Importance of Formal Systematic Learning and Informal Learning in the Workplace - Term Paper Example

On Equal Footing: Importance of Formal Systematic Learning and Informal Learning in the Workplace Introduction The objective of this paper is to discuss the unnecessary polarization suggested between formal and informal learning in the workplace; specifically, formal systematic learning and informal learning are of equal importance in the workplace learning process. There is a need to discover ways of theorizing and understanding learning in organizations which do not disparage either perspective. There is a need to gain more knowledge about the context of formal learning, or also referred to as off-the-job learning, with regard to other types of workplace learning, instead of viewing it as an essentially minor alternative. In relation to standard typology, there is a need to gain more understanding of intended learning not separately, but in connection to others. The role played by informal learning and tacit knowledge in organizations is widely acknowledged but insufficiently understood. It is one of the core premises of adult learning that adults resort to life experience to beneficial outcome in learning or training programs (Smith & Defrates-densch 2008). There is sparse previous empirical evidence regarding how this occurs, and none of which puts emphasis on tacit knowledge use and its role in the learning mechanisms and outcomes in shifting between contexts over time (Smith & Defrates-densch 2008). The need for broader recognition of skills and knowledge through informal learning is only one aspect of a debate focused on the characteristic of the purported knowledge-based economy and the ways whereby the knowledge involved is organized and applied (Moon 2004). The current debate has been intensified by economists and labor market scholars, generating new potentials for interdisciplinary engagement with learning scholars and social/educational specialists in attempting to understand more what it is that really makes up the knowledge-based economy and the position of informal learning in this context (Rainbird & Munro 2004). Informal learning includes accidental learning in the workplace and in areas of endeavors outside the formal economy. It may also involve intended and explicit frameworks of learning performed in any of these contexts which are not acknowledged within the system of formal education and training (Bratton, Mills, & Pyrch 2003). Informal learning has well-built tacit domains. The explicit is easily collected, organized, and communicated to others whereas the tacit is personal, subjective and experiential, and considerably harder to communicate (Evans, Hodkinson, & Unwin 2002). This paper argues that it is more useful to consider all types of knowledge and learning processes as encompassing both tacit and explicit aspects. When we can enable the transmission of a number of the tacit aspects, these become codifiable and hence explicit (Garrick 1998). This may be the objective of training someone else to perform it, or conveying to others that we have knowledge and capabilities appropriate to an occupation, role or task, or recognizing that a group or an individual has the skills and knowledge we require for a task to be accomplished. In other words, the bases for codification mainly concern ‘transfer’ (Garrick 1998). Formal and Informal Learning in the Workplace Management development courses cover the range from the most wide-ranging content offered by formal learning methods, such as college lectures, to a wide array of synthetic informal learning using strategies and methods focused on communicative domains, to natural informal learning models oriented at solving certain working problems in the organization (Billett 2001). As suggested in management literature, several programs are unsuccessful in going beyond the presentation of abstract ideas and raised issues and evidence to achieve concrete management in terms of the specific, tangible situations wherein managers work (Mailick et al. 1998). Management development looks as if it is evolving into the past as it shifts from formal to synthetic informal to natural informal learning methods (Mailick et al. 1998). Hence, until approximately the 1890s, the single means to gain management capabilities were by learning and managing from experience, or reading about or observing strategies of other managers, or being trained by a guide who functioned as an adviser and supporter (Mailick et al. 1998). Even though these means are still employed, the last century has witnessed the increase in learning models. The new models were mostly instructive and normative. Later on there has been increasing application of synthetic informal learning (Pettinger 2002). The trend nowadays is natural informal learning. The workplace is once more viewed as the most useful setting for management development. Even though it is the same major learning setting, the learning theory is somehow dissimilar from ‘learning from experience’ (Evans 2000, 38). As emphasized in the literature, there is substantial support for the argument that the work setting is the most useful setting for transfer of learning (Evans 2000). While approaches to learning can be classified as formal or informal, these