ABSTRACT
This book is about the learning that goes on every day in offices, factories and shops throughout the world. Such activity can take a number of forms, including learning as part of everyday work activity, on-the-job instruction and off-the-job training events. This book is not the first – and will certainly not be the last – to have such a focus. However, it does claim to be the first to analyse systematically learning at work in a range of different occupations and economic sectors using a single, newly developed analytical framework, which we refer to as the Working as Learning Framework (WALF). We argue that such a holistic understanding of learning at work can only be achieved by traversing a series of analytical layers of enquiry. This journey takes us beyond the particularities of the work task itself and into the world of work organization and the wider pressures organizations face for survival, growth and development, or what has previously been referred to as the ‘context of learning’. It has become commonplace in the UK and some other countries to castigate and even pathologize employers for their reluctance to invest in workforce development and thereby improve the knowledge and skills of their employees. This book shows that, while some employers can and certainly should do more, both they and the research and policy communities need to develop a more sophisticated understanding of how to ensure that these improvements take effect. As we were putting the finishing touches to this book, the fall-out from the global ‘credit crunch’ was only just being reported. In these circumstances, more than ever, we need to find innovative ways to help workplaces – in both the public and private sectors – create the conditions in which learning can both flourish and be celebrated.
