ASSESSMENT - PROJECT

Learning is at the heart of a company's ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. A learning organisation is one that:

• Embraces the need for continual learning by all its members
• Identifies and implements strategies for promoting a learning culture
• Actively encourages a learning environment
• Constantly identifies opportunities for improvement
• Understands the importance of recording and reporting learning outcomes

What do you think this statement means? Write a paper of about 600 words, to discuss it.

Answer should make reference to the importance of organisations to continue to support the development of employee skills which will enable their staff to compete in the changing market.

Case study: Team development at Hyundai

Learning and development company True North has been helping staff at Hyundai Car UK to develop closer and more effective working relationships.

Hyundai Car UK's import team are based at Tilbury Docks and handle over 33,000 cars every year. The team do everything from unloading the vehicles through to rigorous pre-delivery inspections and the fitting of special items such as alarms and music systems.
The management team at Tilbury wanted to improve the collaboration, and help their staff each get a better understanding of others' roles and daily pressures. Staff at Tilbury are split over three areas - office, administration and managers; workshop staff; and drivers. Although these three groups of people work together, their roles are separate so there was little understanding or empathy with colleagues' daily issues.

Rob Gearing - import operations manager at Tilbury, called in learning and development company True North, to help.

Andy Parker, True North's managing director, recalls: "I went to Tilbury and discussed the teamworking issues in detail, listening to Rob and his team to understand how we could affect some meaningful change; something that would deliver real business benefits.

"We discussed how team issues affect the business, and what the best possible outcomes would be from some kind of learning event. Rob wanted to develop more of a sense of team, get people to really understand each other and work together better.

"Like many businesses, the sheer pace of the working day doesn't always give time for people to appreciate each other as people - you often only get time to do that when you meet outside of the working environment. We decided that this was the solution."

True North was engaged to develop a team building day. Although the day wasn't going to be a 'corporate jolly', it was decided that it should have a strong fun element, as a reward for the team hitting its car-processing target.

True North developed a series of team building activities, which were all designed to get people interacting on more than a superficial level, so that they would learn how to better collaborate. Some of the lighter activities included a 'racing challenge' where teams of people are pitted against each other via a series of networked games consoles - creating some healthy competition, while building team awareness. "Even the fun activities allow us to get people to think about themselves and others and give us a means of promoting key messages," said Parker.

True North also ran three facilitated sessions, each using two professional coaches, to get people to think and talk about how things worked in the workplace, and what it would take to make the workplace better.

Participation during this kind of session is the key to success - the coaches help people openly explore issues and collaborate to propose solutions. "This really allows people to communicate their issues - and to get others to understand and empathise with them," said Parker. "It also enables everyone to work as a team, to create their own solution. It's this kind of thing that really changes the way that people work - they carry this back to the workplace and then act on it."

The day was held off-site, away from the distractions of the business, and had an almost one hundred per cent attendance rate. "We got some fantastic feedback," said Parker. "People were telling us that it's the best event of this type that they've been to. And, what's more important, it's had a real impact on the business."

"So many of these types of events are a waste of money, or just plain embarrassing to attend. We've all seen how painful they can be, from episodes of The Office! But properly run, with defined goals and professionally managed sessions, they can really get people thinking and changing how they work for the better, resulting in a stronger team and a more effective business."

Clive Beer, Hyundai's Operations Planning & Development Manager commented, "It was really pleasing to see everybody, without exception, joining in and getting involved. There was good co-operation across all the different departments and the challenge for everybody at Tilbury now is to ensure that the good work is carried forward."