The company I'm at sets aside every other Friday for all engineers to learn, contribute to open source, hack on an idea they may have (that may or may not be related to work), etc.
So far the only problems I've seen is that sometimes it's hard to convince engineers to actually use the time instead of still working on tickets.
I would expect so. Doesn't it seem a bit much to expect the company to give you paid time to work on your own personal side projects? They don't own the knowledge and skills you gain doing it though.
So far the only problems I've seen is that sometimes it's hard to convince engineers to actually use the time instead of still working on tickets.