The organization must define what competencies will be necessary in the future, and continually build upon existing employee skills to avoid obsolescence. "If employees do not possess the competence to handle a new strategy, a company should provide training to enhance the skills of its managers and employees. Without adequate training and support, the relationships between employees and managers will suffer and the organization will lack flexibility" (Richards-Gustafson 2013). This requires continual strategic reassessment of future needs. Training programs must be regularly assessed to see if they are meeting their desired benchmarks. Just as the company keeps track of financial data in terms of sales, it must also document the degree to which learning-based organizational initiatives have increased employee productivity, satisfaction, and enhanced retention.
A learning organization must be willing to learn from its employees, as well as strive to inculcate them in its values and ideas. When an organization is going astray, it must be attuned to what employees are telling it. Often employees at lower and middle levels have exposure to input from customers and suppliers that leaders of the organization may not be privy to, and without respect and sharing of information on every organizational level, this valuable knowledge will not be used and put into practice. An organization can learn from both new and old employees. "It is also important for companies to try to capture the valuable knowledge that is leaving" through debriefing interviews (Context for training and development, 27).
Some might say that this is fine 'in theory' but such an idealistic learning organization would be challenging to realize in practice. However, one organization which has been praised for its use of the learning organizational model is the healthcare organization Kaiser Permanente....
Kaiser has created teams which are designed to facilitate the spread of knowledge in a bottom-up and a top-down fashion: "Leaders understand improvement priorities in relation to organizational goals, and middle and frontline managers work with staff to focus on the value of making improvements for the patients. The dynamic interplay between leadership, middle management and frontline staff facilitates learning throughout Kaiser Permanente" (Camps 2011). Given that Kaiser is a healthcare organization that draws together disparate elements of the profession spanning from researchers to doctors to administrators, this type of sharing of different perspectives is an essential component of providing high-quality care. The fact that organizations such as Kaiser, Google, and other top performers have an employee-responsive, learning-based model that enhances their goals highlights the practical and workable nature of the learning organization concept.
References
Camps, Mark. (2011). How Kaiser Permanente became a continuous learning organization.
Kaiser Permanente. Retrieved: http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter/pressreleases/nat/2011/111711tjccontinuouslearning.html
Chapter 1: Context for training and development, 1-52.
Fostering a learning organization. (2009). OPM.gov. Retrieved:
http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/human-capital-management/reference-materials/leadership-knowledge-management/fosteringlearning.pdf
Kessler, Sara. (2010). How to start a mentoring program. INC. Retrieved:
http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/04/start-mentoring-program.html
Richards-Gustafson, Flora. (2013). Approaches to organizational strategic alignment.
The Houston Chronicle. Retrieved: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/approaches-organizational-strategic-alignment-14151.html
