Audit of a Workplace as a Learning Environment - Case Study Example

Running Head: Audit of a Workplace as a Learning Environment Student’s Name: Instructor: Course Code and Name: Institution: Date Assignment is due: Audit of a Workplace as a Learning Environment Introduction This essay details a critical evaluation of a workplace to establish its suitability as a learning environment for a workplace trainee who should later take on the responsibilities and tasks of that particular workplace after the learning process is successfully completed. The workplace place chosen for analysis in this essay is as a cub journalist in a local weekly entertainment magazine. The workplace has a supervising features editor and three other journalists specialized in features writing. The position is the lowest job rank in the editorial department of the magazine with four ranks of other senior editors above. In short, the job description of the position involves sourcing for, interviewing and writing a single features profile of a prominent sports personality every week and handing in the written copy on Thursday of every week and any other task that may be assigned by the features editor. To evaluate the workplace of the features journalist in the weekly sports magazine critically, this essay will be broken down into three sections. First, the paper will detail a description of the workplace to establish the specific kinds of learning required for one to performance excellently as a features journalist. This section will also identify the procedures, knowledge and understandings required, for one to practice effectively as a features journalist in a weekly sports magazine. The second section will detail a consideration of the particular kinds of learning, possible in the features journalist position by evaluating both the learning opportunities and limitations. Theoretical support will be provided in examining how the workplace supports learning the procedures, knowledge, understandings highlighted above. The eleven principles developed by Pedler (1991) will help characterize the workplace as a learning environment. Finally, the last section a conclusion on the evaluation detailing the weaknesses and strengths analyzed in the study job position as regards its suitability for workplace learning. Workplace Support for Learning Workplaces have become important learning opportunities when reviewed from the perspective of the worker and the company. Journalism especially can only be learnt by practical exposure to the trade, with the theoretical learning only functioning as the outline of the job description and nothing more. Many degree holders begin careers in print journalism with a blank slate on which they have to accumulate skills on how to be a journalist, one who can efficiently and productively perform within a given editorial department of a press establishment. Existing formal learning institutions cannot provide such training until the cub reporter joins the workplace organisation. More importantly, a journalists learning process is always ongoing and they keep learning on their workplaces throughout their working lives. It is from this perspective that the argument of this essay must be understood, that of the workplace being the only place that a new/cub features journalist can and must continue learning of how best to deliver quality content for the weekly magazine page allocated to him or her. The magazines runs with four departments namely, editorial, advertising, production and circulation departments. The journalist in placed in the editorial department that is concerned with creation of magazine content every week. The advertising department solicits for advertisers and sells advertising space on the magazine. The production department is concerned with the production of the magazine from designing to printing. The circulation department helps distribute the printed magazine to vendors on the street in all parts of the state every Saturday night and resupplies the same within the issue week. In the editorial department, there are fourteen other staff journalist allocated different sections of the magazine such as lifestyle, fashion, entertainment news, showbiz, personality features etc. Each of these sections is run by an editor who assigns and supervises the collection of content for each section each week. Once he or she is sure about the content collected from the reporters, he or she hands the same to the sub editor who certifies that the content is error free before passing it on the to the deputy managing editor. The deputy managing editor corrects the copy for the magazine’s editorial policy before handing it over for rubber stamping by the quality assurance editor (to clear copy of legally contentious content and guarantee absoluter quality)and finally to the managing editor. The magazine dummy is then given to the advertising department to insert ads on the allocated spaces. By the time the content has gone all through these stages, it has been collected and improved ready for publication. It is therefore handed over to the production department for plate setting and printing. The editor in Chief is the supreme authority in the company and she directs the whole process from scratch. She coordinates the four departments to ensure that the weekly production is of quality, is timely and is reliably efficient. As a reporter, the workplace in analysis is as a personality profile reporter, working with three other experienced reporters to develop four sports’ VIP profiles each week under the guidance and supervision of the section editor, called a features editor. Given the above description of the workplace, it is now possible to analyze it as a learning environment for the new features journalist who has just joined the magazine from college. When such a journalist is interviewed and accepted into the company, he or she is inducted in a three week learning