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Organizations face a paradox. Because of the disruptions of COVID-19, learning and development was largely put on hold. However, this disruption also changed the value proposition for employees: they expect learning and development to be prioritized. The purpose of this paper is to resolve this paradox by providing a strategic framework that increases the capacity for workplace learning within the constraints of a hybrid world.

Although the COVID-19 disrupted shifted when and where employees learn, it did not change how learning occurs. Therefore, this paper draws from research on workplace learning, cognitive science and neuroscience to develop a conceptual framework of workplace learning and provide practical guidance on how leaders can support it in a hybrid world.

This paper presents a new framework for workplace learning. First, this paper identifies seven key workplace learning behaviors. This paper addresses why a focus on behavior over outcomes is strategically advantageous for hybrid learning. Second, this paper details the opportunities, resources and leadership behaviors that enable each behavior.

This paper provides scholars with a new approach to learning and opens avenues for research on the antecedents of workplace learning behaviors, as well as understanding how the behaviors interact over time.

This paper helps executives make strategic decisions about hybrid learning based on the science of learning. This paper also provides key tactics for how to encourage and enable employees to learn in remote or hybrid environments.

Although there is an abundance of research on individual, team and organizational learning, there is little guidance on what strategies leaders can use to enable learning in the moment, when it is needed most. This paper reorients learning strategy away from learning outcomes to focus on the behaviors that are required to achieve those outcomes. In doing so, this paper provides a model for learning how to learn in a hybrid world.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of supervisors’ past experiences in school on their present learning behaviors.

Data were gathered in a time-lagged study. Supervisors populated a previously validated survey about their quality of school life. One week later, a direct measure of learning behaviors was used to determine the extent to which they were motivated to learn in general, and their motivation to exert time and effort in a learning task.

Supervisors who found more satisfaction in school were more motivated to learn in general. Those who were more committed to the work of school spent more time on learning and exerted more effort when practicing a new skill.

Results are valid for supervisors engaging in a learning task relevant to their role. However, because the results are based on direct observation of their learning behavior years later, the findings suggest that school experiences influence workplace learning for employees at all levels.

Typically, organizations consider the degree employees attain and the content of their learning. This study suggests that organizations should also be considering the habits and attitudes toward learning that employees developed while at school.

This study bridges educational and workplace learning by examining how the habits and attitudes developed in school settings impact managerial learning, even years later.

This study aims to empirically examine the relationship between the leader characteristic of humility and the informal learning of team members. It also evaluates the role of leader authenticity in mediating that relationship.

Data were collected on 518 salespeople reporting to 66 managers in a time-lagged study of a financial services firm. Generalized structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test a multi-hierarchical mediation model.

Leader humility has a significant positive direct and indirect effect on individual informal learning in team contexts, and leader authenticity partially mediates this relationship.

This study advances research on how leaders can help transform learning from a risky endeavor to a daily practice. It shows the impact of the leadership characteristic of humility and explains how humble behaviors provide a model for individual learning in team contexts. It also reveals that leader authenticity is a key mechanism through which leader humility comes to influence employees’ informal learning within work teams.

This study provides empirical support for the importance of leader humility in engendering the trust required for employees to engage in everyday workplace learning. It integrates social information processing theory with social learning theory to show that humble leaders provide critical information about the value, cost and methods of individual informal learning in team contexts. Leader humility increases employees’ beliefs that they can and do learn from working in teams because employees perceive the humble leader’s behaviors as representing the leader’s true intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to greater conceptual clarity on the topic of higher-order learning, and to enable its potential empirical measurement. It includes a framework to show how this ability is developed by engaging in specific learning behaviors, each of which constitutes its own level of learning.

Three criteria are used to develop the framework. Each learning behavior should lead to a change in long-term memory, should have empirical support for leading to a defined learning outcome, and should be applicable to workplace learning.

The Learning As Behaviors (LABS) framework presents three novel propositions. Four key learning behaviors of taking on a challenge, attending to information, forming meaningful connections, and practicing with feedback are required to engage in higher-order learning. There is an optimal order to the learning behaviors. Any one individual is unlikely to be motivated to engage in all four learning behaviors.