are not entirely definite differences. Nonetheless, they are relevant to the discussion. Formal learning is “any learning activity that does not require the participants to gather data, implement decisions in a physical sense, and deal with the consequences” (Mailick, Stumpf, Grant, Kfir, & Watson 1998, 22). Informal learning is “derived from experiences in taking an action, observing, and learning from the consequences of the action” (Mailick et al. 1998, 22). Learning emanates from the behavior and the evaluation of objective-setting processes, planning to accomplish objectives, performing the intended action or behavior, observing and responding to the outcomes of the action, and concluding from the experience. Informal learning is also exercised to support and develop competencies (Humphrey 1999). Formal Learning Strategies Formal methods include reading, lecture, discussion, problem assignments, individual exercises, and case analysis. Formal methods are most useful for enhancing skills and knowledge that do not require communication with others (Sadler-Smith 2006). While it usually does not come about, limited exercise of formal learning may still suppose that at least a few managers will employ the new analytic skills and knowledge in the workplace. Whatsoever the situation, numerous participants can be empowered by the recognition and fulfillment that they can acquire from gaining knowledge quickly (Sadler-Smith 2006). In addition, programs grounded on formal learning models have a tendency to be functional for learning problem-solving strategies and analysis of cost/benefits, risks, and alternatives (Jarvis, Holford, & Griffin 2003). In relation to formal learning, several supporters of the use of the case study identify the necessity for at least a little informal learning. Incapable of bringing the workplace into the classroom or to transfer the classroom, they become contented in using ‘actual’ situations into the classroom (Jonassen & Land 2000). The ongoing popularity of the formal method is that it imitates experiences and furnishes students the thought or feeling of being drawn in with the ‘real thing’. A foremost dissimilarity between formal and informal education, though, is that in the former, the action of one member does not affect that of another (Stenstrom 2008). The effect of relationships among individuals is a characteristic aspect of informal methods. Not all members can easily shift from formal learning to active or functional application in the workplace. While there are relationships among members in synthetic informal learning, they are not identical to those in the workplace, where there is a past and a future (Stenstrom 2008). While formal learning can be rather handy in the change phases, skills and knowledge that managers should possess which cannot be gained easily by formal learning involve the following (Mailick et al. 1998, 22): To work effectively with others; to communicate so that the objective of the communication is achieved; to handle a difficult human relations situation; to determine the timing and nature of appropriate responses to situations flexibly; to interpret and use ambiguous and contradictory evidence; to identify and assess the importance of different variables in a problem; to select appropriate models to consider and to determine which would best fit the situation; to adapt and combine known models to improve their applicability in a given situation; to generalize learning from an experience for future use; to evaluate expectations and possible costs, and to be willing to take reasonable risk; to develop new models and approaches when the known are inadequate; and to make timely, appropriate decisions. While formal methods are used for effective knowledge acquisition, an essential difference is that in education little necessity is observed for changing members’ beliefs. It is believed that experience of learners has little that will contradict what is being taught. This does not hold for managers with wide-ranging experience (Mowrer & Klein 2001). It is not adequate to coach managers the rules of good management. They do not offer major assistance for managerial behavior and action in any particular situation in any actual situation (Mailick et al. 1998). Managers have a considerable need for the capability of assessing a situation, identifying the opportunities, issues, and problems, resolving what should be done, gaining personnel support to perform the most favorable action suggested, and implement appropriate rules and regulations. Informal learning is required for that (Mailick et al. 1998). Informal Learning Since 1940 there have been adjustments in the locus, structure, and content, and, in particular, the educational tools applied in management development. The assumption that formal learning may not guarantee application has resulted in the growth of synthetic informal learning and enhanced emphasis on natural informal learning (Gilley & Maycunich 2000). Several scholars of management development do not think that management can be instructed in tutorial and seminars, but that it should be learned by experience, fulfilling and assuming the responsibility as a manager. They think that competence as a manager is shown by action or performance, not talk (Heijden, Bradfield, Burt, Cairns, & Wright 2002). Consequently, there is usually enhanced emphasis on informal learning. The underlying principle is that formal learning strategies are simply mental practices involving symbol manipulation (Paechter, Preedy, Scott, & Soler 2001). One detractor of academic management development affirms, “The case method, lectures, discussions and theories of various kinds have been around for some time. They are helpful exercises for mind stretching. But how much of that instruction ever finds its way back to the office” (Mailick et al. 1998, 23). Inclination for informal learning strategies is articulated by both involved managers and educational practitioners. Both assume that informal learning, by encouraging active involvement can bring about bringing learning to the workplace more efficiently (Ragins & Kram 2007). It has been emphasized that in formal learning, the members gain knowledge more simply, but the knowledge has a tendency not to be integrated. Only some learners have the determination and ability, independently, to construct knowledge from formal learning transfer to the workplace (Vince 2004). In informal learning each experience is an opportunity to analyze, verify, and enhance earlier experiences and learning (Rylatt 2001). Informal learning is more efficient and useful than formal learning for assimilating experience with new learning (Ragins & Kram 2007). Managers are expected to perform their task with some skill and knowledge from having monitored and conversed with other managers and to sustain learning by monitoring and talking to experienced and knowledgeable managers, resorting to administrative and other non-managerial approaches, and requesting and obtaining feedback and guidance from superiors or senior managers (Jakupec & Garrick 2000). This is the least well-thought out type of management development. It assumes that managers, independently, can decide how to modify and achieve the needed adjustments in their behavior (Jakupec & Garrick 2000). On-the-job training would appear to be the informal learning strategy preeminently. The problem is that dependence on on-the-job experience is insufficient. Only seldom can managers conclude from their experiences to a functional approach (Greve 2003). Without an approach to which to consult, experience and information are quite worthless for future decision making, for the reason than approaches are required to make things right out of experience (Evans 2009). A required condition for informal learning is the conscious investigation and verification of assumptions about cause and effect, in a context that classifies observation and study and facilitates learning and knowledge (Caldwell & Carter 1993). Informal methods and strategies that present experience engaged in alternatives are of tremendous use for assisting managers in gaining the ability to learn from experience (Askew 2000). Informal learning is greater for enhancing decision making and ability in taking risks, where others who are concerned or the implications of the action can have considerable effect on the decision maker (Cross 2006). Informal learning emanates from interaction or exchanges between the learning context and the learner (Cross 2006). Learning occurs mainly in an open system, in the transaction between external and internal emphasis and as the emphasis encourages changes in the individual’s understandings. An additional belief is that learning is more successfully assimilated when it is gained and verified in a context and under situations identical to those in which it is to be used (Humphrey 1999). This type of learning obliges learners to respond, experience the response and its outcomes in real time, evaluate what occurred, and assume why it occurred. This is differentiated from formal learning, wherein the learner obtains information and takes action by explaining and communicating a strategy employing the information (Jarvis et al. 2003). Individuals who perform well in management training programs may not turn out to be the finest managers. Moreover, very few adults risk applying in practice unverified theoretical models, assumptions, and concepts that could have unfavorable implications (Moon 2004). Individuals who are quite firmly oriented to the actual, who have a tendency to support behavior with ‘common sense’, on ‘learning from experience’ (Rainbird et al. 2004, 92), are usually hampered by theoretical ideas and highly abstract approaches. Informal learning can be more efficient since content and competence to use are verified and practiced in a reasonable context and integrated into the experience of learners (Cross 2006). Informal learning models presume that experiences create resources to transform as well as the ability to identify the nature of the transformation desired. These models challenge the members to choose, determine, and formulate the process to fulfill needs (Evans et al. 2002). They furnish experience to assist in unfreezing, changing, and refreezing components in the members’ ways of life (Evans et al. 2002). Most informal models alternate the educator with a facilitator. The facilitator does not take on the educator’s absolute, professional authority or sustain complete control over the learning content and processes (Greve 2003). S/he introduces informal learning tasks, monitor and observe performance, and supports self-examination and feedback. The facilitator functions as a mentor, counselor, and specialist. The task is to encourage and facilitate open communication, maintain the order of things, review for support, introduce new problems and issues, promote risk taking and trialing, and direct the learning process (Greve 2003). A number of theories are required to control observation, organize analysis, and make sense of experience. Several experiences are required to develop and make sense of theory (Sadler-Smith 2006). Which element of the learning process is highlighted or prioritized may be an issue of personal learning approach and the personal experience of the learner (Sadler-Smith 2006). Hornstein and Mackenzie (1984 as cited in Mailick et al. 1998, 25) claims: Data and experience have shown that [management development] has one almost overwhelming flaw; it attempts to create organization change in a workshop setting away from the job. Separated from their co-workers, individual managers are exposed to educational experiences aimed at changing knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to their job performance. But when the workshop ends and managers return to their own work places where old practices and policies prevail, they find it extremely difficult to put their new skills and knowledge into practice. This conclusion sheds uncertainty on the importance of all training not related to the workplace. Informal learning lengthened over a specified period of time and requiring several integrated experiences with oriented, cumulative effect is frequently more efficient than learning oriented toward attaining a distinct, inclusive, complex change (Archibugi & Lundvall 2001). Formal learning usually has a tendency to be oriented toward a particular change goal. On Equal Footing: The Importance of Formal Systematic Learning and Informal Learning in the Organization The role played by tacit knowledge and competences in the workplace is broadly accepted but inadequately understood. These inherent or hidden domains of skill and knowledge are major components of ‘expertise’, which skilled workers use in their daily tasks and continuously develop in dealing with new or sudden situations (Evans et al. 2002). A report on the website of the European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) stated that (Evans et al. 2002, 79): Workers soon demand pay for what they have learned, no matter where they have learned it… learning that takes place away from the classroom, during leisure time, in the family or at work, is increasingly seen as a resource that needs to be more systematically used. The demand for broader recognition of skills and knowledge gained through informal learning is merely one aspect of a debate focused on the nature of the ‘knowledge-based economy’ and how the ‘knowledge’ involved is structured and applied (Billett 2001). Cowan et al. (2000) have named the differences between formal and informal knowledge as being in requirement of re-conceptualization in the knowledge-based economy. They assert that it is an error to perceive any skill or knowledge as essentially tacit— almost all knowledge, they argue, is codifiable (Cowan et al. 2000). From the point of view of economists the only factual concern is whether the advantages of doing so offset the costs. Moreover, they have emphasized that any recognition of the idea that knowledge can be essentially tacit and vital weakens the foundation for typical micro-economic theory and any efforts to shape human behavior (Evans 2009). Johnson and Lundvall (2001) further emphasized the issue, proving how the notion of the ‘knowledge-based economy’ is inadequately understood and posing important concerns which underlie the motivation to codify uncodified skill and knowledge for ‘systematic’ application: how does codification essentially occur with regard to various forms of knowledge? What are the driving forces that motivate attempts to codify? What are the implications of codification of various forms of knowledge for the distribution of wealth and economic development? (Johnson & Lundvall 2001). This paper argues that these questions are fundamentally significant in considering issues of disparities in skill and knowledge recognition and opportunity to learning at, on behalf of and through the work venue. The growing interest in the codification of tacit knowledge originates at least partly from an increasing recognition that the tacit domains of skill and knowledge are extremely essential in performance of organizations, individuals, networks and perhaps entire communities (Evans 2000). Knowledge is viewed and treated in its broadest description as integrating, at an individual level, having knowledge of the answer to the ‘why’, ‘that’, ‘how’, and ‘who’. At the organizational level, these forms of knowledge are situated in shared perceptions of the world, shared information, shared networks and shared practices (Evensen & Hmelo 2000). This paper argues that it is more useful to consider all knowledge as possessing both informal (tacit) and formal (explicit) domains. When we can enable the transfer of some of the tacit domains, these become codifiable and thus