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CONSTANT EDUCATION OF ADULTS IN THEIR WORK ENVIRONMENT
R. Tomaszewska-Lipiec
Work environment is one of the adult constant education areas which has become a subject of immense interest among representatives of various scientific disciplines. P. Senge has formulated a thesis that nowadays “work must become learning”1 and the thesis is the topic of considerations of the following paper.
Education at work institutions is a part of personal policy implemented by economic organizations and is connected with the development of human resources. The policy comprises specific groups of tasks which aim at improving professional qualifications and competence among workers which, in turn, will help them reach mastery in their professions. The tasks of organizing and conducting education are a part of educational and training activity in the places of work. The activity includes vocational training, additional training, professional advancement, self-improvement and qualifying for a new job. In the last few years systematic educational activity conducted in the work environment became of strategic importance. It is the human factor that plays the key role in making work institutions competitive, especially in the case of economy based on learning. As P.F. Drucker claims it is the qualified employees, able to implement their knowledge to achieve production goals, able to create new knowledge which will result in unique and unparalleled innovations, who will become the leading groups of society2. Knowledge is becoming a fundamental working tool and that is why the theory of human capital is more and more frequently taken into account in management. It is assumed that people, due to hereditary conditions, possess certain qualities and features which may develop independently. Therefore it can be concluded that it is necessary to invest in their improvement3. Many researchers claim that it is human capital which is the only true value of modern economy; human capital which is unique and difficult to imitate or substitute and which brings particular qualities to the work environment. What makes it special is its ability to increase its value autonomously due to the process of learning and that is why education is one of the most important tools of personnel improvement.
The increasing significance of education in workplaces is influenced by the more and more rigorous requirements that are faced by employees which, in turn, are a consequence of implementing necessary changes in organizations which function in a dynamic and unstable economic environment. The changes force employers to give their employees more authority, more freedom in the decisionmaking process and a more flexible range of duties. This is possible only if the workers have appropriate qualifications and professional competence. Therefore there are two reasons why education is significant for the development of work institutions. First of all it enables employees to improve their professional
1 Senge P. The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. London, 1990.
2 Drucker P. Post-Capitalist Society. Oxford, 1993.
3 Schultz T.W. Investment in human capital, “American Economic Review” marzec 1961, 51; T.W. Schultz, Investing in People: The economics of population quality, University of California Press, 1981.
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qualifications necessary for accomplishing their productive or service tasks - in other words - their direct objectives. The results of learning increase economic potential of work institutions, potential which is based on human resources. Secondly, education in the work environment increases chances of individual workers to remain in the labour market and facilitates the improvement of skills which help fulfill higher needs such as the need of security or attachment and will eventually arise the need of self-improvement. It also facilitates identification with co-workers and the employer. Acting according to the rule of reciprocation, the work institution in a natural way creates favourable educational conditions. However, the quality of learning that occurs in the institutions depends on their specific character. It means that a particular work environment is not just a tool to conduct learning but a place which may both facilitate or block the process of learning1. As it is so, workplaces can be divided into three types: “workplaces as places of learning”, “workplaces where learning occurs” and “workplaces as an environment where work and education are inseparable2. That is why the theorists who advocate an innovative approach to the education of adults consider workplaces as educational institutions.
The most common idea of learning in a workplace nowadays is the idea of a learning organization. Its author P. Senge defines the conception as an organization in which “people constantly learn how to learn together”3. According to its main assumptions learning processes that take place in work institutions are not exclusively confined to the knowledge stored in the brains of the workers. Due to the educational processes institutions gain knowledge which is at their disposal even when employees leave the workplace. The knowledge is stored in databases, documents, publications, products, services and parts of structural capital which all belong to a particular organization. It is worth mentioning that the model of a learning organization has been in operation for over ten years now. However, there are few accounts of a successful implementation of the idea on a large scale. As of now the evidence has been obtained from the analysis of individual cases of pioneering companies, such as Microsoft, whose functioning is based on the innovative approach. The author of the paper has conducted research on fifty work institutions. The findings show that workplaces are educational organizations only to a little extent. Education of employees seems to be casual and it is not a part of an established strategy for growth. Only 6% of the researched workplaces consider educational activity as “very important”, 62% lack any educational strategy and 44% lack educational schedules. Systematic educational activity (58% according to the employers and 31,9% according to the employees) is mainly connected with the essential knowledge without which employees would not be able to perform their professional duties. Therefore education in workplaces in Poland seems to be rather insufficient. It is still marginal although more and more frequently employers finance training courses for people aged 25 + (41% in the years 2009-2011). In 2011 only 6,5% of people aged 25-29 and 13,3% of people aged 30-39 attended training courses organized by workplaces and other institutions4. The above data
1 Knowles M. S., Holton III E. F., Swanson R. A. Edukacja dorostych. Warszawa, 2009.
2 Stern E., Sommerald E. Workplace Learning, Culture and Performance. London, 1999.
3 Senge P. The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. London, 1990.
4 Czapinski J., Panek T. (red). Diagnoza spoteczna 2011. Warunki i jakosc zycia Polakow, Warszawa, 2011.
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reveal that education in workplaces is seriously unaccomplished and the arrears are mainly connected with three strategies of staff management that function in economy: (1) the sita model, where the issue of personnel self-improvement is of marginal importance, (2) the model of human capital in which development and education are key questions and (3) the mixed model which combines ideas of the two above1. Although the sita model is still dominant, the importance of personnel education is constantly growing and the model of human capital with its human capital investment principle is becoming more and more common.
The necessity of preparing adult individuals to function in contemporary society and contemporary labour market forces an implementation of various forms of educational and qualifications improvement and widening the range of educational services. An increase in employment is impossible without the development of human capital. Its lack may result in growing unemployment and passiveness. One can therefore assume that in the years to come more and more work institutions will appreciate advantages of personnel education, especially the workplaces whose objective is to become competitive in the more and more demanding home and international markets. Numerous publications and international documents, strategy for Europe 2020 among others, consider the growth of constant education in the work environment as one of the main priorities. Fifteen years ago the authors of “The White Paper on education and training. Teaching and learning - Towards the learning society” wrote that “work and learning circumstances approximate each other, in fact they are becoming identical in the context of mobilization abilities”2.
In the context of the described phenomena constant adult education in workplaces seems to be rather a compulsion than an option or a need and in this respect the conception of a learning organization may seem the most favourable solution.
1 M. Kostera. Zarz^dzanie personelem. Warszawa, 2010.
2 The White Paper on education and training. Teaching and learning - Towards the learning society. Luxembourg, 1997.
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