- Details
- Category: Blog
What distinguishes a proactive individual from one that is putting in the hours is a greater understanding of cause and effect and their insight into how to achieve the best performance from their efforts.
These are exactly the skills that workplace learning is designed to develop and share. In addition as adults prefer to learn from practical situations it is also a very effective way of speeding up the skill development process.
Workplace Learning involves the use of practical improvement projects to develop job related skills and knowledge.
Correctly designed, these programmes also provide leaders with the opportunity for conversations with direct reports about business priorities and actions to improve performance. That is also a way for Leaders to hone coaching skills and create the conditions for learning and engagement.
That changes the way people approach their tasks. It encourages them to think about the how the task is done, what can be improved and how refine ideas into practical solutions.
This is a win/win process because from a business perspective, Workplace Learning is a way to
- Boost productivity
- Raise quality standards
- Fill voids due to the departure of team members
- Introduce new roles and ways of working
- Adapt work routines to deliver the potential of digitisation and advanced technology.
Mobilise the learning process
As explained in the article on "Creating the conditions for Learning", adults learn best through practical activities so best practice is to put the improvement agenda at the heart of the learning process and vice versa. In addition Workplace Learning works best as a team based programme because people prefer to learn from each other. The team based approach also makes it easier to build consensus on
- Current status re strengths and barriers to progress
- Priority issues to be resolved or opportunities for improvement
- Actions to test and refine ideas for improvement
- How to get traction for new ways of working
- How to lock in improvement gains for good.
Encouraging new thinking
To mobilise Workplace Learning use gap analysis tools to raise awareness, align cross functional priorities and encourage deeper thinking within front line teams about next steps. Aim to simultaneously develop team and team leader capability to apply best practice principles for:
- Planning and Performance Management
- How to measure progress, develop targets and analyse results
- Reliability Basics
- How to map the current system, define trouble map priorities and identify a few KPI's to create the improvement glide path dashboard
- Local Area Leadership
- How to establish an improvement cycle to systematically deliver improvement glide path results as part of the day job
- Team based capability development
- How to establish team review and coaching touch points within the workplace learning cycle to integrate coaching and mentoring as part of Front Line Leader and Manager Standard Work.
All DAK Academy courses include sessions on developing quarterly Workplace Learning action plan cycles. Click here to find out how.
Contact us for more details of how we can support your in company Workplace Learning programmes with targeted gap analysis awareness sessions, training and coaching support
