What Organizations Can Do to Create a Comprehensive Workplace Learning Approach
Contributing Author: Eileen Godinez
As technology advances, competition is globalized, and societal behavior and needs change, organizations must develop the internal capability to keep up or be left behind. How organizations build and sustain a learning environment that encourages and promotes the continuous updating of individual knowledge and skills remains a modern organizational challenge. According to the American Society for Training and Development, organizations in 2007 spent 134 billion dollars on formal training programs to ensure their workforce was provided the knowledge and skills needed to keep up with a changing world. However, the effective transfer of knowledge from a formal training environment to practical application remains allusive. In fact, the actual percentage of information presented in training that transfers to knowledge and is applied to enhance performance is not really known. Therefore, it is difficult to make the claim that formal training alone is an effective means by which organizations can build and sustain the internal knowledge capacity to remain relevant and achieve organizational goals.
Some organizations tend to approach training and development using a single methodology that is distinct and separate from day-to-day work. Formal classroom training programs are developed and employees are given the opportunity to attend. Information or explicit knowledge is shared, participants engage in dialogue about the information presented, and everyone goes back to work the wiser…or do they? Formal classroom training can be effective to share new information or update employee skills; however, classroom instruction alone does not make for a comprehensive approach to workplace learning, nor does it take into consideration the interrelationship between working and learning.
Organizations that limit their training and development programs to formal classroom instruction are missing the critical, complimentary relationship between working and learning. Developing a comprehensive approach to workplace learning requires the establishment of a broad spectrum of formal and informal learning opportunities that are embedded into the day-to-day work systems and practices of an organization. For example, requiring employees to participate on project teams or engage in communities of practice as a prerequisite for promotion consideration or performance reward aligns organizational expectations with practice and promotes engagement in workplace learning.
Additionally, learning must be everyone’s business. Organizations must make learning opportunities available to all employees and hold managers and supervisors accountable for ensuring employees engage in continuous learning behavior. A comprehensive approach to workplace learning requires organizations to do more than simply establish formal training programs, but to create an integrated system of learning opportunities that compliment and enhance day-to-day work practices.
The good news is literature over the past decade documents a dramatic increase in the interest and use of training from both a methodological and practical perspective [1]. Changes in technology, social behavior, and global competition have prompted organizations to consider and employ a broader spectrum of new training methods and learning approaches such as mentoring, cross-training, informal knowledge exchange networks, simulation, e-learning, virtual classrooms, and communities of practice [2] A comprehensive learning approach enhances outcomes by bringing together elements such as topic, content, design, and practice, integrating them with both informal and formal learning approaches using technology, human interaction, and other applications for access, delivery, and real-time feedback [3].
Changes in the modern workplace will continue to pose challenges for organizations. The knowledge-based economy creates the need for continuous learning and updating of worker competencies and skills [4]. As the requirement for knowledge and expertise changes, the need for organizations to establish a comprehensive approach to workplace learning becomes paramount to leveraging a competitive advantage [5]. A shift from a single traditional approach to learning using formal classroom instruction to an increase in the use of varying approaches to learning that are embedded in day-to-day work practices provide organizations with a more comprehensive strategy to build and sustain a continuous learning environment.
[1] Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J.A. (2001). The science of training: A decade of progress. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 471-499.
[2] Mosher, B. (2008, March). If you build it, will they come? , 2008, from
http://www.clomedia.com/includes/printcontent.php?aid=2110
[3] Elsenheimer, J. (2006). Got Tools? The blended learning analysis and design expediter. Performance Improvement, 45(8), 26-30.
[4] Paloniemi, S. (2006). Experience, competence, and workplace learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 18(7), 439-450.
[5] Ellinger, A.D. (2005). Contextual factors influencing learning in a workplace setting: The case of “reinventing itself company”. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 16(3), 389-415.
