Chapter 7: Workplace learning

Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
• Identify and distinguish the differences between key concepts associated with learning
and development
• Discuss the key training and skills-development challenges and priorities in the South
African employment context
• Describe the impact of training, learning and development on the performance of
organisations
• Explain the role of analysis in determining training and development needs
• Differentiate between on-the-job, off-the-job and management training methods
• Discuss the appropriateness of the different training methods that are available to
organisations
• Elaborate on the role of training evaluation in ensuring the quality of workplace
learning programmes
• Describe how the workplace can be used as an active learning environment
• Explain the impact of key legislation on workplace learning in the South African context
Introduction
• Effective training programmes are critical for the success of
any organisation as they enable the organisation to upskill
their staff and stay competitive
• The training and development function of an organisation
exists in order to enable the organisation to meet its strategic
goals and remain competitive in the global marketplace
• Employees are seldom able to perform to their full potential
without continued training, learning and development
throughout their careers
Definitions

Learning: any relatively Workplace learning: “formal,

durable change → non-formal, self-directed
knowledge or behaviour collective and even tacit
informal learning activities”
that occurs as a result of
experience (Bratton, Mills & Pyrch, 2008: 2)
Core concepts in workplace learning
Education broader in scope than training and aims to develop individuals’
knowledge, social understanding and skill and intellectual capacity

Equip people to function effectively in society by providing them

with the necessary broad-based skills

Generally provided by public institutions, such as schools, colleges

and universities, which are predominantly sponsored by the South
African (SA) Government although there are a number of privately
run and owned institutions in SA
Training more specific → planned short-term change efforts
intended to modify competencies, attitudes and beliefs,
knowledge, skill or behaviour through structured
learning experiences to improve performance in the
work environment

involves instances when the end product of learning can

be specified in terms of specific outcomes or results. In
training, specific instructional procedures are designed
to train or build a particular skill-set or behaviour/s

In South African workplaces is predominantly directed at

helping employees to master skills-based outcomes and
applied competencies that relate specifically to
occupations and work, team or organisational
performance
Workplace
learning May occur through education,
teaching, studying, discussing,
observing, experiencing, practising
and committing to memory, however
a key focus is on-the-job learning
“the practice of providing occupationally directed and
other learning activities that enable and enhance the
knowledge, practical skills and workplace experience
and behaviour of individuals and teams based on
current and future occupational requirements for
optimal organisational performance and sustainability”
(The SA Board for People Practices (SABPP)(2014: 60)
Learning “the capacity adults possess of becoming self-
to learn consciously aware of their learning styles and
being able to adjust these according to the
situation in which they find themselves”
(Tuijnman & van der Kamp in Brookfield, 2010: 226)

“knowledge, process and procedures by which

people come to and are assisted to make
appropriate educational decisions and carry
out instrumental tasks associated with
successful lifelong learning”
(Smith in Ecclestone, 2000: 94)
Attributes of lifelong learners
Aspiration

Self-awareness

Curiosity

Vulnerability
• Great learners share attributes:
1. Aspiration in thinking about the benefits of learning
2. Self-awareness in being aware of your own strengths and
areas of development
3. Curiosity about the world and that which is unknown
4. Vulnerability in being prepared to fail and not being
successful at the first attempt
(Giacomassi, 2017)
 Development: “long-term change
Human resource development (HRD):
effort intended to broaden individuals
a process of developing and
through experience and to give them
unleashing expertise for the purpose
new insights about themselves and
of improving individual, team, work
their organisation in a way that
process, and organisational system
supports them in fulfilling their
performance”
potential”

Organisational development (OD):

“[t]he system-wide application and
transfer of behavioural science
knowledge to the planned
development, improvement and
refinement of the strategies,
structures and processes that lead to
organizational effectiveness”
 Tasks of the training & staff development
professional
Industrial and organisational (I-O) psychologists and human resource (HR)
practitioners often fulfil the role of training and development practitioners
in the workplace
Plans, develops, implements and evaluates training and development programmes to
ensure management and staff acquire the skills and develop the competencies required
by an organisation to meet organisational objectives.