process. This learning process is very broad however since one is introduced to the company as a whole and not so much to his or her job description (Senge, 1990). The induction period aims at orienting the new employee to the policies and practices of the company, the departments, organisation structure, human resource practices, working department, organisation culture and such broad areas that welcomes the employee to the company as a whole (Senge, 1990). Once the induction is over however, the employee finds himself or herself in a desk and an editor watching him or her for productivity, at a time when the employee is not even sure how the job is done, what is the job in the first place and what he or she can do about the ignorant position. The first thing to not about being a journalist trainee is that there is no distinct separation between the learning, the participation and the practice. It is more of a comprehensive processed where the journalist is introduced to new concepts while doing the actual work and he or she keeps on practicing the same until performance is perfected. There are three types of knowledge that underpin the performance as a trainee features journalist in sports magazine. The first type is propositional or conceptual knowledge, also called declarative knowledge (Altman, 1998). This is the knowledge of the information, facts and concepts about journalism such as the writing process, the type of profiles to write, deadlines, choice of subjects, how to structure the profile etc. The second type of knowledge is procedural, involving the skills, techniques and abilities to achieve the goal (Altman, 1998). For the training features journalist, these include interviewing processes, writing processes and researching interviewees. This is the knowledge of the entire process until the profile is written. The third type of knowledge relevant for the training features journalist is disposition knowledge covering the attitudes, values, interests and identities that are associated with the workplace (Altman, 1998). Examples of such knowledge include editorial policies of the sports magazine, interview subjects that are viable for a profile article in the magazine, how to avoid libellous and defamatory content in the profile articles, how to get an article accepted etc. To acquire these types of knowledge, the trainee journalist has three avenues open to him or her as detailed above. These avenues open up arbitrarily during the work activity of day to day in the editorial department. The first avenue that contributes to learning in this workplace is the close guidance of other experts (senior features journalist) in the field to whom the trainee is assigned in the beginning days of the learning process. This gives the trainee exposure to the real tasks and how to do it effectively as copied from the ones who know how to already (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991). The direct guidance of the experienced journalists always assists the trainee journalist to acquire knowledge that has been culturally and historically accumulated by the experts over time and to be exposed to the practical application scenarios of performance of the job description. A typical day for the trainee will be being assigned a senior reporter to cover one story for the week. The trainee will work alongside the senior journalist as he researches on a personality, arranges for interviews and conducts the interview. But after the interview, the trainee writes his or her own article which even though not published back to back with that of the senior reporter, will help both him or her and the assigned senior reporter to see what was done right or wrong in that article. Secondly, the trainee journalist learns by engagement in the actual task of writing profile articles for the editor to gauge. The learning mode helps engage the trainee journalist in some routine activities such as researching and engaging in some non-routine activities such as interviewing. Engaging in the actual work helps the journalist to learn practical skills by trial and error, while also offering a field for practicing what was learnt under the guidance of expert journalists. The mentorship and apprenticeship in the hands of a senior journalist continues until the assigning editor (features editor) sends out the trainee to conduct his or her to research, set up an interview and even conduct it on his or her own. In most cases, the first twenty or so articles never get published and the editor will have already commissioned other pieces for the space. A day comes however, when the reporter returns a good profile story that the editor can publish with improvements. That marks the second phase of the training where the trainee journalist begins learning from his or her own mistakes. The third type of learning avenues open for the trainee journalist is that of indirect guidance that is provided by the editorial department experts. This type of learning involves learning while doing the actual work but with the indirect guidance and supervision of the senior staff in the editorial department. According to Lave (1993) and Pelissier (1991), this type of learning is aimed at developing the skills of the trainee independently where only the direction is pointed out for him or her, and he or she has to learn by self initiative. For instance, once the trainee is given the initial directions by the senior journalist and the editor gives him or her some trial assignments, it is upon the trainee to put in his or her efforts. Then after these efforts, the senior editorial helps qualify the articles as good or not, and points out improvements. Whenever he or she hands in copy and the same is edited and improved for print, the onus is on the trainee to compare what has been published and what he or she offered the editor in the first place. As Billet (1994) says, practice is very important to learning since it