The Fundamentals of Workplace Learning

Understanding How People Learn in Working Life

Knud Illeris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136864087
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Fundamentals of Workplace Learning is a comprehensive guide to how people learn in the workplace, and the issues and challenges involved. Examining the essential aspects of workplace learning and unravelling the various influences which affect the success of work-based learners, Knud Illeris presents a holistic model to explain how diverse individuals can be encouraged and invited to learn at work.

Approaching workplace learning from the perspective of learners as human beings, with complex social and psychological needs, as opposed to resources to be managed, this book examines in detail the key issues surrounding workplace learning, including:

• The workplace environment as a learning space
• Workplace learning as competence development
• A multitude of different kinds of workplace learning arrangements
• Job-transcending learning initiatives
• The interaction between formal and informal learning environments
• The challenges presented by specific groups: early school leavers, elderly workers and the new young generation.

Presenting conclusions on workplace learning and possibilities for the future this book focuses on a way forward while detailing the fundamentals of successful workplace learning. It will appeal to everyone involved in understanding and improving learning in the workplace including educationalists, business students, managers, personnel and educational leaders.

Part I
Basic conditions and theory

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter is a general introduction to the topic of workplace learning, stating the fundamental conditions and interests in the area. First, there is a short discussion of why learning at work in recent years has become such an important issue. After this, the various theoretical positions and approaches to workplace learning are pointed out and briefly commented on. Finally, the approach and perspectives of this book are described.

Chapter 2: How we learn

This chapter deals with the general features of learning, briefly repeating the main elements of the learning theory and overview model of learning which are developed and described in my book, How We Learn (published by Routledge in 2007). It is emphasised that all learning has three dimensions: the content dimension, which is about what is learned; the incentive dimension, which is about the motivation and emotions driving the learning processes; and the interaction dimension providing the social and content input for the processes. Finally, some important features characterising workplace learning are highlighted.

Chapter 3: The workplace as a learning space

In this chapter the general features of the workplace as a learning environment are discussed and a simple overview model of the main features of this environment is established, in line with the general learning model of the previous chapter. The most important point to understand in this context is that, alongside the dominant production-oriented element of the workplace environment, there is also an informal community element which is of great importance in terms of learning possibilities and motivation. As a consequence of this, the workplace learning environment has much more to do with workplace practice than with the concepts of management and human resources.

Chapter 4: Workplace learning as a whole

In this chapter the two areas of learning and the workplace are combined, and a general workplace learning model or framework is established and discussed. It is emphasised that the conditions of workplace learning always have this double nature in terms of learning as it is and can be performed in the workplace environment, and that both of these areas and how they are combined therefore must always be taken into consideration. Only with such a holistic view of workplace learning is it possible to determine the kind of learning which is actually taking place at work.

Chapter 5: Workplace learning as competence development

As a supplement to the general outlines of the structures and main elements of workplace learning established in the previous chapters, this chapter introduces the concept of competence development as the optimal tool in workplace learning. However, competence is a contested concept, there are a multitude of very different definitions, and the term is often used just to indicate smartness and modernity. If the concept of competence is to have any meaning and significance it must be made clear which qualities are necessary to separate competence from other kinds of skills and competence development from more ordinary learning. With this in mind, a crucial point is the potential to solve new and unexpected problem situations, and it is precisely this that makes it so problematic to measure competences.

1
Introduction

Why learning at work?

The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date presentation of the issue of workplace learning, defined as all learning taking place in workplaces or in relation to workplaces. It is intended to unfold the topic of human learning and combine it with the multiplicity of learning possibilities at or in relation to work and in this way to try to give an impression and an overview of the totality and complexity of this field.

During the last two or three decades ‘workplace learning’, ‘learning in working life’, ‘work-based learning’ and the like have become popular slogans in the context of vocationally oriented education and personnel development. Considerable interest has arisen on many sides – in practice, in theory, in politics, locally, nationally and internationally – in placing increasing emphasis on the vocationally oriented learning and development that take places directly at or in relation to the workplace, and it is often assumed that such learning and development meets a number of current challenges to the competence development of staff better than learning on courses and in educational institutions, because it is more directly connected to the situations, challenges and problems as they actually occur in practical working life.

This situation is fundamentally paradoxical, because as a point of departure workplace learning has precisely been the general and obvious form of vocationally oriented learning and qualification ever since a distinction began to be made between working life and the rest of life. However, there has been a clear tendency for increasingly more parts of qualification to be transferred from the workplace to formalised types of school, education and course activity, as working life and the rest of society gradually have become more and more complex. And there have, of course, been important reasons for this. Expensive school and educational systems would not be established and developed if they made no difference.

This development got under way first and foremost with the breakthrough and spread of industrialisation and capitalism during the nineteenth century, and it seems to have its roots in the need for fundamental and gradually more and more differentiated socialisation and qualification for the requirements of wage labour, which at a basic level requires a certain attitude that is not inborn: selling oneself as labour and loyally performing work determined by others within certain time frames. Since then the requirements concerning wage labourers’ qualifications, practical as well as personal, have grown and grown; they have become increasingly differentiated, and, as a result, it has become increasingly difficult for workplaces to undertake up-to-date training.

