Barriers and Strategies for Organizational Learning in Australia

This paper examines the barriers of organizational learning and strategies that can be used to improve it. The key barriers to organizational learning include lack of direct or leadership training, resistance to change, the stubbornness of team members, short term focus, lack of value for organizational learning and too much control.

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Organisational learning and change
Student name
(Affiliation Institution)

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Barriers to organizational learning..................................................................................................3
Strategies that can be implemented to improve organizational learning.........................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Over the past decades, organizations have been investing in organizational learning in
order to stimulate the potential of employees and create enough knowledge that is required to
handle diverse roles and responsibility. However, the process of implementing organizational
learning has faced various barriers leading to employees’ inability to catch up with changing
environment. Furthermore, the organizations which have failed to implement the organizational
learning successfully have been forced to come up with strategies that will address the barriers
effectively. According to Ocasio, Rhee & Milner (2017) the term organizational learning refers
to a process that is used within an organization to create, retain and transfer knowledge to
subordinates. Therefore, the paper seeks to examine the barriers of organizational learning and
strategies that can be used to improve it.
Barriers to organizational learning
Barriers to organizational learning are behaviours or systems inhibiting or preventing
organizations from adapting decision-making challenges they face. The barriers occur at several
levels between or within organizations and they involve group processes, behaviours and
individuals. Resistance to change and stubbornness of staff is one of the major barriers of
organizational learning being experienced in the contemporary organizational setting in
Australia. The change resistance comes from internal or external stakeholders. For example,
employees who had been working on the same roles for long periods of time are set in their ways
hence they tend to reject any attempt to learning new processes. Furthermore, change resistance
is not destined among the most tenured employees but every team member of an organization
with mentality of not adopting new processes.

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Lack of direct leadership and training is also another barrier to organizational learning.
According to Kurland, Peretz & Hertz-Lazarowitz (2010), leadership is critical element towards
organizational learning as it supports skills, change management and communication which are
required to guide organizational learning. Poor leadership and training lead to poor run of teams
and chaos at times of change management which in turn impacts organizational learning.
Furthermore, leaders who are well equipped to guide learning efforts usually boost the
confidence and morale of their employees.
Disregard of team success is also another barrier for organizational learning. For
example, it is difficult to see how personal goals of employees fit with organizational learning
programs as the learning process take both time and extra efforts from day to day tasks of
employees. Therefore, when organizations prioritize investment of organizational learning but
employees are not willing, it really becomes a barrier for employees to remain truly engaged. In
addition, with employees being disregarded, they end up lacking value for learning itself. For
example, in some workplace, there is no learning for the sake of wisdom and knowledge among
employee which often results in employees disregarding new learnings being planned or
introduced by an organization. Furthermore, when employees in an organization don do not
value new learning and growth, they always make an aspect of organizational learning very
difficult.
Lack of motivation is one of the major barriers to organizational learning. For example,
the excuse “That is not my job description”, is a way of showing there is no enough motivation
in an organization which can stimulate organizational learning. This also evident by a research
conducted by Van Scheers & Botha (2014) shows that an employee who is motivated feel
satisfied in an organization and they are unlikely to seek opportunities elsewhere. Although some

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organizational learning programs will still add values to employees, some may be mandatory and
others not. Therefore, how employees are motivated to grow and learn have a significant
influence on how they participate and engaged in organizational learning.
Short term focus is another barrier to organizational learning. In modern organizations, it
is easier for management to provide solution to the short term problems without consideration of
long term impacts. The short term focus enables an employee to lose interest in organizational
learning. For example, if a job of an employee is focused on short term vision of a company, it
makes it easier for employees to focus on short term goals which may fail to include employees
learning skills for the long-term benefit (Elnaga & Imran, 2013). With short term goals,
complexity also occurs which significantly affects how organizational learning takes place. For
example, in the digital workplace there is multi-tasking across various platforms as well as office
systems. The process of learning this software and platforms is complex. For instance,
employees may be taught how to use and handle software through a webinar with consideration
of basic online knowledge and login credentials of the system. Although all information is there
in the webinar, it becomes a challenge during the implementation period of new skills as
employees sometimes are forced to close more tabs to successfully reach objectivity. Therefore,
the process becomes complex and employees find themselves losing their interest with
organizational learning as a
Strategies that can be implemented to improve organizational learning
There are diverse strategies which can be implemented in organizations to improve
organizational learning. Good communication is one of the best strategies preferred by many
organizations when it comes to improvement of organizational learning. Excellent
communication overcomes the organizational barrier of change resistance significantly. In

