What are Attributes of Organizations that have Created Successful Learning on the Job?

Abstract

With the constant and rapid change in the workplace, it is important for companies to invest in the development of their employees to learn and gain different skill sets to use. According to an article written by Tauber et al. for Harvard Business Publishing, about 54% of the workforce will require significant upskilling and reskilling within the next five years. This means more than half the workforce will require some sort of training and learning to keep up with the changing job market. However, many employees are “unaware of their companies' learning opportunities and have taken upon independent learning activities to fill in the gap for themselves”. For example, when surveyed, 65% of employees stated they used websites such as YouTube or Harvard Business Review to learn something for their job, and only 37% of employees utilize their company’s learning system or portal. A big challenge for many organizations’ learning and development (L&D) teams is finding the right conditions for learning in which learning is “embedded into the flow of work to make skill development part of everyday routines”. This executive summary will discuss the attributes and activities that create a successful learning culture where learning takes place on the job.