Learning and

Development
TOPIC 7

Introduction
Changes are bigger and happening
faster, and learning is the way to
keep ahead..to maintain
employability in a era when jobs for
life have gone. It enables
organizations to sustain their edge as
global competition increases.
Learning to learn is the ultimate life
skill.
Honey, 1998
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Need for individuals to learn

and develop
Organizations increasingly need their
employees to have:
A high level of education
The ability to learn new skills
The ability to work in organizations with
flatter structures
The ability to manage the interface with
customers and between departments
The ability to solve problems
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The need for organizations to

invest in their employees learning
and development
The human resource management
and development become essential
to organizational survival and
effectiveness
Staff management and development
will become the primary weapon
available to managers to generate
success
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Learning and development

List you reasons for learning in this
lecture, noting:
Both short term and long term aims
Those aims that are ends in themselves and
those that are means to an end
The most important and the least important
The aims that you can achieve by yourself
Those that require others to facilitate them
What else you need to achieve these aims
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Defining learning and

development
Learning is a process within the
organism which results in the
capacity for changed performance
which can be related to experience
rather than maturation.
Learning is not just a cognitive
process that involves the assimilation
of information in symbolic form.
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Defining learning and

development
Development is the process of
becoming increasingly complex,
more elaborate and differentiated, by
virtue of learning and maturation.
This greater complexity opens up the
potential for new ways of acting and
responding to the environment.

Barriers to learning and

development
BLOCKS TO LEARNING
Perceptual

Not seeing that there is a problem

Cultural

The way things are here

Emotional

Fear or insecurity

Motivational

Unwillingness to take risks

Cognitive

Previous learning experience

Intellectual

Limited learning styles, poor learning skills

Expressive

Poor communication skills

Structural

Lack of opportunity

Physical

Place, time

Specific
environment

Boss/colleagues unsupportive
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Adult learners
The adult learners is self-directing
Adult learners have experience on
which to draw
Adults are ready to learn when they
become aware that they need to know
What motivates them most are their
needs for self-esteem, recognition,
better quality of life, greater self
confidence, self actualization
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Learners in the organization

Older workers
Other classes of employees

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The outcomes of learning

Skills
Competence
Know-how and tacit knowledge
Employability
Hierarchies of cognitive and other
skills

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Skills

12

Competence
An underlying characteristic of a person
which results in effective and/or superior
performance in a job
The ability to perform the activities within
an occupational area to the levels of
performance expected in employment

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know-how and tacit knowledge

Knowing how to do something
Knowing about knowing how to do
something

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Employability
Employability results from
investment in the human capital of
skills and reputation.
Individuals must engage in
continuous learning and
development, update their skills and
acquire others that will be needed in
the future by their current or other
employer.
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Hierarchies of cognitive and

other skills
Single loop and double loop learning
Blooms taxonomy of cognitive skills

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Behaviourist approach to
learning
Learning is the process by which a
particular stimulus (S), repeatedly
associated with, or conditioned by,
desirable or undesirable experiences,
comes to evoke a particular response
(R)
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
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Information processing
approach to learning
Learning as an information
processing system in which a signal,
containing information, is
transmitted along a communication
channel of limited capacity and
subject to interference and noise
Input
from
external
world

Perceptu
al
encoding

Translatio
n process

Response
selection
and
execution

Observed
response

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Learning stages
Cognitive stage: learner has to
understand what is required, its rules
and concepts, and how to achieve it
Associate stage: the learners has to
establish through practice the
stimulus response links
Autonomous stage: the learner
refines the motor patterns of
behaviour
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The learning curve

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Kolbs learning cycle

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Honey and Mumfords learning

styles

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The process of development

Development is difficult to study,
embracing as it does both the
individuals (or organizations) inner
life and the changing nature of a
complex world, with the lifespan as
the time dimension.

23

Lifespan development
The total development of the
individual over time, and results from
the interweaving of the biological,
social, economic and psychological
strands of the individuals life.

24

Career development
Individual development interacts
with the organization and its
development through the individuals
career.

25

Continuing professional
development
CPD calls for a continuous process of
learning and of leaning to learn, and
is likely to have considerable benefits
for organizations employing
professionals, especially when part of
the overall corporate strategy.

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Other forms of development

within organizations

Self development
Employee development
Staff development
Management and organizational
development

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Reference
Beardwell, I. and Holden, L. (2001).
Human resource management.
(3rd ed.) Harlow: Prentice Hall

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