explicit. It can be claimed that, for those capabilities and types of knowledge that have a great tacit domain, transfer has to include substantial levels of social interaction, presentation and ‘demonstrating how’; handbooks and written descriptions are of little assistance (Pettinger 2002). In the context of the job candidate, jobs that demand a substantial level of skills and knowledge that are difficult to codify will usually demand a presentation of skills and capabilities. In the context of a new applicant to a job and organization, tacit will include both skills gained in the past and the reinforcing knowledge that enables these skills to be functional in a new setting. Beyond this a phase of interaction within the occupational and social traditions of the organization will be required for the tacit domains of expertise to be fine-tuned to the environment and culture of the new context (Rainbird et al. 2004). If we can structure and weight major know-how against objective measures, several of the theories widely recognized about skill levels of various jobs might be disputed. But studies on ‘work process knowledge’ discover that these skills obtain a great deal of their value from the context in which they are applied (Mailick et al. 1998, 103). This paper argue that it may be more useful to view and treat these skills as fairly rooted and fairly structural in context, accepting that individuals do bring things with them into new occupations and environments, but not in effortless means. This is one of the discrepancies in human knowledge. A great deal of research on major competences has concentrated on digging these out of tasks and not in exploring the mechanisms of the means in which individuals bring learning and knowledge into new environments (Ragins & Kram 2007). The significance of this is currently being accepted in the economic arena as well as in Vocational Education and Training (VET) scholarship, with Johnson and Lundvall’s (2000) most recent paper claiming “a major interdisciplinary effort” (p. 3). It is recognized that the notion of basic skill and knowledge transfer from one context to another is extremely challenging; the reality that a common language can be used to define a skill or knowledge group does not imply it is transferable (Ragins & Kram 2007). It is important to the understand more the mechanisms by which skills or knowledge are ‘changed’ from one context into another. Inexperienced structuring of major skills from one setting into another is not a ground for occupational flexibility (Evans et al. 2002): ‘Even near transfer into related activities is far from simple, leading to the recognition by activity theorists such as Engestrom (2000) that it is whole activity systems that count’ (Evans et al. 2002, 24). For individuals with broken up occupational memoirs, this implies specific problems, particularly when they have used up prolonged periods away from the work venue (Stenstrom 2008). This is valid with obvious evidence that individuals with prolonged breaks from the work venue have no confidence or faith in their past skills and knowledge. Their sentiment of being totally deskilled can be viewed as an endured reality, not as an absence of the personal trait referred to as ‘confidence’ (Stenstrom 2008). On the other hand, in the international literature, the notion of competences has currently been explained in ways that further underline core capabilities and traits that are vital to work performance (Archibugi et al. 2001). These ideas go beyond the external attributes of general descriptors in task evaluation, into an acceptance of the essence of a degree of self-sufficiency, stress on assuming responsibility, being able to undertake and manage change in one’s environment and in oneself, having enthusiasm and autonomy (Archibugi et al. 2001). They have a tendency to put emphasis on the individual rather than group or collective competence (Bratton et al. 2003). Case studies of females and males signing up in Continuing Vocational Training (CVT) courses intended for changes of path are confirming that female and male biographies come together in the ways they organize the competences acquired through informal learning (Rainbird et al. 2004). There are also similarities of experience related with gender and social status or class that go beyond national borders. In some instances, positive experiences were demonstrated to be related to knowledge of ownership of the major capabilities classified; the positive experience of surmounting problems is especially dominant in these regards (Rainbird et al. 2004). One of the controversial findings is that females and males with continuing work-related breaks perceive and organize their skills in their own ways. Females usually consider their ‘family’ abilities as greatly improved but unappreciated in all domains apart from ‘caring’ or other domains of female work, so take no notice of them in their aim for job re-entry in other occupations, focusing instead on new or modernized formal skills or knowledge (Rainbird et al. 2004). However, they do carry the structural facets of these broader skills or knowledge with them, and emphasize their value when used tacitly or explicitly in their latest work environments. In reality, employers attribute ‘female competences’ to grown-up women re-entering in various occupations, but at a degree and in a manner that benefits them simply with regard to other helpless job-seekers, female’s job and vulnerable positions (Rainbird et al. 2004). Males pay no heed to women’s skills and knowledge acquired outside the economic field, no benefits are obtained from them and they are considered as entirely independent from the economic sphere (Smith & Defrates-densch 2008). Explicit new skills or knowledge are pursued for job re-entry and no benefit is recognized to originate from those informally acquired in the domestic or family realm. More usually, those people who are capable of working as ‘labor force entrepreneurs’ (Smith & Defrates-densch 2008, 49), shifting often between occupations so as to advance their position, have forms of competences which seem to have value in the labor market in spite of the fact that they are difficult to codify (Smith & Defrates-densch 2008). Further exploration of these trends is suggesting how significant ‘tacit enhancement’ is in the means in which employers attribute capabilities to people and determine job requirements (Evans 2009). Leplat (1990) demonstrated how tacit abilities seem valuable in at least three situations: the discrepancy between abilities formally mandatory for jobs and (Evans et al. 2004, 90): (1) the skills actually required, (2) the skills actually implemented, and (3) between the skills required by preliminary training and the skills actually implemented. Some findings are demonstrating how the mechanisms by which major capabilities are attributed to individuals in line with the tacit, as against formal, requirements of jobs, and thus strengthen inequalities in the workplace (Bratton et al. 2003). For instance, traits of ‘experienced and dependable’ usually attributed by employers to women re-entries have a tacit enhancement of ‘obedient and straightforward’, tacitly viewed as preparing them better than younger individuals or makes for low paid and low grade occupations with little development prospects (Bratton et al. 2003). These mechanisms of tacit enhancement of major capabilities and jobs keep on strengthening inequalities in the workplace and the organized underestimating and underdevelopment of the competences of sectors of the population (Greve 2003). The knowledge-based economy poses essential concerns about what classifies as knowledge and who possesses, controls and manages it. This is shown in the disputed characteristic of the Recognition of Prior (Experiential) Learning (Rainbird et al. 2004). Several assignments involving certification of the experiences of employees in the motor and mining industries, revealed by Evans (2000), demonstrated that these became considerably challenging because management and unions had joined the practice with entirely different schemes, with management requiring a skills audit whereas the union view the practice as ‘part of a move towards improved job grading and wages for workers’(Evans et al. 2002, 92) in the primary case and improved opportunity to auxiliary education in the next. In both instances, neither progress in wages nor enhanced educational opportunity was imminent, with resulting decline in industrial relations (Evans et al. 2002). This encouraged the researcher to remark towards the end of his research that, ‘what has become clear is that Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) cannot be separated from the broader epistemological, political and ethical issues’ (Evans et al. 2002, 92). This is apparently the case. Johnson and Lundvall (2000) have stated that a much more reasonable planning of the knowledge base is required, and that such a planning has to include the competencies and competence development of organizations, individuals, and communities, ‘in order to understand what is learnt, how and by whom, in different contexts and to construct better indicators of different kinds of knowledge’ (p. 18). By putting emphasis on competence development in broken up work-related biographies and the consequences of recognizing informal learning, this paper has attempted to bring questions of polarization between formal systematic learning and informal learning closer to the core of the debate. Conclusion Formal systematic learning, which varies from academic programs to intended training to carry out a particular task in the organization has normally furnished the qualification support and knowledge for skilled and professional workers and may be defined as standardized, structural, centralized, vertically integrated model of knowledge transfer through well thought-out curriculum sections. The 20th century scientific and technological revolution has propelled us into a volatile complicated world that is enriched with information, highly structured and horizontally integrated. The explicit or formal strategy while functional may not completely endow adult learners or the work venues in which they operate for such a competitive forceful environment. Informal learning is more dynamic, horizontally integrated, and takes place when individuals initiate a conscious attempt to gain knowledge from their experiences and become involved in group or individual evaluation. 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