Definition for Learning Organisation
According to Senge (1990), the learning organization is a type of company that facilitates learning and development of its members and continuously transforms the organization itself. The learning organization can be able to gain competitive advantages into the business environment.
Cunningham et al. (2000) say the term of “learning organization” is not similar with “organizational learning” was popularized by Peter Senge. Learning organization describes the organization with a better learning environment that aims to perfect achievement of organizational objectives as well as individual objectives of its people. According to Senge (1990), the learning organization is a place where people/ employees expand their knowledge/ skills to create the result they truly desire, where there are new thinking patterns and where people are continually learning to see reality together. According to the definition of Peter Senge, there are two basic understandings;
- According to Davis (2009), the ideal organization that encourages continues learning, knowledge management (KM) and innovation can be identified as “learning organization”.
- The perfect leadership models/ characteristics are essential to promote learning organizational environment.
Hodgson (2010) the learning organization can acquire knowledge and innovations from the external environment very fast, create a culture that encourages continues learning, development, critical thinking and risk-taking with new ideas/ innovations. The learning organization always allow to learn from experience and experiments and gain knowledge through doing different activities that incorporate into daily business activities.
According to Parker (2010), the learning culture is the collection of conventions, values, practices, and process that encourage employees and organization to develop their knowledge, skills and capabilities. The organizations with a learning culture always encourage learning of their member in order to create an opportunity for the establishment to transform continually.
Figure 1: Characteristics of learning culture (Senge, 1990)
Characteristics of Learning Organisation
There can be able to see common five characteristics of learning organizations;
System Thinking
According to Davis (2009), the identification of the learning organization develops from a body of work is calling as system thinking. The system thinking has support to the organisation to distinguish patterns instead of conceptualizing changes as isolated events. According to Senge (1990), learning organization uses system thinking when assessing the company and has the information system that measures the performance of the organization with different components.Personal Mastery
It means the commitment/ contribution of each individual to the process of learning/ development. When workforce can learn quickly/ faster, it will generate competitive advantages for the organization. As per Hodgson (2010), individual learning can be encouraged through staff training, development and continue self-development. The individual learning/ development can transform into organizational learning.Mental Models
According to Parker (2010), the perspective of individual and organization regarding the learning culture can be identified as a mental model. The personal perspectives are the challenge for the learning system of the organization since differentiation of thinking pattern, attitudes, and personal behavior.Shared Vision
Cunningham et al. (2000) say develop a common vision is difficult in learning organizational structure because followers’ vision is always differing from leader’s vision. Therefore, development of shared vision is important to focus on common goals/ objectives in order to give energy for a learning process.Team Learning
The individual learning constitutes team learning. Team learning increases the value of learning the culture and improve problem-solving capacity, facilitate cross-culture learning and build team bonds to face the changes and challenges in the business environment.Applications of Learning Culture in Nestle Sri Lanka
Nestle Sri Lanka is Sri Lankan subsidiary of well-known “Nestle Company” which is the food processing multinational company. Nestle was started at 1866 in Switzerland and now it is world largest food and beverage company with more than 2000 brands. Nestle is operating in 191 countries around the world (Nestle Lanka, 2018).
Hodgson (2010) the organization always encourage learning culture within their business environment through personal learning of individuals as well as team learning process. The business facilitates to their employees to engage with continues learning in order to promote innovation, shared vision, group thinking for the strategic view of the business. Nestle always promote learning organization which is able to change its behavior and mindset as a result of experience and business experiments (Catt and Miller, 1991). To gain new knowledge, the management encourages the participation of their employees in order to gain competitive advantages. According to Davis (2009), the management encourages the employees to change their behavior and mindset as a result of experience and learning. Nestle Sri Lanka is an organization that actively create, capture, transfer, and mobiles the knowledge to adapt to the changing environment.
They follow five characteristics of learning the culture as mentioned below;
According to Parker (2010), the business learns to their employees to adapt to “learning” pattern of the business which leads to overall organizational goals. They promote the business environment which links with each other (inter-department linkage) as the method of expanding learning opportunities. Management encourages each individual to participate in the learning process, and it is main KPI that apply to measure their performance at the end of the year. The employees who actively participate in the learning process consider as strategic partners of the business. The nature of organizational environment encourages personal learning as well as team learning within the business. As the importance of learning the culture, Nestle Lanka increases their investment to create and promote learning organization. Below graph shows how Nestle Lanka invest in their learning process yearly (Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016).