helps a trainee “go from just being competent to being an expert.” This way, the trainee journalists learns what not to include in future profiles and what to include. If the trainee is successfully gaining knowledge and skills through the practice, given that the senior journalists and the features editor will sometimes call him and explain some things out verbally, the trainee soon gets his or her profiles published regularly. The editor trusts the trainee more and more with the stories to be published that week. With time, the journalist will graduate to a senior writer who can in turn train new entrants into the profession. As noted earlier, the journalist will keep on learning and revising and even reinforcing the skills of the workplace. This is what helps the same writer to graduate to an editor, first the features editor, the Associate Editor and so on to the Editor in Chief. As baker would say, an editorial room is a great work place because it is ‘richly informative (Baker, 1978). Learning Opportunities and Limitations In 1988, Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell received a commission by Manpower Services Commission for research study investigating new ways to develop learning in British companies. From their study, they wrote a report, the Learning Company Report (1988) that formed the background of more informative research in the same area. Peddler published many books later on the development of workplace learning, becoming the world’s most respected expert on the area (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991). The most important contribution that Pedler and colleagues has made in the area of workplace learning is perhaps the development of eleven distinct characteristics of a good workplace learning environment (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991). These characteristics can be grouped into three types namely, those based on a good organization strategy (Pedler & Boutall, 1992). This strategy incorporates learning approaches to strategy and the participating policy making. The second type includes those characteristics linked to the structures of the workplace. This type incorporates enabling structures, an organization’s informating ability, the formative accounting and control’, the internal knowledge exchange potential and the reward flexibility of the workplace (Lave & Wenger, 1991). It also includes the ability to correspond internal workplace situations with those existing outside that organization, the boundary installed between workers of that organisation as the environmental scanners, and finally the inter-company learning protocols between that organisation and others (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991). The third group incorporates the learning opportunities themselves such as the learning climate and the self-development opportunities for every employee (Pedler, 2006). In essence, Pedler’s model of learning workplace environment features values, principles, attitudes, processes and systems that build the learning environment within an organisation. The above stated 11 characteristics can be used to analyze the features journalist’s workplace for its suitability as a learning environment (as done hereunder) (Pedler & Boutall, 1992). To make the analysis non-ambiguous, the characteristics have been grouped into three, such that they can easily be applicable in the sports magazine editorial department. These three categories describe the planning and strategies of the workplace in question, the established learning structures and finally the learning opportunities availed a trainee (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Strengths The workplace under analysis is determined to have a host of learning advantages that make it an ideal workplace learning environment. To begin with, all trainees are given an equal opportunity to develop their skills as writers and to earn promotion to senior positions. All trainees are given the same exposure, access to resources and the opportunity to perfect their skills using the very same process, one after the other (Pedler & Boutall, 1992). As emphasised above, the learning journalist is always given the opportunity to build on his or her practical skills by doing the actual work with senior writers at first and then on his own. This is the opportunity to use personal initiative, attributes and talents to create competence, experience and knowledge of the actual workplace performance that will be the job description once the learning process is accomplished (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991). The learning process is properly elaborated by management of the sports magazine such that every new employee and those who need to learn new areas within the same editorial department must go through the same structured process. This makes it standardised process for all learners and an ideal learning environment (Argote, Beckman & Epple, 1990). The responsibility of coaching, monitoring and supervising the learner is entrusted with the section head such as the features editor while the senior editors also keep monitoring and guiding the learner once in a while during the learning processes. Another strength of the workplace as a learning environment is the people handling of learner’s pieces where the articles developed are always reviewed and analyzed for errors in commission or omission. There are good communication channels between the learners, the section head and the senior journalists, which facilitate the transfer of knowledge during the learning process (Argyris & Schön, 1978). Learner’s personal initiatives are always welcomed and criticized for quality on a one to one basis between the editorial department experts and the learner. Any good initiative is appreciated and reinforced by publication of the articles, giving the learner greater levels of motivation to learn. Availing an opportunity