Improving Workplace Learning

Karen Evans, Phil Hodkinson, Helen Rainbird, Lorna Unwin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134196524
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Across the western world, there is a growing awareness of the importance of workplace learning, seen at the level of national and international policy, as well as in the developing practices of employers, training providers and Trades Unions. Authoritative, accessible, and appealing, it presents key findings on work-based learning, bringing together conclusions and investigating a variety of workplace contexts to show how such learning can be improved. An extensive practical treatment, brought to life with illustrations from both the public and private sectors, this book has a unique combination of breadth of coverage and depth of understanding.

Grounded in rich and detailed empirical studies, this volume challenges conventional thinking. An important new addition to the Improving Learning series, it focuses on guidelines for improving learning by marrying the very best theory and practice to provide an accessible and authoritative guide to workplace learning. Practitioners, policy makers, students and academics with an interest in learning at work will find this an invaluable addition to their bookshelves.

Part I
The Issues

Chapter 1
Workplace learning

Perspectives and challenges

Lead authors: Karen Evans and Helen Rainbird

Introduction

The research on which this book is based has aimed to examine learning within the socioeconomic context of the workplace. The conflict embodied in the wage relationship and wider systems for the management and regulation of employment frame our exploration of workplace learning. The improvement of workplace learning requires acritical examination of what is currently provided and the structures and regulatory framework within which it takes place. It also requires an understanding of how workers learn, as individuals and collectively. Our evidence, from employers and employees in many, varied workplaces in the private and public sector, has led us toward integrated and culturally embedded approaches to the improvement of workplace learning. In this chapter, we begin this process by considering the potential and limits of workplace learning, and the contemporary theories that can shed light on the practices of learning in, for and through the workplace.

Workplace learning: Potential and limits

The idea that learning is critical to economic success has been around for a long time. Since the mid-nineteenth century, British governments have been concerned about the relative weakness of vocational training and its influence on the performance of the economy relative to that of competitor nations, and these concerns have been echoed in the twentieth century (Perry 1976). This has been intensified since the oil crisis of the 1970s and the perception of the pervasiveness of globalization as an inexorable force affecting national economies. In most instances, this has been seen in terms of improvements in formal education and training. This book deals with the broader subject of workplace learning as an activity which is embedded in the production process and the social interactions of the workplace, as well as more formal learning interventions related to the work environment.

In the light of these developments in the economy, there is now a perception that Fordist forms of work organization, based on F. W. Taylor’s principles of reducing the skill requirements of the production process through the specialization of work tasks, need to be replaced by ones requiring higher levels of worker skills and organizational commitment. This has taken various forms, ranging from Piore and Sabel’s (1984) model of “flexible specialization” and Kern and Schumann’s (1984) “new production concepts” in Germany, to different national models of human-resource management (HRM): The Anglo-US model, the European model/s, and the Japanese (see Harzing and Van Ruysseveldt 2004). This has been accompanied by a discourse about the need for companies to become “learning organizations” (Senge 1990, Pedlar et al. 1991) and to engage in “knowledge management” (see Scarborough et al. 1998 for a review). The key point to emerge is that in a global economy where companies can switch locations to take advantage of the benefits of low wage costs, there is a view that the qualifications and skills of the workforce need to be raised so that the high wage costs of production facilities in the developed world can be justified. This applies not only to the formal qualifications of young people leaving the education system and starting their careers, but also to workers already in employment. Existing employees need to increase their skills and adapt to changes in work organization and technology and, at the same time, to improve their wider employability in the labor market, in the event of redundancy.

In the UK, the centrality of lifelong learning to both economic success and social inclusion has been emphasized, as in the Green Paper The Learning Age. A Renaissance for a New Britain (DfEE 1998). More importantly, for our argument, it emphasized the significance of the workplace both as a site of learning and as a site of access to learning. These two strands of argument come together in suggesting that new approaches to managing labor presuppose an increased requirement for workers to develop their skills and qualifications in order for companies to be successful in the new business environment, on the one hand; and that there is a need for the workplace to be developed as a site for accessing different forms of learning, on the other.

Despite the recognition of the need for learning at work and the potential of the workplace as a site of learning, serious questions are raised about the extent to which this potential can be realized in practice. Research evidence suggests that many companies are not engaged in the types of market strategies that require higher levels of workforce skills and learning. These strategies include: A continuing preference for cost-based competition and a reliance on the production of standardized goods and services, hierarchical management structures and low trust relationships, and limited scope for developing environments in which creativity and innovation are encouraged (Keep and Rainbird 2000:190). Where companies attempt to align their HRM strategies more closely to their business strategies, this can take different forms. As Storey argues, the “hard” version of HRM emphasizes “the quantitative, calculative and business-strategic aspects of managing the headcounts resource in a rational way as for any other economic factor.” In contrast, the “soft” version, with its roots in the Human Relations school of management, emphasizes “communication, motivation and leadership” (1989:8). Where labor is treated as a disposable factor of production, employers are unlikely to invest in skill development, and work is likely to be designed in ways that reduce rather than enhance the scope for workplace learning. Skill-enhancement strategies are more likely to be found in the “soft” version of HRM.

