Organizational learning implementation at Alyeska Pipeline Service

¶ … organizational learning and its implementation. Using a short case study the writer explores how the company uses organizational learning to train its 1,800 employees over an 800-mile geographic area. There were three sources used to complete this paper.

Training employees to work on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

INTRODUCTION recently discovered style of learning has attracted the attention of companies and industries across the nation. Organizational learning styles are being used in companies to train new employees and retrain current workers. For many years company training involved the use of a company manual that often provided a different set of guidelines than were actually used on the floor. In addition the guidelines that did pertain to the employee's job duties were often unclear and ambiguous in nature leaving the employee unsure of what he or she was expected to do.

Organizational learning begins with individual learning and doing something, reflecting on the consequences of that action, allowing that reflection to influence the next action, reflecting on that and repeating it until the tasks are mastered.

Individuals often learn new concepts or tasks using these steps. Organizational learning simply takes it a step further and has individuals go through the same steps but in a group setting. Collectively the group members reflect and act together and the entire group learns the new concept or task.

Reflection and action work together to produce organizational learning. Under the best conditions acting and reflecting permeate one another to create an indivisible and continuous integration that seem like nothing so much as a "dance" (A Simple Introduction to Organizational Learning (http://www.systemsprimer.com/what_is_org_learning.htm).

The reflection portion of the learning process is as important as the doing portion. The group must be sure that there is a period of reflection that is not interrupted by the need to do something or perform a task. The reflection can involve discussion about what the group just did and any problems that occurred. In addition it is important to discuss positive aspects of the group task so that the group can learn from the experience and apply those lessons to the next task.

Second, mature organizational learning groups develop an ability to "reflect in action," to bring more deliberation and thought to those times when they honestly need to do something (A Simple Introduction to Organizational Learning (http://www.systemsprimer.com/what_is_org_learning.htm)."

While reflection is important in organizational learning there can be no learning without an action taking place.

CONCLUSION

Organizational learning allows the participants to take part in an action, then reflect on that action and use those reflections in the next action. It is about individual learning and collective learning. Organizational learning really incorporates the multiple learning style theory as it provides several different approaches to cement the same concepts and skills for the individuals of the training group.

Organizational learning was implemented in the case study as the ability to communicate with others was provided by the company through a software program.