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Integrating
work and learning in organisations
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A
common trend facing HRD is that learning will be more integrated with work
[R16]. Several aspects of this process have been
studied:
(a)
Organisational
learning is often a response to a competitive challenge which companies
face: they have to increase their productivity, and the primary way they
do this is by downsizing and increasing flexibility and learning [V06]
[V19].
(b)
A
mapping of learning conditions in Norwegian companies supports the assumption
that you need challenging tasks for learning. It also underlines the relevance
of change as a driving force for individual and organisational learning
[V04].
(c)
Learning
bays are an innovative model, introduced as pilots in German firms, for
combining work infrastructure with learning infrastructure. They are designed
to promote self-organised learning and working in teams. While the learning
bays function well in innovative environments, they pose problems in neo-Taylorist
environments, because the level of competences achieved is too high [V03].
(d)
Informal
learning has a variety of applications when firms talk about it. In a lot
of contexts it means 'I learn to use this particular technology or machinery
or routine'. But there is not, within that organisation, any time or space
for discussing or reflecting upon this, in the sense of transferable skills
[V14].
(e)
There
are three ways of how people in organisations can be motivated to learn:
‘learn for yourself’; learn because this is good for your work and for
your team and for your organisation; or learn because you want to contribute
to your profession [V17].
(f)
In
a Scandinavian insurance company they have moved away from the standardised
products, where people were led by instructions, to team working, working
closely with customers, identifying new products and services. What they
are looking for is a way to define these shared contexts. Instead of knowing
the market today, the employees have to be able to construct the knowledge
that they do not yet have for the market of tomorrow. This means completely
different contexts for learning [V13].
(g)
Successful
work-based learning and training interventions involving older workers
have a potential for improving their motivation for learning, for strengthening
their self-confidence and organisational commitment, and for improving
the social climate in groups with mixed ages [E13c]
[V21].
(h)
Studies
of work experience related to students have perpetuated the idea that the
work contexts within which work experience takes place are stable, unchanging,
transparent environments. Instead, any analysis of work experience should
take account of different types of context and the influence of context
on the process of learning; of how students ‘negotiate’ their learning
during work experience; and of how students relate formal and informal
learning. These issues are taken up in the 'connective model' of work experience
[E11a].
(i)
Developmental
work is work which is inspiring learning, so developmental work promotes
developmental learning. The nature of the tasks is actually facilitating
or compelling people to think, it is almost pushing people to learn
[V22].
(k)
One
of the most interesting things about the work in the supply chains was
that there is a fantastic amount of learning going on if supported by people
like educational researchers or other researchers; a lot was achieved.
And when it turned to what sort of use they want to make of that, in terms
of vocational qualifications or credits within the formal educational system,
the majority of people wanted neither. It was the educational organisations
which had difficulty in coping with that ... because they want to get their
hands on it [V23].
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