Limitations
In the course of the research, the key objective was to find as much information as possible about employee engagement through introducing a learning culture while minimizing limitations along the way. In examining learning culture as a vehicle for boosting engagement and improving organizational outcomes, several limitations related to this issue emerged. First, it was revealed that different organizations had varying approaches to learning culture.
For example, employees in some environments demonstrated an interest in increasing their competencies, such as taking language or management courses, without the help of their companies. In other contexts, the learning culture was seen as an organizational responsibility, meaning that the organization’s management was expected to ensure that the company provided training courses and other activities to boost employee engagement.
A second limitation of the study involved the reluctance of organizations to share their procedures associated with improving employee engagement. When contacted in the effort to obtain information on how companies deal with improving engagement or to identify characteristics of the learning culture adopted in the interest of boosting performance, relatively few organizations agreed to share relevant information.
These firms saw the issue as keeping their trade secrets to themselves or appeared afraid that poor practices might be outlined and criticized. In addition, department heads often maintained secrecy in order to avoid advertising their employees’ success due to fear that competitors might copy their practices.
A third limitation associated with the current research was based on the lack of background information on the part of employees regarding appropriate engagement processes in addition to the learning culture of their organizations. This barrier was especially relevant because the workers were instructed to complete a survey, and prior knowledge about these matters would have allowed them to be more informed in their choices.
Finally, surveys in general have inherent disadvantages as data collection methods, and these were related to several issues in terms of research limitations in this case. For example, some of the survey questions in the study under consideration led to confusion among respondents. This means that further modification of the survey is needed to ensure that each respondent can provide more accurate answers and avoid confusion. In addition, since the survey was customized to cater to the employees’ experiences with improving their engagement, the possibility of bias error was also present.
In discussing research limitations, it is important to note that no research is perfect. However, understanding both potential and actual mistakes is critical to future endeavors, along with identifying the kinds of procedures that should be put in place in order to avoid future errors. In this case, a multiple-choice survey was developed to research how the engagement of workers was improved in an organization. While surveys are convenient, they can also constitute somewhat flawed data collection methods. For instance, respondents may interpret the provided options for answers differently, leading to unclear data (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018).
As one practical example of this phenomenon, some respondents view such options as “strongly agree” and “agree” as the same, providing the grounds for unnecessarily broadened responses. On a related note, the research used a Likert-scale-based survey to explore the concept of employee engagement and learning culture. While such surveys are commonly used and offer researchers flexibility and efficiency, they often require some additional adjustments.
Conclusion
In conclusion, employee engagement is seen as a valuable means for improving the overall environment in an organization and ensuring that workers bring the necessary level of enthusiasm and expertise to boost productivity and reach established organizational goals. In addition, a learning culture serves as an accompanying feature that makes the improvement of employee engagement more fruitful and efficient.
The process works through the identification of a value set to which workers can relate and engage with at the workplace. Combining employee engagement and learning culture to create a system to improve efficiency is a strategy that can help an organization’s management to become aware of existing issues and implement strategies necessary for improving the overall work environment. In doing so, it can be useful to employ available technologies for connecting employee engagement to a learning culture within a company. In such cases, technologies act as enablers in building strong connections between engagement and culture within companies.
In this study, the researcher implemented a survey to explore the subject of employee engagement and learning culture. Sixty-three respondents agreed to participate in the collection of data, all of whom were employees in SIA from different departments, sections, and levels. The participation of workers from different parts of an organization is important to ensure various perspectives are made available.
In analyzing how training courses for employee development were chosen, most (70%) respondents said that they were the ones to choose their training courses by themselves instead of simply attending courses selected by their managers. Another important finding of the survey involved the sharing of new knowledge and experiences acquired during learning courses. Many respondents indicated a liking for sharing their knowledge and experiences with their colleagues in the workplace: in particular, 56 out of 63 employees identified this practice as a valuable aspect of the organization’s learning culture.
In many ways, sharing lessons learned with other employees is a positive approach to reinforcing and supporting learning through collaboration and communication among workers. This process can be considered beneficial because knowledge sharing is one of the most prominent features of teamwork, strengthening and empowering organizations to reach their goals. Nevertheless, it is important to note that 19% of the respondents said that their colleagues did not share training information with them, an issue that requires addressing in the future.
In response to questions related to the use of technologies as facilitators in the learning culture, more than two-thirds of the survey participants said that they liked using the Internet as a key source of information, along with developing new skills that can be applied in workplace settings.
A similar number of respondents indicated that they were aware of available Internet-based information resources that offer online courses on different subjects and at various levels of expertise. Such results indicate that the Internet is a valuable resource that can be used for different purposes when searching for information related to quality improvement and boosting the levels of engagement of employees who adhere to an organization’s learning culture.
Overall, the study was useful for aligning the concepts of employee engagement and learning culture in the effort to boost productivity in the workplace. The implications for future studies are vast because various organizations approach employee engagement in differing ways. However, developing a more comprehensive survey will be necessary to account for the possible limitations of the current research. The present study serves as an important contribution to the current body of knowledge about employee engagement and learning culture.
Reference
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2018). Questionnaire design. Web.
