Explores workplace learning as a means of enhancing both work performance and the quality of working life. Identifies characteristics of high performance work organizations, considers the implementation of high performance work practices and investigates how far these practices are embedded in different countries. Examines ways in which public policy can be used to encourage organizations to make more effective use of the skills of their employees.
For a company to compete effectively in today's business environment, its employees need to be adaptive and agile so they can develop the required skills and knowledge. To achieve this, L&D professionals must create a culture of workplace learning that encourages employees to constantly develop. This means moving away from the traditional approach of simply offering a catalogue of courses to embedding learning in every part of the company. Workplace Learning is a practical guide to all aspects of developing a culture of continuous workplace learning, from how to introduce and implement this culture to how to develop it. Showing that learning is not finite and is instead something that all employees should be doing continuously throughout their careers, Workplace Learning covers how to identify key areas to focus the most effort on, measure success and determine next steps. It also outlines how to use technology to support workplace learning from MOOCs through to apps such as Knewton and Degreed. Packed with case studies from organizations who have effectively established outstanding workplace learning including Microsoft, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), HT2 and The Happy Company, this is essential reading for L&D professionals looking to make a real difference to the development of their staff and the future success of their organizations.
During the 1990s, the workplace was rediscovered as a rich source of learning. The issue of workplace learning has since received increasing attention from academics and practitioners alike but is still under-researched empirically. This book brings together a range of state-of-the-art research papers addressing interventions to support learning in the workplace. The authors are experienced international scholars who have an interest in making HRD and workplace learning practices more evidence-based through practical relevant research. Although workplace learning is largely an autonomous process, many organizations want to manage it as part of their broader HRD strategy. There are limits, however, to the extent to which the complex dynamics of learning in the workplace can be guided in pre-determined desirable directions. This tension between the possible strengths of workplace learning and the limits of managing it is at the heart of this volume. The book is broken into three sections. The first section deals with workplace learning interventions, including HRD practitioners’ strategies, training and development activities, and e-learning programs. The second section investigates the impact of social support, or lack thereof, in workplace learning, such as mentoring, coaching, and socialization practices. The third section addresses collective learning in the workplace, looking at teams, knowledge productivity, and collaborative capability building.
Combining a critical analysis of the organizational and employment context of workplace learning with an understanding of theories of learning, this text focuses on new ideas and on understanding the social context of the workplace.
Emphasizing learning skills as a metacompetency in the changing workplace, Rothwell (human resource development, Pennsylvania State U.) debuts two research studies: one examined workplace learner roles and competencies, while the other gathered hundreds of workers' perceptions of the learning climate of diverse workplaces. Seeking to transform training into learning departments, he identifies learning process steps; learner roles, competencies, and outputs; and ways that organizational conditions encouraging learning can be reinforced by workplace learning and performance practitioners, managers, academicians, and workers. Appends a study summary, interviewee responses, and assessment instruments. AMACOM is a division of the American Management Association. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This book asks the crucial question: When does high performance supervision become abusive supervision? As more organizations push to adopt high performance work practices (HPWP), the onus increasingly falls on supervisors to do whatever it takes to maximize the productivity of their work teams. In this rigorous, research-based volume, international contributors offer insight into how and when seemingly-beneficial workplace practices cross the line from motivation to abuse. By reviewing critical issues in both high performance work practices and abusive supervision, it illuminates the crossover between these two modes of work, and forges a path for future scholarship.
The promotion of workplace partnership in the high performance workplace has become central to policy debates on the 'modernization' of employment relations in British industry. This book provides critical insights into the dynamics of partnership by way of in-depth case studies of employee experience in an under-researched industry noted for its high concentrations of skilled workers and graduates. Drawing on rich interview and questionnaire data, the authors highlight considerable conflicts of interest in the development of partnership that derive from the competitive capitalist environment in which management strategies operate.
In our research programme “The Learning Potential of the Workplace” we set the task to analyse, describe and explain the conditions of the workplace as a tool for learning. Learning potential is for some experts an individual asset, others see the learning potential in the external conditions in work and work processes; again others see it in the reflection on action by peers, colleagues and experts.
