L&D 2020: Shaping change in learning

Brain & Mind

Informal learning

Learning managers have long since known that informal learning accounts for more than 75 per cent of the learning taking place in organisations¹. Both planned and spontaneous informal learning occurs in collaborative and individual settings: on-the-job learning, discussions with colleagues, industry conferences, reading, surfing the web and so on. On-the-job learning, rather than formal training sessions or reading company manuals, is recognised as the way people learn the tricks of their trade. Therefore, people with experience and insights are highly networked to support their co-workers.

Since 2010, organisations have been re-thinking how employees learn by fostering more routine collaboration, embracing network technology and opening up learning opportunities – not only for employees, but also for customers, partners, suppliers and many other stakeholders. As a result of new initiatives, facilities teams are working with learning managers to ensure well-designed workplaces enhance the opportunities for informal learning.

Communications systems continue evolving to enable faster and easier knowledge share. In contrast to earlier times, IT professionals better appreciate how knowledge emerges and is sustained in a social context. By understanding people as well as technology, they are helping to systematise informal learning within the corporate environment. Social networking tools such as wikis, blogs, social tagging and virtual meeting rooms are all commonly available. Organisations are actively promoting virtual communities of practice to increase informal learning and knowledge share.

The multi-disciplinary give-and-take that characterises innovative problem solving has become accepted practice in the development of high-performance teams. In these communities, learning through active participation, rather than passive knowledge acquisition, is the primary way people master skills and knowledge to become competent team members².

In terms of the built environment, new office spaces, research facilities and production environments are being designed with many small informal meeting areas, often incorporating a mini-street with coffee bars. This trend follows the example set by British Airways³ and others in the late 1990s.

Five design factors² are fostering informal learning:

• eco-diversity: more varied work settings inside and outside the ‘office’
• spatial transparency: more opportunities for employees to observe the behaviour of each other at work
• neutral zones: more deliberate planning, design, and use of spaces not owned by any particular discipline or unit
• human scale: smaller scale work areas with less separation from related functional areas
• functional inconvenience: designing space to increase the opportunity for chance encounters

Learning has shifted from training workers to facilitating knowledge acquisition, while an ‘always-on’ informal learning environment is more responsive to the rapidly changing needs of a networked world.

1. http://www.protonmedia.com

3. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3575/is_n1218_v204/ai_21119081 10/98

2. California Management Review Vol 49, 2, Winter 2007

ttp://informl.com/ Jay Cross informal learning blog

http://www.niit.com/niit/ContentAdmin/MED/MED9/6.htm Informal computer-based learning in an Indian village Financial Times 07/01

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