By Nigel Paine

In 2012 Mary Johnsson, David Boud and Nicky Solomon published a fascinating article in the International journal of Human Resources Development and Management called: “Learning in-between, across and beyond workplace boundaries”.  Just the title itself is scintillating, and in the light of what goes on in most organizations in 2023, daring and radical.

They claim to have articulated some “new understandings of learning at work” Johnsson (2012). Whether this is a new understanding, or the recognition and acknowledgment of old understandings is moot. What this article does, however, is breathe new life into something very important, and that is the continuing debate about context in workplace learning and the fundamental relationship between learning at work and the workplace itself.

Clearly, those assumptions lead directly to the models, processes and actions we employ to deliver, organize and manage workplace learning.  This fifteen-page article argues for an entirely different way of thinking about learning at work where context is everything, and most learning emerges from work and those insights are used to increase performance at work not simply absorb models or skills in abstract. This makes assumptions about the nature of learning at work, different from learning at school or university.  In many ways, this short article is radical and challenging as a piece of research.  For me, it beats the first visible track through an overgrown and unnavigable terrain, in the hope that many others will follow.  Their pioneering efforts are expounded in the hope that their exploration will become a well-trodden thoroughfare. Sadly, in the ten years since publication, there is scant evidence of that!

The essence of what the group of authors is talking about is captured in this game changing statement. By: “Theorizing the situated nature of the workplace” means that you have to acknowledge the workplace “as an authentic site of learning”, rather than a neutral, interchangeable environment where models and learning content are imposed.

The process of work itself should be a rich learning experience determined, not by individual experience but rather the collective nature of work across the normal boundaries of ‘job’ or ‘department’ or even workplace. If you give permission for these interactions, what emerges is a complex web of situated and contextual interactions with people, that turns embedded, tacit knowledge into explicit practice. This is the embodiment of the means to achieve dramatic increases in productivity.

If we accept that the workplace is an authentic site of learning, then work must merge into learning and learning emerge from work. The key to progress becomes awareness of the debates and dialogue that constructs new insight and improves practice. This is so much richer than providing a directory of courses that chart a pathway through external, theoretical and context-free learning, narrowly focused on doing a job competently. There could be so much more insight and heightened performance. This could make the idea of competence merely a starting point, and not the sole aspiration for workplace learning.

We are breaking through an assumption about the nature of knowledge at work which is gift-wrapped in defined skill levels and competence statements.  We are moving past what Beckett and Hager (2002) consider to be ‘the standard paradigm of learning’ into situated theories of learning. These insights open the way to understanding the powerful contribution of authors such as Etienne Wenger and his idea of ‘communities of practice’ and Reg Revans’ and his concept of action learning, and much more besides.

If we focus on the “relations and the spaces that construct learning” (Johnsson 2012), we end up with social and relational constructs that constantly evolve, rather than knowledge embedded in individual minds, tested by recall. Learning becomes complex and dynamic not packaged and straightforward and, therefore, it begins to resemble the workplace itself. This means thinking completely differently about the nature of ‘development’.  It ceases to be about linear progress through jobs and in a career, but rather about multifaceted experiential opportunities at, and around work.

These ideas could act as the basis for a powerful new vision around the fundamental meaning and purpose of workplace learning that is deeply embedded in the practice of work. Will they effect a radical shift in how we consider workplace learning? The jury is out on that!

REFERENCES

Beckett, D. and Hager, P. (2002) Life, Work, and Learning: Practice in Postmodernity, Routledge, London

Field, J. (2005) Social Capital and Lifelong Learning, Policy Press, Bristol

Johnsson, M.C., Boud, D. and Solomon, N. (2012) ‘Learning in-between, across and beyond workplace boundaries’, Int. J. Human Resources Development and Management, Vol. 12, Nos 1/2, pp. 61-76