Summary

With change being the norm in today’s business world there is an increasing interest in developing the organisation’s ability to learn. Facilitating learning and change maps directly on to HR’s core competencies, however, what is now needed is for HR to reeducate others, possibly even themselves, on what is meant by learning and how best to facilitate learning in the knowledge era. This chapter has discussed how, for organisations to enhance their knowledge base, they need to select their learning approaches carefully, thereby maximising the opportunities for knowledge creation and transfer.

Increasingly organisations are looking for ways of creating new learning spaces, as well as maximising opportunities for learning in everyday practice through making more use of cross-boundary team working, learning through the project management cycle, facilitating learning through different working spaces, building environments that enable experimentation and play, as well as developing a coaching culture.

Note

This chapter has been developed from articles produced by the author for Croner.CCH, available as part of a subscription service to Croner.CCH British Personnel Management. The articles were: ‘A fresh look at knowledge management’, CCH Personnel Management Newsletter, Issue 85, 26 October 2001 and New approaches to learning in the knowledge economy’, CCH Personnel Management Newsletter, Issue 59, 15 August 2000.