Tasks
• Designing, co-ordinating, scheduling and conducting training and development programmes
• Gathering, investigating and researching background materials
• Identifying training needs and requirements of individuals and organisations
• Preparing and developing instructional training material and
• Promoting internal and external training and development and evaluating these
promotional activities
• Setting human resource development activities and evaluating learning outcomes
See Table 7.1 (p. 30) for more detail
Approaches to adult learning
• People learn not only through formal, systematic and structured
activities at school, college, university and in the workplace, but also
through interaction with other people
• Individual learning → “regularly changing behaviour based on a
deepening and broadening of one’s skills, knowledge and worldview”
(Sessa & London, 2006: 18)
• Team learning → more than the combined learning of individuals in the
team in that teams that learn together function at a higher level (Sessa &
London, 2006: 115)
• Combination of individual learning whereby team members gain, create and
share new knowledge and information.
• Process in which the team takes action, obtains feedback on this and then reflects
on its performance
• Teams are regarded as systems that learn through dynamic processes
• Organisational learning → “changing patterns of interactions, policies,
and procedures that emerge from the collectivity of individual learning,
continuous improvement, the development of culture, innovation, and
systems operations” (Sessa & London, 2006: 163)
Understanding the process of learning
through different theories of learning
Behaviourist approach
• behaviour can be shaped through reinforcement
• we learn because our behaviour is rewarded or strengthened

Cognitive approach
• learning takes place through the processes of memory, judgement,
problem solving, reasoning and understanding

Humanists
• knowledge, and therefore learning, is a personal, subjective issue
• personal motivation and self-directed
Understanding the process of learning
through different theories of learning
Social learning
• learn from our environments by observing the experiences of
others
• we acquire knowledge, behaviour and beliefs through observing the
consequences that these have for others

Constructivists
• there is no absolute reality, but that reality is an individual
subjective construction
• learning is a personal construction that differs from individual to
individual
Major perspectives on adult learning

Table 7.2 (p.233)

Table 7.2 (p.233)
• The theories discussed so far are Eurocentric
• A major theme when examining theories of learning is the
Africanisation of higher education, training and development in
general
• Africans aim to advocate African aspirations and ideals,
ancestry, cultural heritage, ideas, rights and interests in a
manner that builds and maintains their self-concept and own
rationality in an intercultural context
• Msila (2009) argues that African societies will be strengthened
when education represents indigenous knowledge systems
Adults as learners
• The study of adult learning is known as andragogy
• “art and science of helping adults learn” (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson,
2005: 3)
• Three categories of learners:
• goal-orientated learners: who study to achieve a particular goal in
their lives, such as promotion
• activity-orientated learners: who find the learning experience
meaningful in itself and whose emphasis is on social contact and
the type of relationships that the learning experience yields
• learning-orientated learners: who seek knowledge for its own
sake and participate in learning experiences on the basis of the
potential for growth that these experiences offer
Principles of andragogy

Motivation Goal-
to learn orientated

Orientation Self-
to learn concept

Readiness Prior
to learn experience
Adapted from Figure 7.1 (p.234)

Details provided on next slide

6 key principles of andragogy
Goal- problem-solving approach is followed whereby the learners
orientated learn what they need to know on the basis of their job
requirements or the stage of life that they find themselves in

Self- can vary from a dependent personality, who needs support and
concept guidance, to a self-directing human being who is able to work
independently

Prior attitudes to learning are also influenced by previous learning

experience experiences → The background, knowledge and experience of
all learners needs to be incorporated into the learning
experience.
6 key principles of andragogy
Readiness dependent on their stage of development and the
to learn social roles that they fulfil

Orientation different orientations to learn, which are reflected

to learn in individual learning styles

Motivation wide range of motives that induce individual adult

to learn learners to participate in any given learning
intervention
• Adults also have many other responsibilities that have to be
considered when they are being trained. These include:

Family
responsibilities for Taking care of their Expectations from
their own and/or own health needs their workplace
extended family

Differing work Professional

Transportation
responsibilities appointments
Different ways of learning
• “Active learning or the construction of knowledge entails
information processing beyond passive responses to stimuli or
encoding verbatim ... whatever input has been provided.”
→ individuals differ in the way that they attend to and process
learning materials “based on prior knowledge, understanding,
values, attitudes, styles, and resultant motivation” (Renzulli, 2001: 23)
Learning styles therefore refer to differences in the preferences
that learners have in the use of their abilities (Sternberg & Zhang, 2001:
viii), or where their particular cognitive strengths lie (Biggs, 2001: 76).
• The four phases in Kolb’s experiential learning cycle involve different
cognitive processes:
1. Concrete experience:
• Means that learners are fully involved in here-and now experiences such as daily
activities in the workplace, family and community→ structured activities
2. Reflective observation:
• Entails the learner deconstructing these activities and reflecting on, as well as
observing, their experiences from different perspectives through which they are
given meaning
3. Abstract conceptualisation:
• Involves the formulation of abstract concepts and generalisations that are
integrated into a logically sound personal model of reality, or the learner combines
these with theories and explanations proposed by others
4. Active experimentation:
• Involves the learner testing the implications of these new concepts in new
situations, that is, making decisions and solving problems
Kolb and Fry’s learning styles

Table 7.3 (p.237)

