Report on Key Barriers to Organisational Learning in Australia and its Improvement Process

Process

The organisations have to understand the fact that organizational learning is crucial for them in so many ways, and if sustainable steps are not taken time to time to increase the level of organizational learning, then things can be complex for the organization. It is a technical as well as a social process. It is quite strange that regardless of its various benefits, the organizational learning process has to face many barriers, and these barriers can come from variety of sources. The barriers can be technical in nature such adopting new process or technologies, and barriers can be social, where employees are not ready to change and learn due to certain work behaviors ( Neve, 2015). This paper will analyze some key barriers to organizational learning in Australian organizations, and what strategies can be adopted to deal with these barriers.

5 Key Barriers to Organisational Learning in Australia

There should be no doubt in the minds of managers and leaders of an organisation that their learning process is crucial for their long term success, and organisation itself stops learning from its existing processes and resources, then future can be grim. If they stop learning, then they stop growing; which is an essential thing to compete in a given market or industry. That’s why it is observed that few organisations are better than the others, because they use their resources more effectively and come up with an organizational learning process, which allows its resources to learn and grow at the same time. When organisations are not able to learn, then it is less likely that they will achieve their long term goals and objectives. But it is also a fact that there can be various key barriers to the organizational learning process and these barriers should be identified and mitigated accordingly (Argote, 2012)

 In this paper, the focus is on Australian organisations, so it is important to take any Australian organisation as an example to see that what kind of barriers it has faced in terms of organizational learning. The organisation chosen is from the New South Wales and its name is Allied Health. A research study was conducted in 2014 to analyze that what kind of barriers are there for Allied Health professionals in terms of organizational learning, and what areas enable them to learn at their workplace. The qualitative approach was adopted by the study, which took total 48 people from the Allied Health, focus groups as well as structured interviews were taken from the participants. The results of the study came with various barriers for workplace learning for the participants. The first major barrier to the learning process was heavy workload. It showed that when people are constantly under pressure to meet the requirements of heavy workload, then they stop learning, which ultimately stops the organizational learning process as well, because employees are not ready to learn, as they are dealing with the pressure of heavy workload, which decreases their motivation to learn anything (Lloyd, et al., 2014)

The second major barrier to the organizational learning identified for the Allied Health was short of staffing. It was observed that organisation was short in its required staff for various tasks, which means that workload was heavy on the existing staff, and they were struggling to meet their deadlines. When staff is not enough, and employees are dealing with the pressure of extra workload, then they cannot be motivated to develop a learning organizational environment. It was a key issue faced by Allied Health, as they have not fulfilled the number of required people to handle variety of tasks. The third key barrier to organizational learning of Allied Health was lack of funding. It is important for organisations to realize that they need enough funds to integrate so that learning process can be supported and developed accordingly. When there are not enough funds to develop any learning process and employees work in an environment, which does not ignite their learning, then such organisations do lack in performance (Lloyd, et al., 2014)

The fourth key barrier to the organizational learning of Allied Health was lack of any kind of support from management. It has been observed in various management and leadership theories that management has to inspire and motivate employees so that they can take inspiration from them. When management provides full support and engages with their employees, then such work environment becomes a learning environment, which ignites the process of organizational learning. But Allied Health’s management was lacking this support for their employees, which means that organizational learning could not be developed. The fifth major barrier to the organizational learning process was lack of access to the technology. It is a fact that in recent era, the technology has gained so much space in the organizational processes, which allows employees to learn more and enhance their capabilities and skills. But that was not the case with Allied Health as they lacked in the essence of technology, which means that they could not develop an organizational learning environment (Lloyd, et al., 2014)

Implementation of 4 Strategies to Improve Organisational Learning in Australia

Keeping the above 5 key barriers to organizational learning, the organizations like Allied Health should look for various strategies, which can allow them to improve their organizational learning process. The organisations can adopt various kinds of strategies to deal with the problem of barriers to organizational learning, and 4 key strategies will be discussed in further discussion. The first major strategy for the organisations is to ensure that they implement a strategic plan, which strengthens their overall staff as well as organisational capacity. It means that they should make sure that they have enough staff to handle required processes and tasks, and if staff needs any support or training, then do provide them to enhance their learning and working capacity. If capacity of staff will not be good enough and they do not have required resources, then they cannot work to their full potential and ultimately stop learning as well. The second strategy that organisations can adopt for improving organisational learning is to develop processes as well as work environment, which motivates and enables employees to indulge in the learning process. It means that organisational culture should provide full support and resources to employees so that they can develop practices, which are based on learning. They must be asked to give their input through their learning and creativity, as this whole process will vastly improve the organisational learning process (Winkler & Fyffe, 2016)

The third important strategy to be implemented by organisations is to create a work culture, which allows learning in all possible aspects. It means that organisations cannot stick to one state of mind, where they only focus on things to be done regardless that how those are being done. If organisation does not develop a learning culture, then it is extremely difficult to convince employees that they should develop a work environment, which inspires organisational learning. So, when work culture is encouraging for employees to be leaners and developing the essence of learning at all levels of organisations, and then outcomes can be extremely beneficial for that particular organisation. The fourth important strategy to be implemented by the organisation is to motivate and inspire as well as reward employees for increasing level of learning. When employees will know that their learning will not only lead to improve their skills and capabilities, but it will also get them reward and recognition from their organisation, then each employee will work hard to increase the level of learning. It is vital for organisation that they value the behaviour of learning shown by their employees so that overall organisation indulges in the beauty of learning. So, these are some of the vital and critical strategies that organisations can implement to increase level of organisational learning ( Mulford, Silins, & Leithwood, 2005)

Conclusion on Key Barriers to Organizational Learning in Australia and its Improvement Process

After analysing the key barriers to organisational learning, it can be said that these kinds of barriers are faced by majority organisations around the world including Australia. The organisations have to realize that increasing organisational learning at all levels is crucial for their short term as well as long term success. If organisations are not able to develop the essence of organisational learning, then their long term growth and progress may face issues, and their future may not be as promising as it should be. These key barriers can be mitigated and handled through various strategies, and organisations can adopt any strategy according to their needs and requirements. They should assess these barriers, and identify the problem areas, and then relevant strategies should be implemented accordingly.

References of Key Barriers to Organizational Learning in Australia and its Improvement Process

Mulford, W., Silins, H., & Leithwood, K. A. (2005). Educational Leadership for Organisational Learning and Improved Student Outcomes (illustrated Edition ed.). Springer Science & Business Media.

Neve, T. O. (2015). Eight Steps to Sustainable Organizational Learning: How to Tackle Search and Transfer Barriers (illustrated Edition ed.).

Springer.

Argote, L. (2012). Organizational Learning: Creating, Retaining and Transferring Knowledge (2nd Edition ed.). Springer Science & Business

Media.

Lloyd, B., Pfeiffer, D., Dominish, J., Heading, G., Schmidt, D., & McCluskey, A. (2014). The New South Wales Allied Health Workplace Learning

Study: barriers and enablers to learning in the workplace. BMC Health Service Research, 14(1), 1-17.

Winkler, M. K., & Fyffe, S. D. (2016). Strategies for Cultivating an Organizational Learning Culture. Retrieved May 28, 2019, from

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/86191/strategies_for_cultivating_an_organizational_learning_culture_3.pdf