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Learning while working
34 Success stories on workplace learning in Europe

union representatives or ‘learning ambassadors’ who stimulate colleagues
to take on learning (European Commission, 2010f, p. 57).
The Fourth European working conditions survey also explores work
organisation and autonomy at work, which have a major incidence in workers’
ability to learn. This is found in freedom to exercise control over work processes
(e.g. the ability to choose or change the order of tasks, the method of work and
the speed or rate of work), as well as the choice of working patterns. While
a high proportion of workers enjoy some control of work processes, only a
third of European employees have any influence over the choice of working
patterns. Nordic countries and the Netherlands display the highest levels of
worker autonomy in the workplace, and Southern and Eastern countries the
lowest. The Fourth European working conditions survey suggest that levels
of flexibility and teamwork are high in European workplaces: around 50%
of employees on the EU-27 rotate tasks with colleagues and 60% do part
or all of their work in teams (Eurofound, 2007a, p. 50-53). Through team
working, workplaces in Europe are taking steps towards turning into working
environments in which it will be possible to learn while working, but national
differences show that there is still a long way to go.
How can the working culture be transformed into one which stimulates
individual learning processes and derives benefits at company level? How can
workplaces become conducive to learning? Informal and non-formal learning
depends on ‘the design of workplaces that provide quality work, in which
people learn by having to undertake challenging tasks and learning from others’
(Cedefop, 2006, p. 59). In patterns of work organisation that stimulate learning,
jobs should be designed to encourage responsibility for autonomous decision
making and interactive problem solving within teams. These modalities of work
organisation that stimulate skill improvement, in which learning is embedded in
the working tasks, may create a learning culture in the enterprise that motivates
those groups of workers who are less inclined to participate in learning and are
given fewer opportunities to take part in continuing training. Significant attention
should be paid to deploying people in a way that recognises and uses their ideas,
provides opportunities for creativity and encourages the exchange of tacit and
explicit knowledge (Cedefop, 2007b; Ashton and Sung, 2002). Implementing
such changes in work organisation is difficult, and sharing knowledge on working
processes that encourage learning is even more limited in small companies,
which need targeted support to change their working practices into ones that
stimulates autonomy and learning, as chapter four explains.
While the life span of qualifications diminishes, companies may find it difficult
to take workers from their jobs to receive training, so off-the-job training is