Human Resource Development
Strategy and Tactics
CHAPTER 5: Role of Learning in HRD
BUS 314
Spring 2011 Semester 312
Instructor: DR NAILAH AYUB
2
CHAPTER 5: Role of Learning and HRD
Context
• The ability to learn if influenced by our innate potential
and social experiences
▫ Learning may occur spontaneously and unstructured
(without much conscious effort)- automatically
▫ Learning may require greater attention, practice, and
reflection
• Learning takes place within a social context where the
behavior of others influence our learning
▫ We are active participants interacting with and relating to
the environment around us
Learning within an Organization
• It is the responsibility of the management to identify and
facilitate learning activities
▫ Create an effective learning environment that embraces
both the traditional planned and structured activities and
the incidental, accidental, or informal learning
▫ Recently, shared responsibility between the employer and
the employee (importance of psychological contract)
What is Learning
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Learning involves a relatively permanent change
Learning experience can be direct or indirect
Physical maturation is not learning
Learning does not always result in a desirable
change
• Learning may occur through planned training
interventions or informally
Training and Learning
• Training is planned and structured
▫ An individual characterized as instructor/trainer
• Learning concerns skills, emotional
development, motivation, social behavior, and
personality
▫ Actually doing something in a different way
▫ It may not be evident until a situation arise
▫ Learning is generation, acquisition, and utilization
of knowledge
The Motivation to Learn
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Feedback and support from others
Involvement and sense of contribution
Ability to see the job through to the end
Belief in your ability to do the job well
Sense of responsibility and accomplishment
Fair treatment
Benefits and rewards
(represent motivation theories)
(De)Motivators of Learning
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Lack of interest and mundane nature of job
Lack of feedback and recognition
Unfair rewards and treatment
Inadequate job equipment
Unfair reward structure
Inadequate remuneration and rewards
Need for Achievement
• McLelland (1988) – Four main motives: arousal-based
and socially developed
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Achievement
Power
Affiliation
Avoidance
• Preferences of people with high nAch
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Moderate task difficulty
Personal responsibility for performance
Need for feedback
Innovativeness
Two-Factor Theory (Herzberg, 1974)
• Hygiene Factor: extrinsic to the job
▫ Presence removes dissatisfaction but do not increase
satisfaction but absence causes dissatisfaction
▫ Include: Salary, company policy, supervision, working
conditions, security status
• Motivating Factors: intrinsic to the job
▫ Presence increases satisfaction but absence does not cause
dissatisfaction
▫ Include: achievement and autonomy, recognition and
responsibility, advancement and growth, the work itself,
meaningfulness
Equity Theory (Adam, 1965)
• Based on social exchange and fairness, and focuses on
perception of how one is treated compared to treatment
received by others
▫ E.g., in work situation, skills, experience, ideas, and time
are exchanged for a range of financial, social, and
psychological rewards
▫ Each individual has a notion of equity or fairness
• Inequity serves as a motivating force to correct the
balance – to alter the outcomes, modify input, change
comparison group
• Problems:
▫ Subjective evaluation of the inputs and outputs
▫ Appropriateness of those with whom we compare
Expectancy Theory (Vroom, 1964)
• People have preferences for certain outcomes
over other outcomes. To be motivated, people
must value the reward and see the connection
between their behavior and the reward
• Focus on matching expectations and designing
events or environments that facilitate individual
achievement
▫ See example, p137
How People Learn
• People learn by adding to their current stock of
knowledge, skills, and attitudes
• Approaches to Learning
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Trial-and-error
Advice on how to do a task
Imitate a demonstration
Think about methodologies
Observe
Adapt previous learning for new activities
Learning Theories: Reinforcement Theory
• Pavlov Classical Conditioning: Stimulus-Response
association
• Skinner Instrumental Conditioning: Behavioral
modification through series of stimulus-response
reactions
▫ Immediate vs delayed reward
• Reinforcers in the workplace
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Compensation
Performance management
Performance-related pay
Performance appraisal
Reinforcement Theories
• Reinforcement at workplace:
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Organizational Culture
Management Style
Organizational Structure
Power and Politics
Cybernetic and Information Theories
• Focus on how information is received and
monitored
▫ Feedback by instructor comments or given by
simulators
▫ Recognition of stimuli and perception are
important in acquiring new skills
Experiential Learning
• Learning through observation and reflection
• Kolb et al (1974) four stages of experiential
learning:
Concrete
experience
Testing implications
Of concepts in
new situations
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Observations
And Reflections
Abstract concepts
And generalizations
dynamic and ongoing process
Cognitive Theories and Problem
Solving
• Learning through accessing, processing, and
transforming information from physical and social
environment
• Learning by and through insight
▫ Focus on free capacity to make sense of problems and
reach their own solutions
• The ‘aha’ factor
• Action learning: not mere learning but ability to solve
problems
▫ Immediate problem solving
▫ New problems that emerge
▫ Dealing with problems one by one
The Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)
• Used to assist learning and processing
information effectively
• It explores the subjective experience of the
processes by which people learn things. It
comprises of:
▫ Neuro: the neurological processes or the
experiences through senses
▫ Linguistic: Use of language or thoughts and
behavior
▫ Programming: how we choose to organize our
ideas and actions
Key Stages of Neurolinguistic
Programming
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Unconscious incompetence
Conscious competence
Conscious competence
Unconscious competence
▫ Needs practice
• NLP uses modeling skills (replication of of successful
skills observed in others)
• NLP research comes from accelerated learning
▫ Learn faster, remember more, and think creatively
Learning Cycles
• Learning and Task cycles will have 4 stages
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Have an experience (take action)
Reflect on what happened (see results)
Draw conclusions (think about results)
Relate experience to their own situation (plan the
next time)
TASK/LEARNING CYCLES
experience
Take action
Plan next time
Recall to own
experience
reflect
See results
Draw conclusions
Think about results
experience
Take action
Recall to own
experience
Plan next time
See results
Think about results
Draw conclusions
reflect