9 www.efmd.org/globalfocus
Special supplement | Global Focus Vol 06 | Issue 01 2012
Workplace Learning and How Managers Learn: Lessons for Learning Professionals
According to many research studies conducted over the last few years, the development of future leaders and managers is one of the highest priorities for European organisations. Having a good understanding of how managers learn, and what they look for support with most frequently, is an important starting point. While there has been a movement recently to adopt a more flexible approach to learning and development amongst more sophisticated organisations, there is still a significant focus on traditional approaches among the learning and development community. Two recent surveys highlight the challenge. In the UK, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, CIPD, reported in its 2011 Learning and Talent Development survey that its members considered in-house development programmes to be the most effective learning activity. A 2010 ComRes survey of people in management positions, on the other hand, found the most effective development activities to be informal chats with colleagues and on-the-job instruction. What accounts for this difference in perception? A simplistic interpretation would be to resort to cliché and claim that learning professionals see direct involvement in learning interventions as the only option. However, a more complex and interesting story lies behind the findings of the two surveys. These also highlight an opportunity for learning and development (L&D) departments to exert more influence over the performance of managers in their organisation.
The informal debate While similar, the two surveys asked questions with a slightly different focus. Managers were asked what they did when faced with an unfamiliar challenge. Learning and development professionals, on the other hand, were simply asked which learning approaches they believed were more effective. In fact, the CIPD survey didn’t offer informal conversations as a possible response to its question. This in itself explains much, since it appears that the concept of on-demand, workplace or ‘fingertip’ learning isn’t really on the agenda of most L&D professionals. The global financial crisis means organisations have to do more with less and, specifically, that many L&D departments are looking to spend less on expensive external programmes and replace them with more cost-effective internal programmes. It’s little wonder that the focus of learning professionals is on their internally developed interventions.