Employee learning in New Zealand small manufacturing firms

Abstract

PurposeThe paper aims to explain specific actions managers could take to improve support for the learning of staff and increase staff satisfaction with workplace learning.Design/methodology/approachThe paper shows the data gathered from 464 employees in 31 small manufacturing firms through mail survey questionnaires and analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression.FindingsThis paper shows that the learning potential of the work systems is constrained mostly by limited employee scope for action and enhanced mainly by wide task variety. Managers are failing to create some important facilitating conditions, such as providing incentives to learn and modelling influences. Workplace supervisors are providing only low levels of learning support and are not proactive in fostering the learning of their staff. Employee perceptions of specific work environment characteristics and workplace supervisor behaviours are significant influencers of satisfaction with workplace learning.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper shows future research could examine: the ability to generalise the findings by replicating the study in different contexts to rule out the manufacturing sector as an important contingency factor; and how work environment characteristics and supervisors' proximate support for learning affect other outcomes, including organisational commitment and job satisfaction.Practical implicationsThis paper periodically examines characteristics of work environments and ensures that these characteristics support informal learning. Workplace supervisors need practical advice and behavioural guidelines, based on principles of adult learning, to effectively support the learning of staff. Their performance of this role should be managed.Originality/valueThe paper identifies specific managerial actions and behaviours that have potential for improving the context to support learning and increase employee satisfaction with workplace learning. It provides an employee perspective.