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.