Workplaces Want Good Learners
Companies see employees as knowledge workers, and what they know as knowledge assets. There is also a new emphasis on employees as learners. Since organizations get ahead when their employees learn and apply their learning to their jobs, the emphasis on learning may be overt. In its recruitment flyers, for instance, Texas Instruments says that ideal candidates will have the "willingness to learn and grow."
The business community is increasingly aware of the importance of seeing its workers as learners:
Competitiveness in the 21st century will turn on the quality of the country's workforce, not just on its technology and management know-how. By creating an environment in which employees feel comfortable enough to improve their skills, employers not only engender loyalty, but increase productivity. Boosting employee literacy isn't just good social engineering, but an economic necessity.(1)
Morton Egol (Managing Director of Arthur Andersen's School of the Future Program) is especially outspoken about workers as learners, claiming that "all work will become learning."(2) Egol is particularly concerned that educational institutions be redesigned for learning in the Information Age, emphasizing project-based learning, information literacy, and the development of lifelong learning skills.
Learning opportunities for workers may include company educational reimbursements for traditional education; organizational support for attendance at workshops and special training sessions, etc. But, more and more, job-related learning is delivered over the Internet. Companies may have their own training centers (e.g., Texas Instruments uses TEDS, Training, Education & Development System <http://www.cbm.com/company.html>), but is considering bringing broadband learning to its employees with Ninth House Network <http://www.ninthhouse.com> TCM Internet Services is another example of a site supplying training via the Web; it offers "over 410 courses at your finger tips" at its training center <http://www.tcm.com/learning/index.htm>
High Performance Organizations
With the onslaught of the Information Age, and the changeable technology
environment, organizations are now seeing themselves as high performance.
This framework places a premium on employees who are learners and problem-solvers.
High-performance organizations encourage collaboration and cross-functional
sharing of information, nurture innovation, and work hard at reducing bureaucracy.
In writing about high performance companies, many writers refer to the fact
that assumptions are routinely challenged as the current environment changes.
"We've always done it that way" gets challenged.
Lifelong Learners
Companies are increasingly recognizing that lifelong learning skills are
extremely valuable:
Lifelong learning does not simply mean going back to school during a career. Gathering, processing, analyzing, and interpreting information -- and deciding what to retain and what to discard -- must be an integral part of how one operates in the workplace.(3)
Individuals who have been caught in the technology trenches in the last decade or so, and who have struggled to master new technology skills, know from personal experience how important self-directed learning skills are. Several of the Workplace Quotations I collected refer to the importance of having skills to be a lifelong learner (see numbers 18, 20, and 21).
Librarians have long realized that there are intimate links between information literacy, knowing how to learn, and lifelong learners. As far back as 1989, the final report of the American Library Association's Presidential Committee on Information Literacy stated:
Ultimately, information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them. They are people prepared for lifelong learning, because they can always find the information needed for any task or decision at hand.(4)
Since being a good learner is so critical to success, there are (naturally!) assessment and training programs on the Web. For example, Performance Learning Strategies offers Learning in the Information Age, which are 6 hour, Web-based workshops. Workers Assessments from ACT offers assessments for work-related skills in applied mathematics, locating information, applied technology, writing, etc.
(1) Scott Hays, "The ABCs of Workplace Literacy," Workforce, vol. 78, no. 4, April 1999, p. 4.
(2) Morton Egol, "Transforming Education," Vital Speeches of the Day, vol. 65, no. 16, 1 June 1999, p. 1-2.
(3) David Raths, "Next-Century Skills," InfoWorld, vol. 21, no. 16, 19 April 1999, p. 97+
(4) American Library Association. Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. Final Report. Chicago: ALA, 1989, p. 1. Also available online <http://www.infolit.org/documents/89Report.htm>
(5) Andrew J. Brosso, "Old-Style Management Won't Work
in High-Performance Marketplace," Business First - Columbus,
15 October 1999, vol. 16, no. 7, p. 21A. At Texas Instruments, one of the
evaluative criterion used in performance appraisals for salaried staff is
whether the person challenges the status quo in a constructive fashion.
High-performance companies nurture and reward those who seek out, and suggest,
improvements.
Investigating
Information Age Realities in the World of Work
