BARRIERS TO LEARNING WITH DISENGAGED LEARNERS IN THE WORKPLACE

Barriers to Learning with Disengaged Learners in the Workplace



Barriers to Learning with Disengaged Learners in the Workplace

For both employers and workers, improving learning at work can be important.  In Australia, workplace practitioners have a vital role in bringing this about. There are many ways in which it can be done, but also some serious difficulties, some of which may not be possible to overcome.  Recent research in the UK, done by myself with others, helps illustrate the difficulties, and also points towards an important but often neglected additional approach, which I call improving the learning culture of the workplace.

Let's get some of the difficulties out of the way first.  In all workplaces, any learning done by the workers always has to take second place to the main functions of the firm - for private and increasingly for public enterprises, this means achieving profitability - looking after the bottom line.  Any learning activity which disrupts this primary purpose will always be very difficult to justify to employers, and therefore to provide.  For example, a young trainee in England was learning to work in the horse industry.  She worked in a stable that ran rides for tourists.  Quite often, planned learning had to be abandoned because a ride had to be taken out. More generally, it is becoming increasingly difficult to give workers training provision outside the workplace, because employers cannot release them from productive work. 

It is often claimed that worker learning is essential to the success of a firm, but the evidence says otherwise.  Factors such as the stock market (for private firms) the buoyancy of the economy, the market for the products or services being provided and, for public services, funding and State or national government-set targets, all influence productivity and financial success more than the learning of workers.  For several years in the late 1990s, the Rover car company had amongst the best worker learning provision in the UK.  This did not prevent the eventual bankruptcy of the firm.

A second problem that is often under-estimated by managers and employers, is that there are very good reasons why what workers want and what their employers want is not always the same.  Good management can and does increase areas of commonality, but differences often remain. Furthermore, not all workers want the same things.  All workers have differing histories and preferences, so that each person's dispositions towards workplace learning are different.  Those personal dispositions influence what and how they learn at work.

Despite these and other more localised difficulties, there are many ways in which learning at work can be improved, and workplace practitioners in Australia are already employing lots of them.  Professional development schemes do work for some workers for some of the time.  Personal guidance and support, groups learning sessions, work-based problem solving and access to courses outside the workplace can all be very valuable.  To be effective, any intervention must be tailored to the specific workplace and the particular workers ...