Figure 2: Investment on training and development of Nestle Lanka
(Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016)
Nestle identifies some advantages from learning the organizational culture. Mainly the learning organization increase efficiency, productivity in order to the profitability of the business. According to Parker (2010), the employees who engage in continuous learning process, explore new knowledge and skills and increase their experience. Therefore, employees in learning organization can deliver the best result more than competitions. When the organization provides opportunities for learning, development and active participation as the strategic partner, it may be a reason for increasing their loyalty, commitment, and satisfaction. The employees retain with the organization for long-term as well as reduce labor turnover. The learning organizational culture improves the employees’ mindset to accept changes and challenges come from internally and externally. The employees share their knowledge with others in order to promote overall learning culture to gain competitive advantages. Therefore, it is easy to the organization to manage their changes and transform the business for the more effective level. According to Davis (2009), the organization can produce formal/ professional and ethical work behavior among the employees with their experience and knowledge. It can be able to continue improvement of employees’ performance with their new knowledge and experience in learning the organizational culture.
The link between Learning Organisation and Training and Development in Nestle Lanka
Drucker (2006) says Human Resource Development (HRD) is systematic approach/ set of activities that help employees to develop their personal knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Human resource development can be identified as the formal set of activities that aim to develop people’s knowledge and behavior.
According to Hodgson (2010), Human resource development considers as one of most significant HRM concept because it motivates to the employee to continue personal development in order to the overall productivity of the organization. HRD includes different opportunities such as employee training, career development process, performance management, coaching, and mentoring and organization development. Tomlinson (2004) explains all of these aspects focus to the superior workforce, both of employer and employee work together to accomplish one shared goal. It does not just offer a training event, but development is the long-term process and required facilitating from the organization itself. Today’s organization applies “learning organization” model in their business culture which promotes long-term people’s development within the organization. According to Parker (2010), learning organization always encourage continue training and development activities which aim for individual development in order to overall business development.
Learning organization just not offer training activities to develop technical aspect of the employees. Nestle Sri Lanka’s organizational culture has the tendency to continue development of its people more than offering training event (Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016). The business environment provides learning facilities and opportunities for all employees according to their job roles and operation levels. Also, the business environment encourages/ motivates employees to deal with learning facilities always. Therefore, employees can follow the formal training as well as self-managed learning process to gain new knowledge in order to develop personal abilities and skills.
Nestle Lanka offers different training and development programs that link with learning the organizational culture of the business. They expect each of their employees (currently there is 800+ employee in Nestle Sri Lanka) should have the opportunity to apply their maximum potential. Therefore, Nestle management encourages lifelong learning and personal development programs for employees (Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016).
Tomlinson (2004) explains that basically, they designed on-the-job training and off-the-job training methods for their employees. On-the-job training means the type of training which has an offer within an actual working environment with necessary tools and equipment. Here, an employee has an opportunity to perform actual job role while doing the training program. Drucker (2006) says job rotation is most common on-the-job training method which teaches to employees how to perform different jobs/ task in the organization. The employee rotates from one job to another and learns to perform various jobs/ task. According to the information Nestle Lanka, the employees are also given periodical job rotations and opportunities to work on short-term missions and expatriations assignment in overseas as the method of increasing their exposures to leadership and strategic thinking abilities.
Tomlinson (2004) explains mentoring and coaching is other significant methods in the on-the-job system. Here, team leader or senior employee teaches to the particular employee to perform the job effectively with his/her own experience and experiments. This method is effective for knowledge transfer; however, it required ensuring perfect knowledge of mentor, coacher. In addition to these methods, Nestle Lanka continue “internship” program for fresh graduates to empower their talents and discover their true potentials and succeed in their careers. The internship program continues throughout 18 months and they put through a rigorous cross-functional, multi-location training program and at the end of training, they have been absorbed to particulate departments according to their capabilities.
As per Hodgson (2010), off-the-job training method means employee taken-away from their actual workplace and train. The most common off-the-job training event is seminar and conference. Here a lecturer or specialist give knowledge/ speak regarding subjective knowledge. Classroom methods, case study, workshops, leadership camps are popular off-the-job training methods for Nestle Sri Lanka.
