Barriers to Organization Learning: A Case Study of Woolworths Group Limited

This article discusses the barriers to organization learning in Woolworths Group Limited, a major Australian retail company, and suggests strategies to overcome them. The barriers include resistance to change, short-term solutions, poor leadership, lack of training and development, and complexity of skills. The article proposes strategies such as refining training design, creating learning opportunities, changing leadership style, and incorporating reflection practices to facilitate organization learning.

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Organization Learning and Change
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Introduction
Organization learning is the process of developing, retaining and transferring of
knowledge in an organization. This enables the organization to gain experience and expands its
operations. Organization learning can take diverse forms such as individual, group, organization
and inter-organization. Barriers to organizational learning include those actions and systems that
limit the organization from implementing key decision-making techniques to counter the
challenges that they face. The barriers can occur in multiple levels within the organization,
facilitated by both the individual and group behaviors. Woolworths Group Limited is a major
Australian company engaging in retail interest. Woolworths operates around 1000 stores across
Australia of which 976 are supermarket chains and 19 are convenience stores
(Woolworthsgroup.com.au, 2019). It has about 115,000 employees in its stores, distribution
centers, and support offices. Woolworths also has online services facilitated by
Woolworths.com.au. It is the second largest company in Australia by revenue. Additionally, the
company operates take-away liquor services, hotel and hospitality services, and gaming and
poker. Due to its large size and vast workforce, Woolworths Group experience some challenges
when implementing organization learning.
Resistance to change is increasingly common among senior managers at Woolworths
Group. Such managers view change as threatening to the normal operations of the retail chain.
One of the most contributing factors to this resistance is the fear of losing their jobs. Often, most
employees are comfortable with their jobs and consider new technologies or additional task
posing a great threat to their normal functioning. The failure of Woolworths to properly
articulate the learning and new change behavior to the employees further increases the
uncertainty among the workers. The management has to communicate effectively with the

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workforce in order to clearly state the purpose of the proposed change and increase the
motivation for the change to succeed.
Short term and unplanned solutions affect hugely the implementation of key organization
change. In nature, organizations are prone to embark on reactive behavior rather than a proactive
one when dealing with complex situations. The panic associated with these situations results in
the mechanism of adopting solutions that address the issue in the fastest way possible
(Goikoetxea and Wilkinson, 2014, pp.117). Such temporary and poorly thought solutions are
increasingly becoming barriers to organizational learning in the workplace (Siedlok and Hibbert,
2014, pp.198). Short term solutions can hamper Woolworths Group limited, as the management
may offer a solution that does not directly impact the necessary change to the issue at hand. For
example, a decrease in sales may result in the management creating a sales workshop for the
employees. This intervention may not necessarily work and may result in faulty content due to
limited time in preparation, wastage of monetary resources and more important a frustrated
workforce.
For any organization to flourish and implement effective change mechanism in
organizational learning, it must have an effective leadership structure in place. There has been an
increased concern on the capacity of the managers at Woolworths Group to handle leadership
issues (Gilaninia, et al., 2013, pp.5). Among the key challenges facing the Woolworths, is a high
employee turnover rate facilitated by poor leadership in multiple stores. Such managers do not
have sufficient training to offer support and motivation to the workforce. The pressure imposed
by the management of Woolworths makes the managers focus on business expansion and project
goals while neglecting critical factors such as employee motivation. According to the proponents
of organization learning, Chris Argrys and Donald Schon, learning is as a result of interaction

