Learning and development in the workplace Essay

Learning and development in the workplace - Essay Example It has become a collaborated effort between the employer and the employee where they go through the learning process together so as to maximise the effects of the existing skills and competences. This paper will consider some flexible learning strategies that enhance the concept of workplace learning and development with short case studies as examples. Personal Development Plan Personal planning is approached by people differently based on the differences that individuals exhibit. Personal planning requires a great deal of individual effort for it to be effective. Not many people in the workplaces pay attention to developing personal plans despite being aware of their immense benefit toward personal development. In the workplace many employees feel that in developing a personal plan they are just but showing what the employer wants to see and term it as hypocritical or fail to see its value. Other employees who understand the benefits tend to take it pretty seriously. Personal develo pment plans are actually the efforts that one put in place aiming at tracking their education and performance paths. These plans assist an employee in developing their career path better. This plan includes events and benchmarks along a career path which may be long or short term depending on the goals to be achieved therein (Makinson 2001). This development plan usually encompasses learning as one works towards set goals and objectives. Personally I take a Personal Development Plan as an avenue through which am able to know myself better. A plan streamlines daily activities and compresses them within a specified timeframe. As such personal discipline is cultivated which enables one to easily surpass their initial targets on performance or even learning. PDP allows one to uncover their underlying strengths and weaknesses which in the past acted as major hindrances to efficiency and general performance at work (Rughani 2001). Personal development plans offer one a chance to evaluate performance in relation to the set targets. When this is done an individual employee is able to engage in corrective measures that include further training, acquiring of new skills while developing existing ones and acquisition of more knowledge and competence to perform various tasks at the workplace. A PDP outlines the timeframe within which achievements are to be made. As such one is able to know with certainty how far they have gone with the plan, how effective it has been and the timeframe left together with what remains pending (Cottrell 2003). This way an individual is able to analyse clearly the skills, knowledge and competences they have acquired and compare this with the set targets. One of the most important benefits of the PDP is the realisation of the skills and knowledge needed to attain unachieved objectives which in turn make an employee to develop themselves towards their attainment (Clifford & Thorpe 2007). Use of PDP is a sure way of identifying how one is learnin g and whether this process is bearing any fruits. It does that by offering evidence that is vital in analysing the required knowledge and skills in ultimately achieving particular objectives. This brings in the need for goals to follow the SMART model which stipulates that goals have to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based (Cottrell 2003). An individual following a laid out PDP needs to constantly evaluate the viability of their goals in respect to the elements of this model as failure to do so