Nestle Lanka truly value the employees training and development in order to empower the learning organizational culture. Their organizational structure benefited to personal learning through real working experience and participation of decision-making process (Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016). There are few layers of authority and control as well as more responsibilities is delegated among different layers/ levels. Therefore, employees can actively participate in decision-making process, team working, innovation and individual learning process. Nestle expects to create career ladders for professional developments of employees and more frequently complement career ladders.
The learning and development philosophy of Nestle Lanka is centered on the 70:20:10 principle as their Headquarter is doing. 70:20:10 principle means where intervention on experiential learning (70%), relationship-based learning (20%) and educational or classroom based learning (10%) are followed (Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016). According to their training principle, more than 50% is depending on experiential learning that means they give priority to practical learning more than classroom activities. As per figure, Nestle increases their investment in training and development yearly sue to the importance of training activities. According to the annual report information of Nestle Lanka (2016), they were able to expose over a third of their white collar employees overseas. Also, they provide local in-house training/ external program to build leadership, teamwork, and behavioral competencies. Nestle Lanka completed 29 training hours per person in 2016 which is the remarkable achievement of Nestle in term of people management (Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016).
Self- Managed Learning Process
Cunningham et al. (2000) say Self-Managed Learning is another important learning aspect that followed by Nestle Lanka. Self- Managed Learning (SML) means the learning process that individual/ employees can take responsibility for the decision regarding their learning such as what are they learn, methods that use for learning and where they can learn. According to SML process, the employee/ individual have the responsibility to continue learning process properly and organization provides facilities and guidelines. Jasper (2006) says most of the organization apply SML process as a method of training and development because of it emphasis importance of learning on employee’s mindset. There are different methods of SML. Nestle apply research and development, internet and social networks (e-learning), library facilities, knowledge sharing groups. However, E-learning is most popular and effective method which used by high numbers of employees as their learning method. Therefore, Nestle provides facilities for employees to continue e-learning.
E-Learning
Cunningham et al. (2000) say E-learning can be identified as utilizing electronic technology to contact learning outside of a traditional classroom method. Most of the times, it refers to course or program or diploma or any other learning idea delivered completely online. Its method is the most common method for Nestle Lanka to engage in training sessions that facilitate from their mother company.
Drucker (2006) says self-study (most common method which is allow to personal learning through blogs, wiki, pdf files and other learning materials), video/ audio tape (use video to train learners) CBT; computer-based training (offers e-courses through computer), WBT; web-based training (internet based learning platform such as learning management system), mobile learning (availability and affordability of mobile devices has created space for mobile-enabled learning), social learning (employees collaborate and network on social medias/ social platform to discuses problem, issues, and experience) are most common e-learning methods of Nestle Sri Lanka like their mother company. Most of the e-learning courses have been offered by Nestle headquarter to increase the capacity of employees in their business chain (Nestle Lanka Annual Report, 2016).
However, Nestle identify some issues of e-learning methods as follows (Jasper, 2006);
- Distinguish between trainer and trainee - Therefore, it can’t be able to build two-way communication between these two parties.
- Lack of Lerner motivation and engagement in e-learning method; therefore, the learning session become boring and most of the learning courses has been failed.
- Technical issues
- Required computer literacy
- Unethical behavior – Most of the time, this situation can be able to see in social learning method. Employees will share unethical behavior, workings, attitudes while sharing knowledge and it may harmful to organizational reputation.
- Issues with time management
Recommendation for increasing the capacity of Learning Organisation
According to Davis (2009), the visionary leaders of the organization should take the initiative to implement learning culture/ learning models within the business. According to Senge (1990), implementations of learning culture or change the model of the learning culture is related to change management process. Therefore, top management has to identify the strategic vision for change management in term of learning organizational model. However, maintaining of learning culture is not the easy task for leaders without the support of subordinators. Therefore, it is essential to clearly communicate the purpose of learning the culture and gain active participation of employees to continue learning the culture. According to Hodgson (2010), management can implement quiz, offer rewards and recognition for employees who actively participate to realize the vision of learning culture in the organization. It is essential to maintain flexible, flatter organizational culture within Nestle as they are maintaining currently to gain expected benefit from learning the culture. Jasper (2006) says management can encourage the participation of all level of employees to actively participate for the learning process, support to decision-making system, accept the changes and risk face to challenges relating with learning organizational model.
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