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I don& #39;t agree that you should *have* to learn things on your own time "to keep up to date" with your job. If you can& #39;t do that at all during work then there& #39;s something wrong. The act of work, especially in a knowledge based career like tech, should include learning.
Your employer has no inherent right to your personal time, assuming you have any to spend for them. Learning for work in your time should be a & #39;nice to have& #39; for the employer, not something they depend on you doing to stay valuable.
Being able to spend personal time learning for work is a privilege not all have, and if you want to use it, no worries. If you& #39;re lucky enough that your work aligns with your hobbies and you *want* to do related stuff on your own, fill your boots.
Sure maybe some mechanics go home and repair a 1972 Gran Torino for fun but the guy you need to replace the timing belt on your Toyota Corrola can learn that at work just fine without having one up on blocks in his home garage.
There& #39;s also a huge unstated bias towards young men when you select and reward for doing learning in personal time, as older people and women are by default stacked with society& #39;s expectations of the caring responsibilities for kids, family, spouse, housework, etc.
Personally since having kids a lot of my free time has (unsurprisingly) evaporated, and when I get some I& #39;m more inclined to switch off from work related stuff than start flinging pull requests just to unwind.
Some people from underrepresented minorities also put in a bunch of effort in their personal time because they need more certifications and experience to be taken seriously or to get promotions etc and I don& #39;t mean to dunk on that - that& #39;s a regretful state already.
The issue is when you treat it as a stated or unstated expectation. It& #39;s unfair and assumes that privilege of being able to do it. People who do it are already rewarded with promotions, performance ratings etc implicitly because they benefit from that learning.
