Capturing 'Informal' Learning

TeamOJT Tip of the Month for July, 2007

Unfortunately, many in the learning community have adopted the phrase "informal learning to include any and everything that is not presented via a structured e-learning or classroom presentation. Recently a reader of one of the trade e-newsletters wrote in asking if it is necessary to capture, document and catalog informal learning, which he defines as "real on-the-job training." The main concern here is that trainers often do not distinguish between informal (unstructured) OJT and formal (structured) OJT.

Today most authorities on OJT (on-the-job training) agree that at least 80-90 percent of an employee's workplace skills and knowledge are learned through on-the-job training. (This is what the reader refers to as informal learning.) This OJT training occurs in one of two ways: 1) the degenerating buddy system, in which old habits, shortcuts, mistakes, confusion, and inconsistencies in task performance pass from one employee to another; or 2) structured on-the-job training, a disciplined, formal methodology in which training occurs at or near the actual work setting and is delivered by a designated trainer who follows specific written guidelines. The OJT trainer uses a systematic four or five step process to deliver the training. The training materials provide observable and measurable performance objectives.

Knowledge that is passed on through the degenerating buddy system, where Jane teaches Paul, Paul trains Joe, etc., is most definitely not worth trying to capture and document. To do so would only perpetuate doing the wrong thing - passing along all the inefficiencies, poor techniques, etc. "W. Edwards Deming, total quality management guru, has said that employees' learning how to do their job from a co-worker is 'just like taking lessons on the piano from someone who never had a lesson on the piano. He learned by himself how to play. If you take lessons from him, you will learn a lot that is wrong. You might learn some that is right. Neither pupil nor teacher will know what is right and what is wrong.' The training gets worse and worse from person to person over the years." (from Training On the Job, by Diane Walter. ASTD Press, 2002.)

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