Auditing Learning Attitude of Line Managers

Line managers include various departmental heads in the organization. Their learning attitude not only adds to their personal development but also development of their subordinates and organization as a whole. Dimensions to evaluate are listed below.

Performance of Planning and Review Discussions

• Use of Performance Management System for learning about oneself and one’s potential.
• Adequate time spending by seniors.
• Promotion of upward communication.
• Use of KPAs and KRAs as benchmarks and communication mechanisms.
• Review session by seniors to know field realities from juniors.

Departmental Meetings and In-house Communications

• Use of departmental meetings as a source of learning and communication by managers.
• Conduct of daily, weekly, monthly or annual meetings, and are informative.
• Discussion of issues among employees, and learn from each other’s point of view.
• Decisions are based on wisdom generated in the meetings.
• Use of internal circulars to assimilate the information.

Reading Books

• Reading culture in the organization.
• Buying book on professional or general knowledge and use of library among managers.
• Presence of book budget or professional development budget for buying and learning of books.
• Culture of sharing good books read by the managers.
• Presentations of book reviews and summaries through in-house magazines.

Internet

• Access to internet by almost everyone.
• Use of internet by almost everyone.
• Extensive use of internet for getting business related information and functional updating of the competencies of managers.

Project Report

• Project reports, reports by consultants, strategy and vision studies, research reports, etc. are commissioned by the company and are used as learning resources.
• Participation of organization in benchmarking surveys, and employee engagement surveys, and attempt to learn from such studies.
• Seriousness and access of the same among all.

Outside Visitors and Others

• Use of outside visitors and others as a source of information and benchmarking by managers and employees.
• The visitors from other organizations, professional associations, academic institutions, consultants, etc. seem to be source of learning.
• Learning and picking up best practices from them.
• Managers kept in touch with them.

Each Other

• Internal customers as a source of learning.
• Use of colleagues in the same department as source of learning.
• Seniors use their juniors as source of learning.
• All employees consider each other as source of learning.
• Cross-functional task forces, inter-departmental teams, etc. are used as learning sources.
• Use of discussions, debates and formal learning sessions in the organization.

Newspapers and Magazines of Business as Sources of Learning

• Encouragement to managers to subscribe to newspapers, journals and magazines.
• Reading and updating knowledge base by employees.
• News items, benchmarking practices, innovations etc. picked up from news papers and magazines and used for discussions and debate.
• Encouragement from company to all employees to keep in touch with latest developments
• through these sources.

Functional Journals and Other Literature

• Encouragement to line managers to subscribe to functional journals.
• Allotment of professional development budget for each department or manager.
• Reimbursement of expenses for subscription to journals and adequate journals being subscribed in library.
• Conduct of occasional seminars to share the recent developments in technology, business, markets, etc.
• Encouragement for conferences and seminars by the organization.

Training Programs: In-house Programs and Seminars

• Emphasis on in-house training program or online learning as source of learning.
• Availability of good budget for promoting in-house training and other learning activities.
• Availability of proper infrastructure and facilities for the same.
• Seriousness among managers for the same.
• Learning from training programs is followed by actions and is supported by top management.
• Sharing of knowledge action plans with others by trainees.
• Training impact in terms of efficiency improvement, productivity, cost-saving, etc.

Training Programs: Outside Programs

• Emphasis on outside training program as a source on learning.
• Availability of good budget for promoting in-house training and other learning activities.
• Availability of proper infrastructure and facilities for the same.
• Seriousness among managers for the same.
• Learning from training programs is followed by actions and is supported by top management.
• Sharing of knowledge action plans with others by trainees.
• Training impact in terms of efficiency improvement, productivity, cost-saving, etc.

Seniors and Mentors from Inside the Company and Outside

• Presence of formal mentoring program.
• Seriousness among mentors for the same and they spend adequate time and resources.
• Seniors learn from their seniors and mentors.
• Well working of mentoring and coaching programs.
• Acknowledgement by juniors about what they have learnt from the programs.

Mistakes and Failures as a Source of Learning

• Encouragement of mistakes and failures as a source of learning.
• Presence of high degree of risk-taking.
• Availability of implicit budget for failure.
• When failures occur, managers sit together and try to analyze them and learn from them.
• Lessons from such failures are documented and disseminated for future use.
• Managers seem to learn a lot from mistakes and failures.
• There are stories in the company about how failures and mistakes have been used as a source of learning and benefited the company.

Other Sources

• Use of this source is wide spread in the organization.
• Almost all managers use it effectively.
• This has resulted in tangible benefits to the company.
• This has become the part of the culture of the organization.
• Organization supports this through budgets, time and other ways.

Learning Attitude Assessment Methods

Interviews

• Interviews of Line Managers: To Assess
• Use of Performance Management System and its effectiveness.
• Reading habits, encouragement by the company for reading, facilities provided by the company, etc.
• Organizational policy on the internet.
• Use of outsider visitors for learning.
• Subscription to newspapers, professional journals and magazines and the types of news items read.
• Nature of in-house training programs used and their usefulness.
• Nature of outside training programs used and their usefulness.
• Treatment of mistakes and its role in learning.
• Interviews of Trainees: To ascertain effectiveness of training programs.

Observation

• Sample of meetings in action.
• Library and other reading facilities, number of visitor, borrowing patterns, kinds of books borrowed.
• Special meetings, seminars to learn from visitors.
• Meeting opportunities such as committee rooms.
• Journals in the room of line managers and library.
• Seminars and training programs in action.
• On-going mentoring and coaching.

Secondary Data

• Data available on use of Performance Management System (PMS) in the form of surveys, meetings, etc.
• Organisational policies in respect of purchase of books, data from finance department on
• expenditure on purchase of books.
• Notice boards, file of circulars, and training center data on visitors.
• Expenditure on professional journals.
• Training and seminar records.
• Circulars, case studies, and internal noting or communications on learning from mistakes.

Questionnaire

Standard questionnaire can be used for line managers.