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between members in the organization (Noruzy, et al., 2013, pp.1042). Most of the employees in
the retail chain learn by guessing. It is very hard for the employee to receive assistance primarily
because of the limitation in the number of human resources. The workers are faced with
situations that are beyond their capacity and it is hard for them to receive guidance. Poorly
trained managers at Woolworths create barriers for organization learning through blame
approach. Employees at the retail chain are held responsible for their actions regardless of
whether they receive guidance or not. This limits the motivation and creativity in the workforce.
The failure of the management to focus on performance enhancement and staff growth affects
learning in the organization. When the organization leadership lack skills of performance growth
and staff motivation, the organization ultimately loses its vision.
In any organization, there need to be important policies put in place to facilitate the
training and development of the workforce. A good learning culture facilitates the development
of the employee in a meaningful way. One of the critical factor hampering learning at
Woolworths is the numerous managers that the retail store has. The managers at the middle level
wield absolute powers and they disregard important functions such as employee development in
place of business growth and profits (Arli, et al., 2013, pp.348). When the organization does not
value training and development, the aspect of organizational learning can similarly be difficult to
implement.
The complexity of the skills that need to be learned is also another factor that limits
organizational learning. Complex topics that are not well broken down affects the motivation of
the employees as their goals seem unattainable. Maslow hierarchy of needs theory advocates for
a complete breakdown of the needs of the workforce to achieve self-actualization. According to
Mcgregor learning theory, the management should focus on and specific skill sets of the

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employee when integrating organization learning systems. When the organization does not break
down the training manual to segments, the employees become demotivated to participate in the
programs. One of the factors that facilitate complexity in Woolworths is the hierarchy of
management (Bartsch, et al., 2013, pp.242). There exist a gap between the management and the
employees, consequently, the management does not understand the areas where the employees
are lacking in skills. This hampers the organization learning as the training programs do not
retaliate to the needs of the employees.
Among the strategies that could be implemented to facilitate organization, learning
includes refining the approach of the training design. The management of an organization can
make use of specific tools such as Bloom’s revised taxonomy, that creates well-defined learning
outcomes and monitor the progress of the learner from simple to more complex skills (Sullivan,
et al., 2013, pp.20). The complexity of the training manual is then broken down into simple
manageable chunks. Additionally, the learning facilitators should employ the use of different
learning formats such as info graphics and illustrations for a convenient learning environment.
The organization can boost the learning culture through the strategy of creating learning
opportunities for the employees. Additionally, the organization can emphasize on learning in its
operation strategy and organization values (Imran, et al., 2016, pp.1100). The organization
should also introduce a system of reward and recognition to appraise those employees and teams
that have achieved the learning outcomes. The training and learning programs should also be
prioritized to increase the convenience of learning
Organization heads, as well as the managers, should advocate for organization learning
by developing a learning culture within the organization. The leadership structure of the

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organization can be changed to a participatory leadership style that accommodates the views and
inputs of the employees. This leadership technique ensures that the input of the workforce is
considered and the management of the organization is in constant deliberation with the staff on
the effective learning programs to implement (Klinge, 2015, pp.166). The managers can also
encourage the employees to utilize solutions such as e-learning to gain new skills, knowledge,
and competencies for solving complex problems. Additionally, the organization should create
opportunities for training and development. Similarly, the progress of the employees can be
monitored through analytics platforms to consolidate further the performance of the team.
Reflection practices should also be incorporated into organizational learning. This means
the employees should be encouraged to synthesize, articulate, and abstract key points of their
learning experience. The facilitators of the organization learning can get the learners in a
classroom session and encourage them to share information on their learning outcomes (Langley,
et al., 2013, pp.12). Critical reflection is also important as it fosters the effective management of
organizational learning. There exist a bridge between aspects of learning and experience and this
can be achieved through feeling and cognition processes (Wen, 2014, pp.290). Reflection,
therefore, helps the staff to reason for the benefit of understanding. Additionally, reflection
facilitates the capturing of a concept and integrate it into real life practices. Reflection is,
therefore, a critical strategy that is much needed in managing organization learning.
Conclusion
Barriers of organization learning limit the progression of an organization learning. Some
of these barriers such as poor leadership and complexities of the learning programs demotivate
the workforce immensely. The lack of motivation among the employee does not only limit the

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implementation of organizational learning programs but also impacts on the overall performance
and culture in the organization. Strategies of improving organizational learning are those
practices that facilitate the achievement of learning behavior within an organization. These
strategies address some of the challenges posed by the barriers of organizational learning. This
includes implementing programs that monitor employee performance, changing the leadership
style to accommodate the decision making of the staff, encouraging a learning culture within the
organization and developing forums where the employees can carry out reflections into the
insight gain from learning outcomes. Implementing such strategies guarantees the success of the
learning process.

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