1. Discuss the forces affecting the workplace and learning. How can training help companies deal with these forces?
One force affecting the workplace are online professional networks. These companies, such as Linked-in, provide services for professionals that enable them to communicate and post profiles of their skills and backgrounds. It “connects” employees with other colleagues or employers, and thus highly affects the social and competitive aspects of the workplace (Jacobs 2009). It also increases diversity, as professionals come into contact with more and more people.
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It influences learning by providing another context about which to learn, as well as more people and cultures to become acquainted with. Employees and employers must gain fluency in the online network in order to use them effectively. Companies can train their employees to deal with professional networks by hosting a seminar or training day for using websites like Linked-in. This offers a chance to present the benefits and dangers of such a force. Thus, a training day might highlight the security threats that networks pose but also the relational capital that an employee can build through them.
2. What steps are included in the training design? What step do you think is most important? Why?
Technology is complex, and social networking is especially difficult to navigate. In order to design a training program, “the facilitator needs to plan for many possible variables” (O’Murchu, Breslin & Decker, 2004, p. 54). He or she must account for the rapid changes in technology. How might Linked-in change over time? What other companies or networks might replace it? The facilitator must also plan for ignorance or a range of competence in the audience.
Some employees will be facile with technology while others will not know how to use a professional online network. This is probably the most important step, accounting for the experiences and skills of the audience. In order to train them, the facilitator must understand them. This reflects only a small portion of the forces that affect the workplace and learning, but online professional networks do constitute one of the most significant and powerful influences in the working world today.
- Jacobs, G. H. (2009). Online professional networking. Contract Management, 49 (8), 10, 12, 14.
- O’Murchu, I., Breslin, J. G., & Decker, S. (2004). Online social and business networking communities. In ECAI workshop on application of semantic web technologies to web communities (Vol. 107).