Originally, apprenticeships in Germany and the Nordic countries lasted for seven years and did not include any school activities. Gradually the duration was cut down to three to four years, and workplace training was supplemented by training at evening classes. From about 1960, it became common to spend one day per week at school (day release), and since the 1970s lengthy periods of schooling have been built into all types of apprenticeships, while time spent in training at the workplace has been reduced. Today we must accept the need for both vocational basic training courses and workplace training to be brought up to date by considerable supplementary training or direct retraining outside the workplace.

The development trend is absolutely clear: more and more schooling and less and less educational training in the workplace. Why, then, has there now arisen a significant countertrend to ‘return’ as much learning as possible to working life?

The reason should be sought primarily in the extensive and profound developments and changes in the structures of society that have been described as the transition to late modernity, post-modernity, the risk society, the knowledge society, the information society and so on, and which encompass the breakthrough of market management, globalisation and new technologies (see, for example, Giddens 1990; Beck 1992; Baumann 1998).

This process of change has resulted in two key development trends in the area of learning and education. First, there has been a shift away from the notion that education and qualification are something that essentially belong to childhood and youth, something that can be dispensed with once one has acquired a certain degree of vocational competence on which one can base a 40- to 50-year career, if necessary with occasional updating. This notion was well matched by a school and educational system that could deliver such vocational competences and could be expanded and differentiated in step with developments.

But it is clear that this situation no longer prevails. Everyone must be prepared for their working functions to change constantly and radically throughout the whole of their working lives. Therefore, what is needed today is what is typically called lifelong, lifewide and lifedeep learning (see, for example, EU Commission 2000; Illeris 2004; Jarvis 2009a), and how and the extent to which it takes place and the role the school and the educational system can play in this context are open questions.

Second, ‘what is to be learned’ has changed in nature. At one time the learning targets of the school and education programmes were referred to in categories such as knowledge, skills, attitudes or, more generally, qualifications. All of this is, of course, still necessary. But at the same time it must necessarily be updated, developed, reorganised and recreated constantly to fit new situations, so that it can quickly and flexibly be adapted to changed contexts that are not known at present but which we know with certainty will come. This is the essence of the current concepts of competences and competence development (see, for example, Raven and Stephenson 2001; Beckett and Hager 2002; Illeris 2009a). And it is undeniably a challenge to the school and education system to supply competences for the solution of problems and situations that are unknown at the time of learning. How is this to be done?

It is first and foremost these questions that have led to ideas about workplace learning gaining ground. Would it not be easier, less expensive and more efficient if such development and constant adaptation of competences were to take place in the workplace, where the competences are to be utilised and where there is always first-hand knowledge of what is new? In the case of vocationally oriented competences, this would mean that competences are acquired and adapted as part of working life, in workplaces, networks or partner organisations, and would ensure that the processes are always up to date.

And would this not also be more democratic? After all, in this way those who are directly affected would always know what is going on and play a part in deciding what is to take place and how. Is it not in the interest of society as a whole to ensure that decisions about up-to-date competence development are shared by workers and staff on all levels, thus ensuring that learning is far more wide-ranging and direct than when it takes place in schools and institutions that have their own agenda and modes of functioning?

There would seem to be many good arguments in favour of workplace learning from the point of view of learning theory, efficiency and democracy. This is why it also has attracted many strong adherents, including, not least, supranational expert organisations such as the OECD, the EU and the World Bank, which view workplace learning as a key element in the lifelong learning that leads to economic growth, individual personal development and increased social balance, nationally and internationally (see, for example, OECD 2000, 2001).

But there are other interests that cannot be disregarded if a full picture of the new trend is to be obtained.

First, it is clear that the steadily growing education requirements are expensive, and the state has, therefore, an obvious interest in removing some of the burden from institutions – but not all of it, because the state also has overall responsibility for the level of education and training of the workforce as a prerequisite for economic growth and global competitiveness. If vocationally oriented training is left completely to the labour market, qualifications could easily become too short-sighted and narrow. Thus, states will quite generally advocate interaction between institutionalised, vocationally oriented education and workplace learning and seek to get the business sector and participants to bear as much of the cost as possible.

Enterprises/employers will naturally be reluctant to do this, especially in countries where, traditionally, education is publicly financed, unless it is principally personal or enterprise specific in nature. On the other hand, workplace learning would give the enterprises more influence over what is learned and how, and much general education from which an individual enterprise achieves no direct benefit could be reduced in line with learning taking place directly at work. Attitudes to this could be positive or negative, but organisations would largely tend to welcome more learning being situated in working life, especially if it were linked with some type of financial compensation.

Workers would also be largely positive as there would be less need for them to ‘go back to school’: most people believe that they learn better in informal contexts and at their work than in institutionalised education (see, for example, Cedefop 2003). Trade unions would also find it easier to influence how education takes place. On the other hand, it is obvious that formalised education is in general better at ensuring a workforce with a good, well-documented level of education, and unions can perhaps exert more influence when the representatives of the state play a part in decision-making than can be achieved in direct interaction with employers.

Finally, it should not be forgotten that educational institutions and teachers have a strong self-interest in the maintenance of formalised study programmes. Although there is currently a trend for teachers to visit enterprises to take part in interactive courses, this can hardly make up for the safe incomes ensured by permanent courses in schools.

There are thus many and very different interests at play when it comes to workplace learning, and it is also part of late modern market society that one should not believe all one hear...