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organizational context, excellent communication (both oral and verbal) is a situation where
management of an organization is able to communicate effectively with team members for them
to understand why change is needed, fuel motivation to succeed and further to show that their
feedback has value to an organization and is important part of decision-making process
Dasgupta, Suar & Singh, 2013). In addition, to make a positive impact on every employee
regardless of diversities, managers involved in the change management should emphasize that
change is beneficial to both team members and organization.
Continuous training and development is another strategy that can be used to improve
organizational learning. Through continuous training and development, managers are able to
guide learning efforts and change effectively. Furthermore, for organizations to continue
learning and adapting to changing environment there must be an effective leadership being
engaged in the primary process of learning and performance improvement. The effective
leadership in this context refers to leaders creating awareness and being involved with team
training, team members, the tools or software that aid team members and individuals to perform
their tasks and the Information Technology (IT) help desk that can provide response on lack of
knowledge retention of how employees perform some processes (Warrick, 2011). The leaders
also need to be involved in the human resource and organizational development teams which are
mandated to monitor employee development, performance appraisals and departmental managers
who are able to provide direct feedback about team and individual progress and results.
Furthermore, it is not a must for the leaders to be passive although they need to be direct and
active in observing and analyzing departmental and team performance and formulates, plan and
implement the required organizational learning that will improve performances.

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Increasing employee engagement and commitment to the learning process can improve
organizational learning. For example, when leaders engage employees in the new skills, systems
and processes, employees tend to gain interest in the learning process taking place in an
organization. Furthermore, showing employees how to achieve both individual and team success
or providing them with positive reinforcement will improve organizational learning and help
team members to achieve their goals. Explaining to employees the future benefits of learning
initiative can also improve organizational learning by promoting motivation and morale of
employees. In addition, implementing new benefits and compensation packages for rewarding
employees as they make progress can increase the motivation of employees which in turn
facilitates to easier acceptance of organizational learning.
Encouraging managers and employees to set aside time for long term goals and further
provide more opportunities for filling this time can help to improve organizational learning.
Through long term plans employees are empowered to learn various skills, processes and
procedures for them to handle future tasks effectively. Additionally, to address complexities as a
barrier of organizational learning, managers can still simplify their training materials and training
programs so they can deliver information that is essential for learning in simplest possible
formats. Simplification of information will allow the employees to absorb the learning
effectively hence creating interest.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are various barriers to organizational learning in Australia.
Identification of all the barriers of organizational learning is essential in workplace context as it
enables leaders to strategize on how to deal with diverse employees. The key barriers to
organizational learning include lack of direct or leadership training, resistance to change, the

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stubbornness of team members, short term focus, lack of value for organizational learning and
too much control. The recommended strategies for addressing the barriers include simplification
of information, excellent leadership, employees setting long-term goals, increasing engagement,
communication and continuous training and development.

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References
Warrick, D. D. (2011). The urgent need for skilled transformational leaders: Integrating
transformational leadership and organization development. Journal of leadership,
Accountability, and Ethics, 8(5), 11-26.
Dasgupta, S. A., Suar, D., & Singh, S. (2013). Impact of managerial communication styles on
employees’ attitudes and behaviours. Employee Relations.
Elnaga, A., & Imran, A. (2013). The effect of training on employee performance. European
Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), 137-147.
Van Scheers, L., & Botha, J. (2014). Analysing relationship between employee job satisfaction
and motivation. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 9(1).
Kurland, H., Peretz, H., & Hertz-Lazarowitz, R. (2010). Leadership style and organizational
learning: the mediate effect of school vision. Journal of Educational
Administration, 48(1), 7-30.
Ocasio, W., Rhee, L., & Milner, D. (2017). Attention, Knowledge, and Organizational Learning.
In The Oxford Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning.