HRD and Adult Workplace Learning: Managers in the Workplace

This essay examines the crucial role of Human Resource Development (HRD) and adult workplace learning in ensuring the employability of managers and supervisors in the contemporary employment landscape. The paper delves into the challenges of youth unemployment and the necessity for organizations to implement effective strategies for job creation. It explores various HRD strategies, including training, seminars, and learning sessions, to enhance employee skills, knowledge, and adaptability. The essay discusses several adult learning theories, such as Kolb's learning cycle, Honey and Mumford's learning styles, behaviorist, cognitive, and social learning approaches, highlighting their relevance in designing effective training programs. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of managerial skills, employee engagement, and the need for continuous development to maintain a competitive edge. The essay concludes with a reflection on the knowledge gained, emphasizing the interrelation of HRD and adult workplace learning, and their significance for both organizational success and societal advancement. The research also includes the importance of effective communication, teamwork, and leadership skills for managers and supervisors, underscoring the value of continuous learning and adaptation in today's dynamic work environment.

Running Head: HRD AND ADULT WORKPLACE LEARNING
HRD and Adult Workplace Learning
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Topic- HRD and Adult workplace learning theories used by managers and supervisors to
remain employable and marketable in the present employment landscape
Youth unemployment remains a major issue in the modern world regardless of the
country’s financial or educational stability. It is true that no matter how much effort and money
one puts in the education, people are running out of suitable jobs. This issue instigates the
organization to seek for appropriate and effective strategies that would enable them to create
high quality and quantity jobs for the young job seekers. Both the employee and the employer
comes down to the labour market with particular skills, abilities and competencies (Deming,
2017). This essay focuses on certain Human Resource Development strategies that are useful for
the managers or supervisors to stay employable in the current employment landscape. It
concludes with the personal reflection of the knowledge gained through the entire research.
In order to compete with the market giants, the managers or supervisors search for
employees who are perfect learners. A sincere and enthusiastic learner reduces half the work for
the HRM department. The HRD policies are implemented to brush up the skills, knowledge,
adaptability and managing quality of the employees through proper training, seminars, learning
sessions and many other techniques (Manuti, Pastore, Scardigno, Giancaspro & Morciano,
2015). Many human resource experts are of the opinion that ‘workplace learning ‘which is a
relatively new term is nothing more than just the title change from Human Resource
Development. However, there is also a category of experts who deny the fact and opine that both
the terms are different in their own way (Andersson, Dasí, Mudambi & Pedersen, 2016). The
human resource development and training process covers areas such as assessment, design,

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evaluation and implementation. First of all, the managers need to find the real talent with those
adult learning factors, so that when the HRD strategies such as coaching and trainings are
provided, it becomes easy for them to shun the already existing talent. The HRD management
requires extraordinary power of adaptability (Claussen, Grohsjean, Luger & Probst, 2014). The
faster one adapts the terms and conditions of the organization, the more one becomes successful.
An organization, or more aptly said the HRD department is supposed to consider
different learning capabilities of different employees, so that they could design their variety of
strategies to work on and improve the employee capability. Employees are the foundation of an
organization and if they are pushed from back and uplifted to higher levels, the entire
organization becomes successful, more competitive and marketable. Therefore, it is the duty of
the managers to know and find out the abilities and inabilities within an employee and support
him/her accordingly. There is a range of learning theories propounded by scholars to assist
organizations in making their training process more learning oriented concerning the varying
capabilities of the employees (Brière, Proulx, Flores & Laporte, 2015).
Kolb’ learning theory is one of the most accepted theories by the organizations. This
theory shows four learning stages of the learning cycle which includes Diverging, Assimilating,
Converging and Accommodating. There is another significant learning style named as Honey
and Mumford learning style which also identifies four stages. These are: Activist, Theorist,
Pragmatist and Reflector. The behaviorist approach says that people learn from the sensors.
Learning is nothing but the response to the stimulus. According to the cognitive learning
approach people seek out for information to better understand the situation and adjust themselves
in it. This theory says that human beings are intelligent seekers, and if they do not fit in
somehow, they try hard to do something about the misfit (Rezvani et al., 2016). According to the

