Informal learning works for new hires
Todd Hudson discusses how the New Seasons Market chain uses a very informal approach not just for senior employees (where it seems to be a more natural fit) but for new hires as well. Criticism is often leveled against informal learning methods in that they don’t work for basic skills training. The New Seasons Market, with nine outlets, shows otherwise:
At New Seasons, you won’t see new hires crammed into three days of New Employee Training that’s so common today. After their Day One Orientation, New Seasons newbies are pretty much set free in their departments. “New Seasons’ training is like a Waldorf School experience. There’s no codified way for people to learn most jobs. People are told to look around, figure it out and ask for help when they need it,” said Charla [HR Director].
The company starts its hiring based on attitude, “We look for candidates more interested in genuine human interactions than in an ‘items per hour’ ratio”. I recommended in soft skills are foundational competencies that hiring for attitude makes more sense because you can always train for skills later.
This is a succinct real-world case for informal learning (book) in the workplace, what Todd Hudson calls Lean Knowledge Transfer (PDF), and reminds me of Guy Wallace’s more comprehensive Lean ISD (book) [also available as a free 404-page PDF at http://www.eppic.biz ].
Filed under: Informal Learning
Thanks for the comment and mention of lean-ISD and the link to the Kindle version – but please note that the book is also available as a free 404-page PDF at http://www.eppic.biz – along with 3 other books. And thanks for sharing in general!
Guy
Thanks, Guy, the post has been updated.
Harold,
Thanks for the blog post. New Seasons’ story has generated a lot of positive response, which I believe reflects people’s desire for a work environment that supports learning and not just crams information down their throats.
I didn’t tell the whole New Seasons’ story, of course. Space. Time. And we didn’t discuss their hiring in any detail, which clearly is part of their ‘secret sauce.’ Staffing, actually ‘overstaffing’, practices are a key to their informal learning model. New employees don’t need to perform right away; there are more experienced employees at the ready to do the work and model how things are done correctly.
What are the arguments against informal learning for new hires that you hear?
Along with my business partners at TogetherLearn, I have been an advocate of informal learning because I feel too many resources are put into formal training which is the most costly and not always effective model. When I discuss this informal learning with people in the field, many feel that it could work for experienced and skilled staff but not for new hires. They believe that formal training, quite often as a group in a classroom, is the only option. The New Season’s case study is an excellent example to the contrary.