Chapter 8
JOINING UP INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
Snapshot
Many organizations are striving to become a “learning organization”, one that continuously learns to improve performance. However, developing the capability to learn effectively from the experience of people going about the organization’s business, successes and mistakes along the way and from the vast array of stakeholders with an interest and involvement in today’s organizations is a constant challenge. One important practical consideration is how do the different functions responsible for aspects of learning coordinate and integrate their activities? For example Knowledge Management tends to focus on initiatives that generate organizational level learning, whilst human resources functions tend to have a responsibility for individual employee learning. A consistent set of principles and strategies streamlines the overall learning efforts and ensures they are as effective as possible – “joining up” learning helps build the capability to become a learning organization.
Looking at the learning processes that underpin both individual and organizational learning highlights ways in which the human resources/training and development and Knowledge Management functions can collaborate and, in the process, deliver truly joined-up learning. A set of strategic principles, a set of specific proposals to integrate initiatives across the “employee lifecycle”, and a health check to diagnose the organizational receptivity ...
