Triad of learning

Is an individual responsible for his/her own learning? Most of us will contend yes.

But then what are responsibilities of other 2 stakeholders in process- manager and HR?

Other day I heard someone delineate succinctly the responsibilities.

'Employee owns, manager supports, and HR enables learning'.

Statement sounds simple and relevant! It resonates with me.

But how might this state manifest at workplace?

Employee will own initial identification of learning need and sharing same with manager.

Manager will explore along with the employee whether the correct need has been identified or not (e.g.- by using evidence procedure), facilitate effective choice of 70/20/10 learning mix, work with stakeholders (including HR) on ensuring relevant 70/20/10 learning opportunities materialize, and provide opportunities for transfer of learning back to workplace (for 20 and 10 percent).

HR supports the manager being  more effective in supporting employee through learning process.

But HR's also plays a role is enabling the process. So HR person needs to have an understanding/independent view on how process is running and intervene if process is stuck somewhere- with employee or manager.

But then HR's role is akin to a tight rope walk- you have to enable the employee and manager to drive the process and not to take over ownership of the process.

I also do feel manager has a role to play in enablement. Manager can clear log jams if s/he finds employee stuck somewhere.

A related point is that employee/manager may be stuck at what, when/where, how, or why of learning. A skill in 'enablement' is to figure out where is block/log jam and accordingly facilitate the process.

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Sourav