Learning And Development Influences Performance

In the following academic essay, whether or not learning and development influences performance will be discussed. Human Resource Development is quite a difficult term define, however according to Swanson and Holton III (2009), Human Resource Development can be described as developing and unleashing expertise for the purpose of improving individual, team, work process and organisational system performance. From this it can be said that learning and development play a large part in human resource development process. Organisational learning and having the ability to nurture a learning culture within an organisation as well as the learning processes of behaviourism, social learning and cognitism show how learning can influence the performance

Behaviourism can be defined as the learning through positive and negative reinforcement according to (Micheal, 1975). Positive reinforcement can be in the forms of praise from managers, promotions, pay rise ect. While negative reinforcement can be in the form of threats or criticisms. In order for behaviourism to be successful each task must be broken down and be given a stated standard. Furthermore each employee must perform so as that these standards are met (Gold, Et al. 2010). Gold, et al. also states that reinforcement and feedback on a particular behaviour that can be repeated over a period of time will result in the task being perfected therefore increasing the performance of an individual doing the particular task. Cognitivism however is said to be a more complex form of learning according to (Ertmer and Newby, 2008) focusing more on the cognitive processes of problem solving, concept formation, information processing ect. (Gold, 2010). Gold et al. (2010) see learning as gaining new information and knowledge that connects to information that has already been retained. Aik, et al. (2003) see cognitivism as a theory that influences work performance. They state that it makes it easier for learners if the skill that they are learning is meaningful or relevant to them. Nevertheless in order to actually improve the performance of the work it requires training the workers to better preform their tasks. They

One of the main theories proving this is that of the social theory which was completed by Albert Bandura. Bandura’s theory is based on observation and role modelling. It is broken up into four stages. The first stage is attention. This requires the learner to aware of all aspects of the models behaviours that the learner is expected to observe. Following the attention stage is the retention stage. At this stage the learner must retain the skills and knowledge that were demonstrated by the model. In order to do this they must come up with the appropriate means of remembering the skills and knowledge that were exhibited by the model. Following the retention of these skills and knowledge the learner must be able to reproduce this information; this is called motor reproduction which is the third part of the process. This involves putting the skills and knowledge into practice. Finally after completing these three steps the learner must go through the motivational process. This is where if the behaviour is copied to the required standard, the learner will receive positive reinforcement, similar to behaviourism, which is lightly to lead to the behaviour being repeated. This influences performance by increasing innovation within the business as well as increasing competitiveness and economic profit according to Perez Lopez et al