Informal learning at work: the influence of work environment, job characteristics, and participants

What are the features of work environment that trigger informal learning? What are the participants who have the best predispositions for it? And what are the characteristics of the work that is most suitable for informal learning? All these questions are addressed in a recent publication by an international team entitled "Informal Learning at Work: Triggers, Antecedents and Consequences," edited by Gerhard Messmann, Mien Segers and Filip Dochy (2018). The publication is an unique stimulating synthesis of theoretical and empirical knowledge in the field of informal learning in workplaces, which can serve not only to directing future research (Baert, 2018), but also as inspiration for implementing measures aimed at its development, including more effective employee decision-making (Grohnert et al., 2018) or innovative work behavior (Gerken et al., 2018).

According to Herman Baert (2018, p. 174), the most appropriate theoretical framework for understanding the factors supporting informal learning is the following triad of elements:

1. Work environment in the form of mission and strategy of the organization, management style, organizational culture, and structure.
2. Characteristics of participants in the form of their skills, motivation and attitudes, and work experience.
3. Features defining the nature of work in the organization – Its challenges, complexity, autonomy, and routine.

All three affect the frequency, depth, and impact of informal learning within a work organization. If it is to be intensified, deepened, and made more effective, the organization should take care of the following factors.

Work environment

As for work environment, an organization should do the following (Baert, 2018, p. 176):

• To make its mission and long-term strategy visible and explicit. At the same time, to lead its employees to their participating in the creation of this strategy and to take its implementation as a collective commitment. Learning should then play an important role in this strategy. It should be considered a source of the further development and a necessary tool for achieving its goals.
• To consciously make time for analysis and reflection of internal processes, periodically and continuously.
• To lead all managers to become role models for others (e.g. through mentoring, transferring experience and other examples of knowledge and skills sharing). In this regard, managers should both consistently communicate their own critical experience and provide constructive feedback to their colleagues and subordinates.
• To encourage innovative solutions, promote co-decision-making and cooperation.
• To reward learning efforts; the expertise and progress of staff should be valued.
• To promote a democratic leadership style that leaves workers with some autonomy, while limiting work that restricts learning time.
• To pay attention to the diversity and complementarity of work teams and to support their self-management.
• To make learning resources easily accessible to all staff and to facilitate the overall flow of knowledge. On this basis, to build openness towards information and knowledge not only from within, but also from outside the organization.
• To facilitate communication between all units of the organization.
• To improve the orientation of new employees through introductory courses.
• To make time and space for social contact among employees.
• To make co-workers easily accessible.
• To try to avoid excessive time pressure on employees.
• Within the culture of the organization, to pay attention to open learning atmosphere, promotion of mutual trust, well-considered risk-taking, and openness to learning from mistakes and appreciating critical questions.
• To minimize the regulation and control and, conversely, to encourage dialogue and initiative and peer support.

Key features of participants

The key features of participants that facilitate the process of informal learning in the workplace are the following ones (Baert, 2018, p. 177):

• Readiness and motivation of adults to learn.
• Sufficient prior learning experience: competence for self-directed learning and self-efficacy of participants.
• Skills for team working and team learning.
• Openness to providing and receiving feedback.
• Willingness and commitment to change and innovation.
• Ability to tolerate unpredictability and uncertainty, or skills related to the ability to cope with change and instability.
• Experience in performing a variety of roles in the organization.
• Total amount of work experience, including critical experience.
• High level of meta-cognition:  i.e. "good knowledge of one's own knowledge" and of the decision-making process and its implementation.
• Initiative.
• Age and preferences for individual and social learning.
• Hierarchical position of the individual in the organization and support of learning that he/she receives.
• A personality focused not only on performance, but also on relationships.
• Experience with tasks within a certain work domain and its validity.

Job characteristics

Work, which has the following features, creates by its nature a greater number of opportunities to stimulate informal learning (Baert, 2018, pp. 176–177):

• Autonomy and enough space for individual work performance.
• Work tasks and challenges are complex in nature and often require more socio-cognitive skills.
• There are many requirements for the job position, but they are not such that the employee would be overwhelmed.
• It has a diverse nature: it requires a wide range of skills.
• It has the potential for learning: it requires the acquisition of some new skills, models of thinking or knowledge.
• It requires a large amount of processed information.

Therefore, in creating an optimal educational environment focused on job-oriented learning in work settings, we must consider not only the characteristics of its participants (e.g. through the analysis of educational needs) but also the key features of the structure and culture of the organization and the very nature of job performed by individuals. The fewer these features the work has, the fewer chances there are that it will contribute to the formation of informal learning.

The ideal work environment for non-formal learning therefore always includes all three domains. It has an organizational structure that enables learning, supporting management and culture. It seeks to develop key predispositions in workers that facilitate their learning and, last but not least, makes the content of the job itself sufficiently stimulating that it also leads to informal learning of individuals.

References:

Baert, H. (2018). Informal Learning at Work: What do we know more and understand better? In Messmann, G., Segers, M. Doochy, F. (eds). (2018). Informal Learning at Work. Triggers, Antecedents and Consequences (pp. 151–187). London, New York: Routledge.

Gerken, M.; Messmann, G.; Froehlich, D., E.; Simon, A., J.; Mulder, B., R.; & Segers, M. (2018). Informal learning at work as a facilitartor of employees´innovative work behaviour. In Messmann, G., Segers, M. Doochy, F. (Eds). Informal Learning at Work. Triggers, Antecedents and Consequences (pp. 80–99). London, New York: Routledge.

Grohnert. T.; Meuwissen, R. & Gijselaers, W. H. (2018). Deliberate practice as a lever for professional judgement: lessons from informal workplace learnng In Messmann, G., Segers, M. Doochy, F. (Eds). Informal Learning at Work. Triggers, Antecedents and Consequences (pp. 63–79). London, New York: Routledge.   

Messmann, G., Segers, M. & Doochy, F. (Eds). (2018). Informal Learning at Work. Triggers, Antecedents and Consequences. London, New York: Routledge.