for the learner to interact directly with the experts is also another strength (Dore & Sako, 1989). The editorial room for the sports magazine is one expansive room housing the workstations of all writers, editors and some senior administrative personnel. This offers a level ground rich with interaction opportunities and thus maximal knowledge transfer (Dore & Sako, 1989). Finally, the opportunity for self development is very prominent in the editorial department such that even old employees can join a different section to learn how to write different type of articles for the magazine. After learning how to write profile features, the learner can transfer to the entertainment news section and go through the same process of learning accorded the entrant employee (Krohwinkel-Karlsson, 2007). A learner is not subject to undue pressures or stigma associated with learning. This flexibility and positive attitude to learning either for a new or old employee creates a perfect climate for learning. Weaknesses The workplace is not all good however. There are some weaknesses of the editorial department, feature section for the learner. To begin with, the structures are overly informal where accompanying the senior journalists is judged adequate exposure on which the learner can rely on (Roper, Pettit & Eade, 2003). Sometimes the exposure is not adequate, sometimes the senior journalists are not willing to go the extra mile, sometimes they are overburdened with tasks to afford coaching time and sometimes they are horrible teachers despite being experts in the field since not everyone can be a teacher (Forss, Cracknell & Strömquist, 1998). A formal mechanism of moderating the learning process and determining how well the learners acquire relevant knowledge would be a lot better (Roper, Pettit & Eade, 2003). The same could be achieved by providing theoretical and practicum lessons in the editorial department where the learners are formally helped through the process maybe for an hour every day. The sports magazine also lacks links with other similar press institutions or even newspapers to offer further learning opportunities in the same or other fields. This also helps expose the fact that the learning process in the department is limited to sections whereby the learner takes a lot of time only to learn one area of operation (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). The learning process offers absolutely no exposure in other sections of the same or other departments. Although after learning in one section the learner can then go to another section, it will take impractical duration to solidly acquire knowledge on the broad areas of the magazine. Again, a learner is only exposed to employees in the same section (Valsiner & Veer, 2000). He or she never gets an opportunity to interact productively with colleagues in the other sections (Valsiner & Veer, 2000). Conclusion The central aim of this essay was to establish whether the workplace of choice, a cub features journalist in the editorial department of a weekly sports magazine, offers a viable learning environment. As analyzed in great details above, the workplace is very ideal for learning since it avails guided coaching by willing experts, equal opportunities for learning, an avenue for personal initiatives and talents, a precise learning process, appropriate and effective communication channels, a great interaction opportunity with colleagues, a positive learning climate and the opportunity for self development even after initial training. Nonetheless, the workplace environment is limited by lack of inter-company exposure opportunities, being overly informal, lack of proper monitoring criteria and an over specialization of the section in which a learner is placed within. On the overall, the workplace as a cub features journalist in the editorial department of the weekly sports magazine, offers a viable learning environment. References Altman, Paul. (1998). Learning, leadership, teams: Corporate learning and organizational change. Journal of Management Development. Vol. 17 (1). pp. 44 – 55. Argyris, C. and Schön, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Argote, L., Beckman, S. & Epple, D. (1990). The Persistence and Transfer of Learning in Industrial Settings. Journal of Management Science. Vol. 36(2): pp. 140-154. Billett, S. et al. (2001). Learning in the workplace: Strategies for effective practice. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Billett S. (2000). Guided learning at work, Journal of Workplace learning. Vol. 12 (7). Pp. 272- 285. Brown J.S., Collins, A. & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, Vol. 18 (1). pp. 32-34. Dore R.P. & Sako, M. (1989). How the Japanese learn to work. London: Routledge. Forss, K., Cracknell, B. & Strömquist, N. (1998). Organisational learning in develop- ment co-operation: How knowledge is generated and used. EDGI Working Paper 1998:3. Stockholm: Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Krohwinkel-Karlsson, A. (2007). Knowledge and Learning in Aid Organizations. Sadev Working paper 2007:1. A literature review with suggestions for further studies. Lave J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning - legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP. Pedler, M. J., Burgoyne, J. & Boydell, T. (1991). The Learning Company: A Strategy for Sustainable Development. London: McGraw-Hill. Pedler, M & Boutall, J. (1992). Action learning for change: a resource book for managers and other professionals. Bristol: National Health Service Training Directorate. Roper, L., Pettit, J. & Eade, D. (2003). Development and the Learning Organisation: Essays from Development in Practice. Oxford: Development in Practice Reader. Oxfam. Senge, P. M. 1990. The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday/Currency. Valsiner, J. & van der Veer, R. (2000). The Social Mind: The construction of an idea. Cambridge: CUP. Read More

