Thoughts on Workplace Learning

When we think of “learning” and the resulting changes in behavior that occur as a result, we can categorize learning into three distinct, and different categories. First, there is “Training.” When I think of training, I think of what you do when you don’t want your dog to pee on the rug. It’s a very stimulus/response driven sort of thing.

Then there is “Education.” Education is characterized by everything most people were exposed to in their formal “schooling.” Its predominant feature is to have an “expert” at the podium or in front of a screen sharing his or her knowledge with the students in the room. Sure, it can be interactive, it can be social, or it can be straight lecture, but the transfer of knowledge from “teacher” or “facilitator” to “student” is the primary methodology.

Finally, we have what happens all around us every day in every workplace; I’ll call it “workplace learning.” Workplace learning is characterized by a continuous and independent gaining of knowledge that happens within the context of work and with those you share your work experiences with. In modern workplace learning, work and learning aren’t two things: they’re one.

Exceptional learning organizations understand that this is where real learning occurs, and they recognize it, leverage it, and reward it. Most importantly, they select tools and allocate resources to support and encourage it.

For example, the LMS is a tool designed to support training and education, but it has some significant deficiencies as a tool to support modern workplace learning. To support workplace learning, organizations must build a learning ecosystem that is supported by more sophisticated learning platforms that may have LMS functionality embedded within them, but whose purpose is to support and integrate the kind of workplace learning that occurs “out there” in the workplace, in addition to what happens in the classroom or e-learning module. (Let’s face it, I work in healthcare, and in a compliance-driven environment like ours, it may not be possible to avoid some classroom or e-learning “training” in order to drive compliance by assigning, tracking, and “checking off” training and education activities. It is important not to mix realities, however: assigning, tracking, and checking off training is NOT a “learning” activity. It is a “compliance” activity; if learning occurs, it’s usually a happy by-product, not an intentional outcome.)

Exceptional learning organizations and those who consider themselves to be learning professionals, would do well to embrace the challenges of adapting to how learning really occurs in the modern workplace. Requiring new tools, new perspectives, and a whole lot of paradigm shifting, embracing a modern learning mindset involves quite a bit of effort, but perhaps more challenging, it requires that learning professionals and L&D departments give up control of learning: placing it instead in the hands of the learner.

The good news is, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to do anything at all. Organizational learning has always and will continue to vastly be dominated by what happens in the workplace, not in the classroom. So the ship, as they say, has already turned. The real question is “Are you on board?”