Current HR Practices and Insights - Essay Example

The article shows that inadequate practices applied by OBM management led to lack of skills and knowledge among employees. A special attention is given to assessment, creation and sharing of information and knowledge. The authors state that learning strategies are formalized and structured by the goals, activities and culture of the work practice, just as learners' experiences in educational institutions are structured by those institutions' cultures of practice. Workplaces are often highly contested, with access to the activities and guidance required for learning not being uniformly distributed.

Opportunities to participate may be distributed on the basis of factors such as workplace cliques, affiliations, gender, race, language or employment standing and status. Indeed, it could be suggested that, rather than being unstructured, workplace learning experiences are structured by too many factors. Instead, the kinds of activities engaged in by individuals and the support and guidance they can access in the workplace from other workers will influence the quality of learning at work. In this way, much of the knowledge required for demanding vocational practice can be learnt through work.

The article provides a clear and detailed description of the situation and allows readers to concentrate on the best practices and solutions proposed by IBM team. There is long-standing evidence of the efficacy of learning in the workplace. Prior to the establishment of vocational colleges and universities, most people learnt their vocations through their work. The evidence also suggests that workers have long produced goods and provided services with limited technology and in ways that have required understanding and robust (transferable) procedures developed through their work.

The products and services of craft and other workers require combinations of creativity and functionality. Many of the world's great buildings, such as the castles, churches and cathedrals of Europe, were built by workers whose vocational practice was developed through participation in their craft (Becker 1993). The article "Organizational Learning" by D. Cayla describes the role of permanent changes and its impact on environmental interactions. the author argues that learning takes place on the job and is structured, with supervisors having the responsibility for developing the work-related knowledge of their subordinates.

Much of what apprentices learn during their three- or four-year indenture is also a product of engagement in everyday work practice. This learning often generates capabilities that are transferable across tasks and situations. Learning in the workplace cannot, therefore, be described as concrete-fixed and embedded inextricably in the circumstances of its acquisition. Instead, at least some of what is been learnt in workplaces is transferable to other situations. Learning can be independent and interdependent, with the latter probably best able to be achieved through guidance rather than direct teaching.

It is also inaccurate to characterize workplace learning as concrete. Learning in any environment will be more or less transferable, depending on the quality of learning processes experienced (Bateman and Snell 2004). Therefore, the same claims about the structure,