Today’s workplaces could be prime learning environments for human beings, but are falling short in providing the kind of conditions workers need to fully develop their own personal and career potential, says an expert on workplace learning.

“Truly meaningful learning can only occur if the workplace provides, in its everyday function, opportunities for all workers to develop their capacities,” Michael Welton, a professor of adult education at Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, told a recent conference in Calgary.

Yet for many, the workplace remains an anti-learning and degrading environment, he said.

Welton was one of two keynote speakers who spoke to more than 300 international delegates who attended the 2001 Researching Work and Learning conference at the University of Calgary.

Michael Welton

Seminar topics ranged from learning in lean organizations to the challenges of ensuring a diverse workplace.

With the advent of globalization and technological change, workplace learning is being increasingly recognized as a crucial ingredient for maintaining a competitive advantage, said organizers of the conference, who included representatives from the business community, local and international academics and labour activists.

“If workplace learning isn’t a priority (for businesses now), it will have to be for their survival in the next decade,” agreed conference co-chair Peter Sawchuk.

“Every organization, including the private sector and the voluntary sector, for that matter, will have to face up to the idea of having rich relations of learning within the workplace, or they will perish.”

Welton noted that German political philosopher Friedrich Engels wrote a “brilliant” study of the condition of the English working class in 1844, “about peasants who were living our their daily lives, completely unaware about the tidal waves just beyond their horizon rushing to sweep them into a new world of cities, factories, machines and slums.”

While the Industrial Revolution may have launched humankind into a new learning age, it was still a comparatively slow transition, Welton said.

“But today,” he added, “like the unsuspecting peasants of old, we have been swept into a world on speed.

“Many of the Earth’s inhabitants are the new techno-peasants who have yet to even use a telephone, while we in the rich North are on our hundredth computer upgrade.”

Welton advised the adult learning researchers at the conference to explore how work could be reorganized to enable more people to apply the knowledge and skills they already possess.

In a briefing last fall on workplace learning, the Conference Board of Canada reported that while most employers are already using learning technologies in the workplace, there are hurdles to be overcome — including high costs, not enough time, and a shortage of content suitable for the Canadian market.

In addition, the Conference Board report found workplace learning, particularly e-learning, is becoming more critical for competitiveness and productivity in a world increasingly dominated by information and communication technology.

Graham Lowe, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta and director of the Work Network at the non-profit Canadian Policy Research Network Inc., also spoke to conference delegates about the need for open public discussion around creating higher-quality work environments.

The CPRN is launching a new Web site on Labour Day at www.jobquality.ca, which will feature a range of indicators on the quality of employment to help show where workplace changes are most needed.

Recent labour disputes, particularly in the health-care sector, have shown that workers aren’t simply interested in more pay and richer benefit plans, said Lowe, but rather are focused on “soft” qualitative issues which can include being in a supportive environment and having some control over workplace issues. “Why would employers want to pay any attention to this?” asked Lowe.

“If you look at the impact of the gaps on some of the outcomes that employers actually do pay attention to, what you discover is that there are huge costs associated with having big gaps in any particular workplace.”

“The problem we have in this country is that employers simply do not place the human asset as core to their business strategy.”

Sawchuk, an assistant professor in the U of C’s graduate program of workplace learning, said the Alberta government could also step forward to play a role as a leader in work learning practices to help sustain the booming provincial economy.

“Productivity gains, if we’ve learned anything from what was said here, hit a wall very quickly if learning issues aren’t taken into account,” he added.