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social learning theory propounded by Albert Bandura argues that people can learn by watching
or imitating other people. This is also called observational learning. He also suggests that
mental states are also a huge factor for fast learning. Mental peace, pride, satisfaction and
accomplishment are the factors which impacts the learning process. This theory does not believe
that learning changes the behavior unlike the behavioral theory (Wickramasinghe, 2015). Apart
from these scholarly theories, there are some general theories which relate to the adult workplace
learning process to a greater extent. Attention is the first quality one needs to be work –efficient.
An employee cannot perform upto the mark without paying attention to what is being taught
during the training / coaching. Secondly, the capability to retain the information in mind is
another important part of the learning process. Thirdly comes the time to reproduce or apply in
practical life whatever one has learnt. Motivation plays an important role in determining how the
employee would perform (Uddin, Naher, Bulbul, Ahmad & Rahman, 2016). Learning becomes
complete when motivating factors are added to it. These are some of the basic concepts of
learning theories which can be related to almost every field especially workplace because the
learning capability of the employees forecast the future development prospects of the
organization and their sustainability in the current market.
In order to become more employable than the competitors, choosing global talents is not
the end story. The more challenging process is the retention of the talents, improve and maintain
the work quality (Al Ariss, Cascio & Paauwe, 2014). An organization is supposed to reinvest in
upgrading the workforce and it is the duty of the supervisors to observe and find the gap to work
on. Employee motivation, their performance, productivity of the organization and future growth
of the organizations and their competitive advantage, each and every component are interrelated.
Various scholarly research suggests that effective managers are also required to modify

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employee engagement (Albrecht, Bakker, Gruman, Macey & Saks, 2015). Employee
engagement is essential because the more an employee feels engaged towards the workplace, the
more he/she learns fast and gives higher productivity. Companies depend and rely on effective
and inspiring mangers because they are the higher representatives of the company (Helfat, C., &
Peteraf, M. 2014). Lack of managerial skills within the managers or supervisors might affect the
entire scenario. According to a latest study 1 out if 10 people have exceptional managerial skills.
Most of them possess ordinary managerial skills such as building relationships, being assertive
and motivating ad many other general capabilities. However, these extra skills can be learned
and strengthened if the organization support and concentrate on the idea of developing managers
(Rezvani et al., 2016).
The skill developing of the managers can be done by following successful management
role models and also by getting guided by experienced manger. They can enhance their
efficiency by participating in management skill training courses. The company managers and
supervisors hold the biggest responsibility within an organization starting with delegation,
communication to planning and motivation (Cross, 2014). A better performing team signifies the
presence of a good manager. Managers should form teams concerning their different cultural
backgrounds and expertise so that the team members could easily relate with each other.
Selecting the right person as team member is another big task which demands minute
observation and judgement. A supervisor is supposed to be an expert determining this.
The recruiting skills can be developed by reading a lot of relevant books, by watching
necessary videos, aptitude testing and in many other ways. Managers need to be great leaders
who knows all possible ways of getting thee work done properly and within he deadline. In this
regard the manager needs to enhance the power of observance to assign the right task to the right

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person. An ideal manager should be full of motivation, confidence and inspiration. It can be done
by giving regular feedbacks to the employees increasing their willpower. Effective
communication fields are supposed to be established by the managers where the workers can
uncover their individual concerns regarding work and expect the issue to be worked on The flow
of information on both the part of the manger and the employees should be crystal clear to avoid
any misunderstanding.
A stable management is required in every organization because it influences the sales,
productivity, and competence of the workforce. The society has been constructed by efficient
mangers guiding their organizations towards better future. A well- established management and
leadership are the foundation of an economically stable country (Day, Fleenor, Atwater, Sturm &
McKee, 2014). In a nutshell, all societies are in huge need of ideal mangers to rely on. The
biggest market share holders such as Toyota, one of the largest automobile companies of the
world concentrate on building strong management for their companies. The leadership of Toyota
company is based on teamwork. The leaders of the company are assigned with huge
responsibility but they are trained properly too for handling those responsibilities (José Sousa,
Dias, Moço, Saldanha & Caracol, 2017).
Therefore, it can be concluded from the above essay that HRD and Adult workplace
learnings are completely correlated with each other. The essay is useful for providing in-depth
information and reviewing various relevant articles it throws light on the critical perspective of
the issue. The essay has further highlighted certain Human Resource Development strategies that
are useful for the managers or supervisors to stay employable in the current employment
landscape.

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The essay has been of great help for me as I went through the literature regarding the
topic. I have received deeper knowledge of what is HRD, what are the important adult workplace
learning theories, what are the relations among them, what are the managerial skills needed to
stay marketable and also why they are important for an organization as well as the society. I will
be able to bestow this knowledge in my career ahead in future.
References
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