For the last ten years at GoodPractice we’ve been fascinated by one question: how can organisations provide support to leaders and managers to improve their performance at work? To answer this, we need to understand what helps leaders and managers perform more effectively, and what they do when faced with workplace challenges.
Role of informal learning
A starting point was to recognise the important role informal learning plays in the learning and performance landscape; 70% of the most effective learning takes place at work, outside of the ‘classroom’.
Most industry commentators quote the 70-20-10 figures,[1] or a similar variation, when talking about the informal/formal learning breakdown of workplace learning. However, while this breakdown can be useful when talking about general principles, it falls down when examined more closely – what does this 70% consist of? Without further investigation, the 70-20-10 rule does not help Learning and Development professionals support informal learning.
Rather than looking at more formal learning and development, we wanted to look at real-life, everyday situations – to know where managers looked for learning when faced with a challenge in the workplace, how frequently they did it, and how effective they perceived the different methods to be. Most importantly, we wanted to take a learner-centric approach and ask managers, not HR or learning and development professionals, whose perceptions and needs may be different.
Inadvertent age discrimination?
As such, we commissioned ComRes[2] to conduct a survey, which questioned a representative sample of 206 UK business leaders and managers working across all sectors about the different methods they employ to acquire skills in the workplace and how effective they found each approach.
One of the first issues our survey results raised was a clear disparity between younger and older managers in the overall amount of training they receive, with younger managers receiving a disproportionate share of training opportunities, be it external/internal training and coaching or e-learning, than their older colleagues. 47% of the 25 to 34 year age group managers received training at least once a month, compared to 15% for 45 to 54 year olds and just 13% for 55 to 64 year olds. In the 45 to 54 year age group, 63% received training only twice a year and 20% less than once a year. See figure 1.
Figure 1: Frequency of learning by age
In the main, this can be explained with younger managers needing more training at the start of their careers, but much more could be done to level out this disparity and across all ages support the types of informal learning that the survey identifies as being very effective.
Informal learning styles
The research indicated that By far the most frequent and effective learning activity is having a ‘informal chat with a colleague’. 82% of managers will consult a colleague at least once a month, and 83% say it is either very or fairly effective as a means of helping them perform their role when faced with an unfamiliar challenge.
Perhaps the most surprising finding is that 55% of managers will use trial and error at least once a month, and 62% say that this is a very or fairly effective way to perform.
Learning effectiveness
There were also some interesting differences in the perceived effectiveness of different learning activities depending on the age of the managers, with younger managers finding on-line resources more effective than older colleagues. See figure 2.
Figure 2: Effectiveness of learning activities by age
It is interesting to note that, with one exception, the perceived effectiveness of all learning activity decreases with age. It is only training from an external source which is equally well regarded by all three groups. In line with the general findings, it is the informal learning from chats with colleagues and on-the-job instruction that are seen as being the most effective across all the age groups. This suggests there may be a social need as well as a learning need that is met through these interactions.
Implications of the research
Overall there are four main conclusions from the research:
1. The frequency and perceived effectiveness of informal learning activities suggests that learning and development professionals need to rethink their mental model of the learning and performance landscape and give informal learning a central role in their strategy.
2. There are significant differences in the learning habits of managers across different age groups, suggesting that learning and development departments need to consider the age profile of their management population when developing learning solutions.
3. It would appear that the quality or user experience of intranets, internal blogs and wikis does not meet managers’ expectations and is not nearly as highly regarded as resources found by using a search engine.
4. Almost 75% of managers lead training activities, and 76% feel that they are not properly supported with resources in this activity.
We see this survey as an important step in helping us understand the area of leadership and management development better, and we hope the findings will influence the ongoing debate about learning and development, and encourage others to join in.
[1] 70% of effective learning is from on-the-job experiences, tasks and problem-solving in the workplace; 20% of learning from feedback and working with role models; and 10% from formal training (http://www.princeton.edu/hr/learning/philosophy/).
[2] http://www.comres.co.uk/