Learn to Learn

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has launched a new report ‘Helping people learn’ which says that traditional classroom based training will no longer produce what is needed in today’s business environment.

The report contributes to the current debate about the most effective way to ensure that the modern workforce has the skills and adaptive capacity to deal with the fast moving global economy.

The problem with classroom based training is that it focuses on facts, which in a fast changing global economy are quickly out of date.

Successful organisations are according to the report those that can persuade and encourage their people to learn to learn - to seek actively to acquire the skills necessary to enable constant learning, and the accompanying desire to make use of these skills. This will only happen in the right circumstances: the organisation must seek to create what is described in the report as a "growth medium".

There is a difference between training and learning, which many people fail to realize. You can train somebody to use a piece of equipment or to follow a dress code, but this will not equip them to be able to respond to the changing needs of customers or to develop the business.
 

Members of the Work Place Learning Centre team are available to provide journalists and media organisations with expert comment on all aspects of learning at work.

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