In the editorial department, there are fourteen other staff journalist allocated different sections of the magazine such as lifestyle, fashion, entertainment news, showbiz, personality features etc. Each of these sections is run by an editor who assigns and supervises the collection of content for each section each week. Once he or she is sure about the content collected from the reporters, he or she hands the same to the sub editor who certifies that the content is error free before passing it on the to the deputy managing editor.

The deputy managing editor corrects the copy for the magazine’s editorial policy before handing it over for rubber stamping by the quality assurance editor (to clear copy of legally contentious content and guarantee absoluter quality)and finally to the managing editor. The magazine dummy is then given to the advertising department to insert ads on the allocated spaces. By the time the content has gone all through these stages, it has been collected and improved ready for publication. It is therefore handed over to the production department for plate setting and printing.

The editor in Chief is the supreme authority in the company and she directs the whole process from scratch. She coordinates the four departments to ensure that the weekly production is of quality, is timely and is reliably efficient. As a reporter, the workplace in analysis is as a personality profile reporter, working with three other experienced reporters to develop four sports’ VIP profiles each week under the guidance and supervision of the section editor, called a features editor. Given the above description of the workplace, it is now possible to analyze it as a learning environment for the new features journalist who has just joined the magazine from college.

When such a journalist is interviewed and accepted into the company, he or she is inducted in a three week learning process. This learning process is very broad however since one is introduced to the company as a whole and not so much to his or her job description (Senge, 1990). The induction period aims at orienting the new employee to the policies and practices of the company, the departments, organisation structure, human resource practices, working department, organisation culture and such broad areas that welcomes the employee to the company as a whole (Senge, 1990).

Once the induction is over however, the employee finds himself or herself in a desk and an editor watching him or her for productivity, at a time when the employee is not even sure how the job is done, what is the job in the first place and what he or she can do about the ignorant position. The first thing to not about being a journalist trainee is that there is no distinct separation between the learning, the participation and the practice. It is more of a comprehensive processed where the journalist is introduced to new concepts while doing the actual work and he or she keeps on practicing the same until performance is perfected.

There are three types of knowledge that underpin the performance as a trainee features journalist in sports magazine. The first type is propositional or conceptual knowledge, also called declarative knowledge (Altman, 1998). This is the knowledge of the information, facts and concepts about journalism such as the writing process, the type of profiles to write, deadlines, choice of subjects, how to structure the profile etc. The second type of knowledge is procedural, involving the skills, techniques and abilities to achieve the goal (Altman, 1998).

For the training features journalist, these include interviewing processes, writing processes and researching interviewees. This is the knowledge of the entire process until the profile is written. The third type of knowledge relevant for the training features journalist is disposition knowledge covering the attitudes, values, interests and identities that are associated with the workplace (Altman, 1998). Examples of such knowledge include editorial policies of the sports magazine, interview subjects that are viable for a profile article in the magazine, how to avoid libellous and defamatory content in the profile articles, how to get an article accepted etc.

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