Locating workplace learning in the employment relationship

The employment relationship is significant to workplace learning because the workplace is a site where workers experience the unequal power relations between themselves and the employer. Although much of the policy debate assumes that what is good for business is also good for employees and for society, writers in the field of industrial relations make the distinction between the unitary and pluralist views of the employment relationship (Fox 1966). The unitary (or unitarist) framework is one that sees employers and employees as sharing an identity of interests. In contrast, the pluralist framework sees conflict at work as inevitable, because workers and managers have different interests and power bases. As a consequence, securing workers’ consent is not an automatic process but an uncertain and insecure one that needs to be achieved through active management (Edwards 2003:12). Edwards argues that the key point about the

indeterminacy of the labour contract and strategies of labour control is that managers and workers are locked into a relationship that is contradictory and antagonistic. It is contradictory … because managements have to pursue the objectives of control and releasing creativity, both of which are inherent in the relationship with workers and which call for different approaches.

(2003:16)

This is the context of workplace learning and workplace-learning interventions, which are, in turn, constitutive of the employment relationship.

The point here is that the workplace is a site in which antagonistic relationships are expressed, but may also involve a degree of cooperation and the establishment of consensus. This has consequences both for the relationship between managers and their employees, including trade unions if they are present in the workplace. In a discussion of new forms of work organization, Geary (1995) argues that two positions have been adopted. The optimistic position takes the view that management

are no longer content to rely merely in securing employees’ compliance through a narrow conception of the labour contract, but seek instead to win over employees’ hearts and minds by developing broad job descriptions, encouraging greater flexibility and engendering employees’ involvement in the affairs of the enterprise.

(1995:369)

In contrast, the pessimistic view is that “management are more concerned to root out shopfloor challenges to their right to manage than totransform the manner in which work is organized” (Geary 1995:370). As a consequence, “the assumption that new structures of work organization will engender harmony in place of adversarial relations must be viewed sceptically” (Hyman and Streeck 1988:4).

From “training” to “workplace learning”

Whereas earlier debates on learning at and for work tended to focus on initial education and vocational training, there has been a shift of emphasis in the UK to learning and skills. This reflects and is reflected in changing institutional structures. Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s, the structures were the industrial-training boards (ITBs) and the Manpower Services Commission (MSC), by the beginning of the twentyfirst century, this had shifted to the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) (via the training and enterprise councils [TECs]). Nevertheless, the link between skills and work organization is significant, as is the shift in vocabulary of policy documents from “training” to “workplace learning.” For whereas training implies an intervention which is formally structured and involves the transfer of a body of knowledge, workplace learning is more encompassing and involves locating learning in social relations at work. Although this can take a variety of forms, it is significant that informal learning is acquiring an increasing profile in EU policy documents (European Commission 2001), and this is reflected in the concern of organizations such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) with “capability frameworks.”

If we adopt the definition of the Workplace Learning Task Group (which reported to the National Advisory Group on Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning), it refers to “that learning which derives its purpose from the context of employment” (Sutherland 1998:5). This goes beyond training, which is narrowly focused on the immediate task and restricted to business needs, but involves “learning in, through and for the workplace.” In adopting this broader definition of workplace learning, it explicitly addresses the learning needs of a variety of stakeholders in the workplace: Employees, potential employees, and government, in addition to those of employers.

Learning in the workplace can refer to a variety of different forms of learning which may or may not be formally structured, some of which take place spontaneously through the social interactions of the workplace. Eraut et al.’s (1998) research on highly qualified workers points to a variety of ways in which people say they learn: By observing others, through mentoring arrangements, by making mistakes. A key point here is the extent to which the organization of production affords opportunities for learning. Whereas the highly qualified workers studied by Eraut et al. had many opportunities for learning, which arose through the high level of work autonomy they experienced, this is not the case for all workers. Those who define their work as “boring” and “monotonous” and who experience job deskilling may have few intrinsic opportunities for learning at work (Rainbird et al. 1998). Whether or not workers receive formal training in work routines, the workgroup itself may impose rules of acceptable behavior and its boundaries through the socialization process (Seymour 2005, Lewis 2005).

Learning through the workplace refers to learning opportunities that are accessed as part of the employment relationship. In other words, this refers to learning that is accessed by employees through their relationship to the employer. Some employees, such as professional workers, may have an expectation of access to learning as part of their package of employment benefits or as a condition of membership of a professional organization. Other workers may not have such expectations. These entitlements may be obtained through workplace custom and practice, collective bargaining, or legislation and may refer not only to learning that is immediately related to the current job, but also to broader development opportunities and wider employability.

Learning for the workplace refers to learning opportunities that may be narrowly or broadly defined. An example of the former would be job-related training, and an example of the latter would be general education, which may be directly or indirectly related to the job. Whereas the former could be considered as an example of training for employer need, the latter represents an example of training for employee need, whereby a worker gains access to learning that contributes to their broader development and skills or contributes to their understanding of their role and function within the wider organization (Rainbird et al. 2003).

The ESRC Research Network: Improving incentives to learning at work

The research on which this book is based sought to examine learning within the socioeconomic context of the workplace, with a foc...