ACTIVITY
Recently in a meeting between various senior management staff, a complaint was lodge to the HR manager that ‘these management graduates (we have Working) only know book sense and no common sense’.
As thought you have decided to share with your fellow managers how you the human resource manager use theory in planning and designing various learning events as an example to the graduates.
Prepare a response as a Human Resource Manager.

Managers expect their employees to work with others and be willing to obey, but at the same time expect to see evidence of personality, creativity and independence. Selecting staff who will conform to organisational goals is a key to an Organisation’s health and effectiveness in addition, to the training and development of these employees in order to help them meet the requirements of their current and potential future jobs. Whatever people’s abilities and intelligence, their performance can be improved by extra knowledge, practice and experience – in other words, by learning.
Learning is a process in which experiences brings about permanent or modified changes in behaviour or attitudes. There are three basic theories of how learning works. These tend to act as a framework for managers to help in the identification and analysis of problems. The early classic studies, behaviourist movement in psychology has looked to the use of experimental procedures to study behaviour in relation to the environment. The result was the generation of the stimulus-response model. In this the environment is seen as providing stimuli to which individuals develop responses.
Researchers like Edward L. Thorndike build upon these foundations and, in particular, developed a S-R (stimulus-response) theory of learning. He noted that that responses (or behaviours) were strengthened or weakened by the consequences of behaviour. Thorndike’s work drew attention to the outcomes of learning. He watched animals in new situations and noted how they learnt to successfully adapt to the environment. Typically, he would place a hungry cat in a box with a plate of food outside the box, but within the cat’s view. The cat could get out of the box by moving a latch. He noted that in this situation there were no flashes of insight but by trial and error the cat would learn how to escape from the box and have the reward of the plate of food. On each successive trial, the cat learned which actions led to escape and, eventually, the incorrect actions (responses) were eliminated and the correct responses were ‘stamped in’. these experiments led Thorndike to propose a Law of Effect. Skinner advanced the ideas of Thorndike and produced a thesis of operant conditioning - reinforcing what you want people to do again; ignoring or punishing what you want people to stop doing. Skinner’s experiment on animals showed the effects of reward and punishment on animal learning. He proved that a response would be learned when the animal associated the behavioural response to a reward (or reinforcement) and could be broken with punishment. Skinner demonstrated the power and control of his simple learning principles: the identification of a stimulus and a reward following a successful response.
Some organisations endeavour to exercise tight control over what their employees say and do. Training new employees is a form of ‘shaping’ behaviour in line with the written training objectives. As employees demonstrate their responses, they may be rewarded with a tick in the training box, or a ‘badge’ that they wear on their clothing. Learning occurs incrementally with the task divided into sub-goals, each with its own reward. Sometimes shaping can occur in training centres where peer assessment can add further power to the modification process. As the trainee’s behaviour becomes shaped, expectations will alter and grow. Praise and reinforcement will become less as the behaviour becomes ‘conditioned’.
Where behaviourists looked to the environment, cognitive theory turned to the individual’s mental processes. The cognitive or information processing approach to learning suggests that the human mind actively interprets sensory information, analyses experience and takes it into account in making decisions about how to behave in future. Reinforcements do not merely create habits (as conditioning theories suggest); they are one of many factors in our choice of how we will need to behave in order to fulfil our needs and purposes.
Some cognitive theorists have emphasised the cyclical nature of learning and its active nature. Kolb (1984) argue that it is useful to combine the characteristics of learning, which is usually regarded as passive with those of problem solving, which is usually regarded as active. From this combination Kolb developed a four-stage learning cycle, which was further developed by Honey and Mumford (1992).
According to Kolb “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping experience and transforming it”.
Each of these four stages of the learning cycle is critical to effective learning, but few people are strong at each stage and it is helpful to understand where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Kolb recognised that people tend to have a preference for a particular phase of the cycle, which he identified as a preferred ‘learning style’. Honey and Mumford (1992) formulated a popular classification of learning styles in terms of the attitudes and behaviours which determine an individual’s preferred way of learning. They identified these as activist, reflector, theorist and pragmatist.
Understanding how individuals learn from experience underpins all learning, but is particularly relevant in encouraging self-development activities. Understanding our strengths and weaknesses enables us to choose learning activities which suit our style, and gives us the opportunity to decide to strengthen a particularly weak learning stage in our learning cycle. While Honey and Mumford adopt this dual approach, Kolb firmly maintains that learners must become deeply competent at all stages of the cycle. The researchers claim that an understanding of one’s learning styles will enhance learning effectiveness, whether as a trainee or as a tutor. An integrated an effective learner will be equipped to manage all four styles even though they may have a preference for one.
A further advancement of behaviourist ideas was developed by Miller and Dollard (1950) who focused on social learning and examined the factors affecting imitation learning in people. People learn not just by doing, but by watching others and repeating the actions – modelling was the term Miller and Dollard used. Imitating is an important part of the socialisation process and it is therefore no surprise that a number of studies focused their attention on children.
Learning has also been modelled as a curve, showing the relationship between the time spent in learning and the level of competence attained. The general idea was that we learn a new task or skill more rapidly at first, so that the learning curve is steep and then gradually plateau after we have had significant experience. Ideally our learning would be incremental, improving bit by bit all the time; in reality, however, learning is usually characterised by a mix of improvement and setbacks. Although with persistence, our skills gradually increase, in the short term we may experience dips. These dips are de-motivating but they are a necessary part of learning. Developing personal skills usually requires us to try out a new way of doing things, understanding that sometimes things get worse before they get better helps us through the dips.
The human resource department is ideally concerned with developing people. This is done by extensive development and career planning programmes. These shape the progression of individuals through the organisation, in accordance with the performance and potential of the individual and the needs of the organisation. Line managers and supervisors also bear some responsibility for training and development within the organisation by identifying the training needs of the department or section, the current competences of the individuals within the department, opportunities for learning and development on the job and providing feedback when necessary. The supervisor is also required to organise training programmes for staff.
Whichever approach it is based on, learning theory offers certain useful propositions for the design of effective training programmes. One proposition is that the individual should be motivated to learn. This means that the advantages of training should be made clear, according to the individual’s motives be it money, opportunity, valued skills or whatever.
There should be clear objectives and standards set, so that each task has some meaning. Each stage of learning should present a challenge, without overloading the trainee or making them lose confidence. Specific objectives and performance standards for each will help the trainee in the planning and control process that leads to learning, and providing targets against which performance will constantly be measured.
There should also be timely, relevant feedback on performance and progress. This will usually be provided by the trainer, and should be concurrent – or certainly not long delayed. If progress reports or performance appraisals are given only at the year end, for example there will be no opportunity for behaviour adjustment or learning in the meantime.
Positive and negative reinforcement should be judiciously used. Recognition and encouragement enhance an individual’s confidence in their competence and progress: punishment for poor performance especially without explanation and correction discourages the leaner and creates feeling of guilt, failure and hostility.
Finally, active participation is more telling than passive reception because of its effect on the motivation to learn, concentration and recollection. If a high degree of participation is impossible, practise and repetition can be used to reinforce receptivity. However, participation has the effect of encouraging ‘ownership’ of the process of learning and changing – committing the individual to it as their own goal, not just as an imposed process.
The organisation’s overall objective is to develop a learning organisation which encourages continuous learning and knowledge generation at all levels; has the processes to move knowledge around the organisation and can transform knowledge into actual behaviour. Garvin (1993) defines a learning organisation as one that is ‘skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights’. In so doing our human resource development (HRD) process will be geared to providing an environment in which employees are encouraged to learn and develop. HRD activities may include traditional training programmes, but the emphasis is much more on developing intellectual capital and promoting organisational, team and individual learning. The focus is on creating a learning organisation within which knowledge is managed systematically. Strategic HRD is also about planning approaches to the encouragement of self-development (self-managed learning) with appropriate support and guidance from within the organisation.

BIBLOGRAPHY
Armstrong, M (2000) Strategic human resource development, 2nd ed. Kogan Page Limited, 120 Pentonville Road London N1 9JN
Human Resource Management – Specialist Units 21-24, BPP Professional Education Aldine Place London W12 8AW http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning Management – Business Essentials (Supporting HND/HNC and Foundation Degrees) Course Book, BPP Learning Media Ltd BPP House, Aldine Place London W12 8AA
Mullins, L. J Management and Organisation Behaviour, 5th ed. Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England
Torrington, D, Hall, L and Taylor, S, Human Resource Management 5th ed. Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England