that offers you a holistic learning experience like AIHR.
Consider signing up for HR courses or certificate programs — platforms like AIHR offer you a holistic learning experience that goes beyond classroom learning. Depending on your preference and learning style, you can choose between more extended certificate programs and mini-courses where you can gain new skills in just a few hours.
You also have the option to immediately apply your new knowledge with interactive case studies and role plays. If you want to keep up with the latest trends and best practices in HR, you can join live events hosted by AIHR’s Subject Matter Experts. Depending on your preference, the AIHR platform can offer you what you need to continuously learn and maximize the compounding effect.
4. Dedicate time to learning
Let’s think back to what Buffet said: “Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.”
The point here is not just about reading 500 pages, but that quantity alone is not enough. Effective learning also requires consistency and discipline. That’s the only way you can build up your knowledge base to be successful in HR and beyond.
Instead, integrate learning into your top daily or weekly priorities. In other words, make learning a part of your everyday work. This turns learning into an ongoing process rather than an isolated activity. You’ll create the opportunity to constantly acquire new knowledge in a real-world context and apply it right away. You’ll also be able to adjust and adapt your learning content and strategy as your work or goals change.
Here are three tips to help you integrate learning into your daily work:
- Tip 1: Clearly communicate the value of learning with your manager and your team. This helps you set expectations and support and get buy-in from your manager to treat learning as a priority.
- Tip 2: Regularly review and update your learning plan to keep it relevant and aligned with your evolving goals. Learning things that no longer serve your purpose wastes time, creates boredom, and decreases your motivation.
- Tip 3: Actively block off learning time in your calendar to protect and prioritize learning. This helps you establish a routine and creates a commitment to compounding knowledge.
5. Apply your knowledge
Compound knowledge is most effective when you can turn theoretical understanding into practical application. This helps you reinforce what you’ve learned, enhance your problem-solving skills, build your confidence and competence, and increase your business impact.
Consider volunteering for broader team or cross-functional projects where you can apply and stretch your skills. These are a great way to deepen your knowledge, see firsthand how theories work in practice, and increase your soft skills.
To make the most out of your experience, create a document where you can keep track of your knowledge application process and reflect on what you’ve done. Think of it as a portfolio of your learning accomplishments. You’ll have a valuable resource for future reference you can keep for yourself or share with colleagues.
Knowledge application process template
If you’re not sure how to create this document, here’s a template you can use, along with examples:
Knowledge area
List the area of knowledge you’ve learned
Areas of knowledge I have learnt:
Example:
- Talent acquisition
- People analytics
- Strategic workforce planning
Practical application
Describe how you’ll apply this knowledge.
How I will apply it:
Example:
- Talent acquisition: Creating candidate personas
- People analytics: Analyzing employee turnover data
- Strategic workforce planning: Improving leadership talent pipeline.
Task/Project
List the task or project where you’ll apply the knowledge.
Tasks/ project knowledge can be applied to:
Example:
- Talent acquisition: Recruitment process
- People analytics: Quarterly HR report
- Strategic workforce planning: Annual strategic planning.
Expected outcome
Define the results you want to achieve.
The results I want to achieve:
Example:
- Talent acquisition: Attract higher-quality candidates aligned with role requirements
- People analytics: Identify turnover trends and causes
- Strategic workforce planning: Ensure a robust pipeline of high-potential leaders.
Actual outcome
Describe the actual results you achieve.
The actual results I achieved:
Example:
1. Talent acquisition:
- Improved candidate quality.
- Increased candidate-team fit.
- Time-to-hire reduced by 20%
2. People analytics:
- Turnover was reduced by 15% in one year
- Identified specific turnover causes in different departments.
3. Strategic workforce planning:
- The number of critical roles left unfilled was reduced by 15%.
- The readiness of high-potential leaders increased by 20%.
Application frequency
Specify how often you use this skill (daily, monthly, quarterly, etc.).
Frequency of skill usage:
Example:
- Talent acquisition: Every hire cycle
- People analytics: Quarterly
- Strategic workforce planning: Annually.
Reflection
Describe insights, challenges, and adjustments you need to make during the application process.
Reflection notes:
Example:
- Talent acquisition: Regularly review and update personas to increase effectiveness and maintain relevance
- People analytics: Insights into specific departments or roles with high turnover rates
- Strategic workforce planning: Assessment of the pipeline’s alignment with future leadership needs and changes in the labor market.
6. Embrace continuous learning
The core of compound knowledge is continuity. It’s not a mountain where your journey ends once you’ve reached the top. It’s a circle where learning should be an ongoing, intentional habit. Your ability increases every time you finish a cycle of acquiring, applying, reflecting, and reinforcing knowledge.
You start the next cycle with enhanced comprehension, critical thinking, and expertise, allowing you to learn better and faster. In other words, you use the learning dividends you earned from the previous cycle to exponentially expand your capability. 
In a field like HR, where trends, laws, and best practices constantly evolve, embracing continuous learning is the only way to keep yourself agile, competitive, and impactful. You can do this by:
- Make learning a daily habit: It might be reading 500 pages a day like Warren Buffet, watching a video lesson, completing a case study, or reading an industry newsletter. Introducing small, regular learning activities into your day-to-day work adds up.
- Define and track learning goals: Set SMART goals and regularly review your progress to see how much you’ve grown, identify areas for further improvements, and celebrate milestones.
Investing in compound knowledge is investing in you
Compound knowledge is a powerful game changer if you’re aiming to excel in a constantly evolving field like HR.
Identifying areas for growth and applying new knowledge creates a continuous cycle of learning that enhances your adaptability, improves decision-making abilities, and equips you with the breadth and depth of expertise you need to tackle complex HR challenges. This is how you stay ahead of trends, drive innovation, and pursue your career goals with confidence.
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