The clear definitions and elaborated LABS framework provide a potential new means for empirical research. The learning behaviors provided are directly observable behaviors, each with its own measurable learning outcome.

Historically, engaging in higher-order learning has been presented as a choice that is plagued by psychological forces of self-defense, ego and image management. This paper extends that view by presenting higher-order learning as a domain-specific ability to derive fundamental principles and patterns through critical reflection. It also develops three novel propositions that lend insight into the barriers that employees face as they engage in workplace learning.

While research has shown reflection is a valuable part of individual learning, developing reflection habits has remained notoriously difficult, particularly for working adults. We explore whether an intervention of being able to review previous reflections will affect employee engagement in future reflection activities and raise their awareness of learning opportunities at work.

We conducted a large-scale field experiment, including 136 employees from an international bank in Europe, in which participants were asked to reflect twice a week for eight weeks. Participants were randomly assigned to either a group that was given access to their previous reflections, or a group that was not.

We found that individuals who were able to see their previous reflections wrote significantly more subsequent reflections than the other group. In addition, those who could see their previous reflections used more words related to learning and cognition.

Often employees may feel they are only learning when they attend formal trainings. However, this paper provides concrete guidance for how human resources management (HRM) managers can boost employees’ informal learning and awareness of the learning opportunities inherent in challenging work.

This study furthers research on using HRM interventions to facilitate informal learning activities, in particular, methods to motivate systematic reflections and raising awareness of learning opportunities. Our findings suggest that developing habits of reflection and improving awareness of learning opportunities encompasses more than simply writing reflections, but should include processing previous writings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the personal antecedents to taking on the challenge of learning, particularly when there is competition for time at work. Taking on challenging tasks, particularly those that enhance learning, is a critical behavior in today’s dynamic business environments. This paper explores how individual differences motivate people to choose a challenging task over an easy one.

A behavioral measure was used to determine if working adults higher in learning goal orientation, curiosity, and need for cognition were more likely to take on a challenging task, even when there was competition for their time. Structural equation modeling was used to more deeply examine whether these constructs independently contribute to the outcome.

Goal orientation, curiosity and need for cognition each significantly predicted whether working adults took on a challenging task. Additional analysis revealed that learning goal orientation, curiosity, and need for cognition loaded onto a single factor.

This paper answers calls for the use of direct measurement in social science research. Rather than asking individuals about what they have done or would do, the study observes what choices working adults actually make when confronted with the opportunity to learn.

Contributing to the recent surge of work on informal learning behaviors, this paper examines a critical learning behavior – that of taking on challenging tasks. It demonstrates that even if individuals are ready learn (have the time and resources), there are key individual differences that drive whether they are willing to do so.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Conventional learning methods are becoming less effective as firms move to virtual and hybrid ways of working. Employees should therefore engage in a variety of behaviors that can facilitate learning in this changed environment, with support from humble leaders and an organizational climate in which mistakes are seen as learning opportunities.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The study finds that people who score highly in three key personality traits – learning goal orientation, curiosity and need for cognition are more likely to choose a more challenging task over an easy task, despite a lack of monetary incentivization. This suggests that these three characteristics predict learning readiness in workers, who need to be willing as well as able to take on informal learning opportunities in order to further develop their skills and capabilities in the workplace.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper aims to gather empirical evidence for what colleagues from different organizations reported they learned from informal professional learning conversations. Informal learning conversations with colleagues is a powerful yet understudied source of self-directed, professional development.

This study of mixed methods investigated the types of learning 79 leaders from 22 organizations reported they learned via post-conversation surveys from 44 peer-led discussions over a two-year period.

Survey data suggest empirical evidence of five learning outcomes – informational, conceptual, operational, reflective and social learning. The study describes these categories, the overall distribution of these types of learning in the community and how most conversations were “high-yielding” in a particular outcome.

To the knowledge of the authors, this study is the first to suggest empirical evidence of categories of learning that participants report from informal, cross-organizational learning conversations.