HRD3702 – Management of Training and Development
WORKBOOK 3: From HRD to Learning organisations: Lifelong learning and organisational renewal.
3. The Learning Organisation
The learning organisation is where people continually discover how they create their reality and how they can
change it. Learning organisations are those organisations that continuously encourage their staff to become
lifelong learners. This type of organisation does not only learn from the environment but also actively
encourages learning within the environment. This is a challenge to most organisations, as organisations need
to create an environment and culture that support learning. It also needs commitment from the staff for the
learning organisation objectives to be achieved.
It is also viewed as the organisation where people continually expand their capacity to create the
results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where
collective aspiration is set free and where staff are continually learning how to learn together.
And has a shared vision for the future, it integrates work and learning in order to ensure quality, excellence
and continuous improvement - the staff can contribute to the changes needed. Human talent needs
continuous development and empowerment to ensure efficient organisations through innovation, invention and
invigoration. for this continuous process to be effective, the HRD manager needs to think and plan
strategically regarding how to establish a culture of continuous learning as well as a corporate climate that
encourages, rewards and accelerates individual and group learning.
Important dimensions and characteristics of typical learning organisations:
➢ The learning organisation has a shared vision of the future and challenges its people to change and
contribute to it.
➢ It learns from experience, uses systematic problem-solving techniques and transfers knowledge quickly
and efficiently throughout the organisation by means of formal training programmes which are linked to
implementation.
➢ It integrates work and learning and seeks quality, excellence and continuous improvement.
➢ It mobilises human talent by putting emphasis on learning, and education and training planned for this
purpose.
➢ It empowers people (broadens horizons and recognises individual learning styles).
➢ It learns and relearns constantly to be innovative, inventive and invigorating.
➢ It invests in its future through the education and training of its entire people.
➢ Learning is an integrated, continuous, strategically used process.
➢ Systems thinking is fundamental in learning organisations.
➢ The corporate climate encourages, rewards and accelerates individual and group learning.
➢ There is continuous access to information and data sources.
➢ Well-developed core competencies exist that serve as a take-off point for new projects and initiatives.
➢ The learning organisation seeks to integrate task and people factors – the needs of people are
continuously identified, and strategies developed to align these needs with organisational goals and
strategies.
➢ Learning organisations study their competitors and other enterprises, both locally and abroad in order to
learn from industry trends and developments.
➢ Special efforts are made to use the most advanced technology to improve business processes, products
and services.
➢ It cultivates values and supports life-long learning by enabling all employees to continually acquire and
share knowledge.
Learning organisations are more important for the current and future needs. Organisations need to know that
learning organisations do not just simply appear, they are fostered by continuously devoting time, energy and
resources to the training and development of their staff. Like some international organisations, many South
African organisations have created barriers that block the ability to learn and, this can include bureaucracy,
rules and procedures, outdated hierarchy, stultified attitudes and rigid management control which limit
creativity, change and improvement.
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, HRD3702 – Management of Training and Development
The same author suggests that the concepts of a learning organisation crop up in every discipline of HRM today
‘because learning is understood to be the foundation of empowerment; and empowerment is the keystone of
every progressive activity everywhere in the world’. From the above we can conclude that the concept of the
learning organisation has several implications for the HRD practitioner in order to remain abreast of
developments and to nurture a culture that would embrace the idea of a learning organisation.
Some of these implications are as follows:
❖ Help the enterprise to assess itself and to determine the extent to which it has the characteristics of a
learning organisation.
❖ Direct the training and development function to adapt a more strategic role in the organisation.
❖ Develop strategies and plans to help transform the enterprise into a learning organisation.
❖ Deal with the demands of training and developing the more diverse, knowledgeable workforce of the
future.
❖ Adapt and prove the value of training to the future of the organisation.
❖ Design interventions that will help create a learning organisation.
❖ Make a conscious shift in mindset from being trainers to being agents and facilitators of organisational
learning.
4. International Human Resource Development
South African organisations that want to stay competitive nationally and internationally, acknowledge that
globalisation is a reality. For organisations to compete effectively globally, continuous development and staff
with world-class skills are essential. Globalisation requires people who will be doing business internationally to
have cross cultural knowledge. They must know how other cultures operate, how they negotiate, how to meet
and greet people from other cultures, etc.
International HRM is defined as the process of employing, developing and rewarding people in international
and global organisations. It involves worldwide management on people, not just the management of expatriates.
Two facets of international HRM is examined. First is the type of training and development that people require
when they have to operate internationally. Second is how various aspects of HRD differ from country to country.
The first focus area is the role of training in preparing personnel on international deployments. In order to be
competitive in the global market, enterprises need to give attention to their HR with regards to the knowledge,
skills and abilities they need to ensure a competitive advantage.
The type of training and development people require when they have to operate internationally:
Expatriate training: When an employee has been selected for an expatriate position, it is of critical
importance that this person (and if necessary the spouse and family) must be trained before departure in
order to be effective in the country of destination. This is usually done by means of lectures, simulations,
videos and readings that deal with the basics of the relevant country’s history, politics, business norms,
education systems, demographics and how to deal with challenges that the expatriate may experience in
the host country.
Components of pre-departure training: Most companies provide for the following types of training
before employees depart for the host country:
❖ Area studies or documentary programmes. Area studies or documentary programmes expose
employees to the new culture through written materials or other media such as video
programmes, Internet material on the host country’s history, economics and cultural institutions.
❖ Cultural assimilation. Cultural awareness programmes will enable the employee to adapt and
not feel isolated from the host country, to deal with diversity and to communicate with the host
country so that the employee becomes ‘bicultural and bilingual’.
❖ Visits. Preliminary visits to the host country will provide the employee and spouse the
opportunity to assess whether or not they would be suitable and interested in the assignment to
the host country.
❖ Language preparation. Although English is considered as the ‘language’ of the world, business
knowledge of a foreign language in European, Asian and South American countries is considered
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