Kolb and Fry’s learning styles

Table 7.3 (p.237)

• Online or eLearning, including social media and social networking sites (SNS), is
becoming popular in the learning and development domain (Donelan, 2015) and trainers
therefore need to consider the learning styles of SNS user groups.
• A differentiation can be made between three user groups based on Internet and social
networks:
1. Introvert users:
1. Send private messages, contact friends, update their profiles less frequently and
typically use the Internet and SNS less than once a week for less than an hour
2. Versatile users:
1. Update their profiles, share photos, send private messages and search for
friends; they might look for information and send public messages less
frequently; they typically use the Internet and SNS several times a week for over
an hour a week
3. Expert communicators:
1. Do all of the activities that introvert and versatile users engage in, but more
frequently They typically use the Internet and SNS more than once a day for over
an hour a week (Lorenzo-Romero, Constantinides & Alarcon-del-Amo, 2012).
The purpose of workplace learning
Solving performance problems
Improving performance
Orientation and induction of new employees
Updating employee skills in workplaces that are becoming more complex
Development of managers
Avoiding managerial obsolescence
Fulfilling the need for personal growth
Addressing national skills shortages
Functional illiteracy
Creating learning organisations
Enhancing team performance
Fewer workers due to downsizing
Government interventions in the workplace
Covid-19’s impact on training and development
Conducting workplace learning in a
systematic manner
1. Analysing the level
& type of
performance problem

5. Evaluating the
2. Designing the
effectiveness of the
training intervention
intervention

3. Delivering the
4. Assessing learning
intervention
Figure 7.2 (p. 240)
Analysing performance deficits
• The reason for conducting an analysis in an organisation is to
identify the nature and causes of a gap in the organisation’s
performance.
• When conducting an analysis, it is important to view an
organisation as a system, as “an interrelated set of elements
functioning as a whole” (Griffin, 2003: 17).
• A distinction can be made between performance on the
organisational, process, team and individual job/performer
levels
Performance variables in an organisation

Table 7.5 (p. 242)

Analysis techniques
• Training needs analysis comprises three aspects:
1. Developing a list of the tasks performed in a job
2. Verifying that these are a valid representation of that job
3. Analysing what a person needs to know and be able to do in order to meet
the performance standards of the job
• Employees in the particular job are then measured against the
required levels of workplace expertise
• Analysing the work processes is another analytical technique
• Systems tasks analysis: the systems in modern organisations are
increasingly complex and abstract, hence the organisation needs to
be analysed as a complex system with multiple relationships, as
opposed to a linear process where one step is followed by the next
• Knowledge task analysis: examines people-people and people-
idea workplace expertise. Workplace expertise is “… the level at
which a person is able to perform within a specialised realm of
human activity” (Swanson, 2007: 125)
• A skill audit: conducted to measure the collective skills and
knowledge held by members of an organisation
• mapping of the skills required by the organisation
• identifying the skills that will be required in the future
• identifying the skills required by individual employees
• Compiling a list of skills
• Linking to the various posts within the organisation, including the
occupational profiles on the Organising Framework for Occupations
• Conducting an audit comparing employee skill levels with required
performance levels and skills (OFO)
Collection of the data required for an
analysis
• The four major methods available for data collection are
• (1) questionnaires (2) interviews (3) observations (4) unobtrusive
measures
• The choice of data-collection technique will depend on the
type of data that needs to be collected, the amount of time
and money available and the personal preferences of the
analyst
• Recommended → use more than one method to ensure
validity
Key data-collection methods

Questionnaires
Interviews
Focus groups
Observation
Artefacts
Historical documents For more detail see
Table 7.6 (p. 243)
Designing learning interventions
• Also known as human resource development (HRD), which is
defined as “organised learning experiences provided by
employers within a specified period of time to improve
performance and/or promote personal growth”
• Training (which relates to the performance of the current job)
• Education (which relates to the future job of the learner)
• Development (which encompasses broad-based learning to empower
the person both as an employee and a member of society)
Specifying outcomes, goals & objectives
• Objectives specify what the learner must master through the
intervention (exist in a hierarchy)
• main, or terminal objectives
• supporting or enabling objectives
• Outcomes are statements about what specific knowledge, skills and
attitudes the training or learning programme aims to provide the
learner with
• Learning outcomes
• cognitive outcomes (focus on knowledge mastery)
• skills-based outcomes (concern the development of motor or technical skills
• Affective outcomes (include attitudes or beliefs that predispose a person to
behave in a certain way)
Bloom’s taxonomy of performance

Creating

Evaluating

Analysing

Applying

Understanding

Remembering
Figure 7.3 (p. 245)
Developing an instructional plan
• Key components that should be included:
• The title of the training or learning programme
• A course description
• A list of the learning outcomes
• The length of the programme in terms of the number of sessions and their
duration
• The training or learning facilitation methodology
• The audience
• Prerequisites and preparation required of the learners
• The instructional or learning facilitation support materials
• Learner support services
• Assessment of learner achievements
• Quality assurance matters
• A reference list
• Techniques or methods for evaluating the effectiveness of the training or
learning programme
Delivering learning: Different training
methods
• Instructor-led classroom methods
• On-the-job methods
• Self-instruction
• Technology-based training
• Job-performance aids
• Training by documentation
Instructor-led classroom methods

Table 7.8 (p. 248)

Instructor-led classroom methods

Table 7.8 (p. 248)

Workplace-centred training methods

Table 7.9 (p. 249)

Workplace-centred training methods

Table 7.9 (p. 249)

Distance education, training and learning

Table 7.10 (p. 250)

Distance education, training and learning

Table 7.10 (p. 250)

Blended methods
• Blended learning is a mixed approach to training where the
trainer uses a wide array of training methods including
technology-based presentation techniques, simulations,
smallgroup methods, self-instruction, social learning and on-
the-job training where the strengths of face-to-face and web-
based or online/elearning are combined
• Advances in technology allow for both synchronous learning,
where the learner and trainer meet face to face either in the
classroom or online, and asynchronous learning, which means
non-simultaneous learning sessions, whereby learners and
trainers log in at different times to post information and
engage in discussions
Delivering workplace learning interventions

Table 7.11 (p. 253)

Materials that support the delivery of learning

PowerPoint presentations
Handouts
Flip charts
Whiteboards and chalk boards
Videos
Managing the learning experience

• As with any management process, it is critical that there is a

sense of accountability. As Wills (1998: 16) states, “[n]o
process will work efficiently unless somebody ‘owns’ or is
accountable for the process”.
• Managers need to ask questions when managing a training or
learning programme
• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
Assessment of learning
Assessment is “a structured Formative assessment: the
process for obtaining evidence ongoing assessment process
about a learner’s competence throughout the learning
to make a judgement of process aimed at providing the
competence” (Truman & learner with feedback about
Coetzee, 2013: 404) their progress

Summative assessment:
conducted at the end of the
training programme and used
For more detail on
to judge overall competence different
and success assessment types
Table 7.13 (p. 255)
Evaluating the effectiveness of workplace
learning

• Evaluation measures the effectiveness and efficiency of a

workplace learning intervention→ how well the programme
works and how well it was designed and implemented
• Evaluation is therefore the systematic process of making
judgements about the quality of a training or learning
programme
Evaluative models
Kirkpatrick’s Different levels from which criterion data can be collected to
hierarchy evaluate or measure training outcomes build upon one another,
with each level being more sophisticated and adding more value

Phillips’s Added a fifth level to Kirkpatrick’s model; return on investment

return on (ROI). ROI attempts to determine the return on invested capital by
dividing the expected benefits by the costs of the intervention
investment

Nadler’s considers evaluation as a continuous process: it should be

model integrated into every part of the training and delivery
Training legislation in South Africa
• South African organisations have to comply with a number of
laws (acts) aimed at achieving the objectives of the NSDS
• National Qualifications Framework Act (67 of 2008)
• Skills Development Amendment Act (37 of 2008)
• These acts have major implications on how workplaces manage
their training and development functions
Developing skills in the workplace
• Workplace learning in SA is governed by a number important acts,
which include:
• The Skills Development Act (97 of 1998)
• The Skills Development Levies Act (9 of 1999)
• The Skills Development Amendment Acts (31 of 2003) and (37 of 2008)
• Their goals are achieved through the establishment of an
institutional and financial framework that comprises a number of
bodies and processes:
• National Skills Authority
• Skills Development Planning Unit
• Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs)
• Skills Development Levies Act (9 of 1999)
• Skills Development Amendment Act (37 of 2008)
• National Skills Fund
• Labour centres and Employment Services South Africa (ESSA)
• Skills Development Amendment Act (37 of 2008)
The national Occupational Learning System
• The DOL established the national Occupational Learning System
(OLS) to improve work-related (occupational) learning
• The OLS includes
• Occupational Qualifications Framework (OQF) (as a subframework of the
NQF 2.0)
• focused on providing a structure for designing, delivering and assessing learning that
is highly responsive to the demands of the workplace
• QCTO as a new standards-setting and quality-assurance body, as well as
various innovations relating to the management of learning in business and
industry
• Within the OLS and OQF applied competence is achieved through
three components:
• knowledge and theory (general knowledge and theory and specialised and
occupational knowledge and theory)
• practical skills
• work experience