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Drawing on the work of Foucault, and to a lesser extent actor-network theory, this article examines some of their methodological and theoretical implications for conceptions of workplace learning. We suggest that workplaces need to be examined for the spatio-temporal ordering of practices and the actors drawn into them in order to move beyond the totalising discourses of, for instance, the knowledge economy, globalisation, performativity and even workplace learning itself. We argue that there is no single trajectory for workplaces and that pedagogic practices are embedded in the actor-networks of specific workplaces. This is illustrated by way of a critique of discourses that posit a simple move from disciplined, Fordist work to more flexible forms of work. In this way, we seek to locate discussions of workplace learning within the wider debates in the social sciences about changing practices of governing and the differing forms of subjectivity associated with them. The article is intended to be illuminative and is theory driven.

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While there has been a proliferation of interest and research into work-family studies we know little about how employees who study while working manage their multiple and sometimes conflicting roles. This research focuses on non-traditional students (NTS), whose representation in the general student population has increased, and explores how they attempt to balance their work and school responsibilities. The question of what factors potentially impact NTS's academic and job satisfaction remains mostly unanswered and is the question this article attempts to address. Data were collected from over 200 non-traditional students studying across different regional campuses of a US university, testing several hypotheses including relevant demographic and non-demographic variables. Results revealed academic satisfaction was impacted by job-related factors while job satisfaction tended to be influenced mostly by factors in the general work domain. Demographic factors did not appear to predict job satisfaction and nor did they significantly predict academic satisfaction. The paper outlines some future opportunities for research to better understand the work-school dynamic in the lives of non-traditional students.

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Since 1998, the ‘learnership’ model of workplace training has been promoted in South Africa as a creative vehicle for addressing high unemployment rates and a serious skills shortage. This is achieved through fast-tracking the acquisition of skills and increasing a learner’s chances of employment. However, because learnerships are a recent innovation, the body of applied knowledge is small. This article aims to contribute to what is known through examining a series of pilot projects, implemented between 1997 and 2001 in KwaZulu-Natal. A key finding concerns how learnerships are managed: the effective delivery of a learnership programme and of its outcomes requires the involvement of key stakeholders from the outset, role clarity and a carefully structured and monitored process of implementation. Using a case study approach, this article situates learnerships within the context of workplace training, explores four key lessons learnt and presents a proposed model of effective learnership management.

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In line with Singapore's nationwide digital journey, the Training and Adult Education (TAE) sector of Singapore has launched the Innovation Learning 2020 initiative to catalyse the adoption of technology in the TAE sector. This paper presents findings from three projects we have conducted on innovative learning and discusses how learning and innovation can be supported. We first present findings from the first nationwide survey of the TAE landscape on the current status of innovative learning. Our findings show that a good proportion of training providers and adult educators are adopting blended learning to respond to the changes and new demand in the TAE market. We then present a case of a blended learning course for workers from Maritime industry that demonstrates how blended learning can be designed and conducted to provide a seamless learning experience for learners to embrace the affordances of tech-enabled learning, workplace supervisions and face-to-face classroom interactions. Lastly, we discuss how innovation and learning can be enabled at the workplace and present a model to support innovative learning culture at the workplace.

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This article explores interactive qualities between newcomers and workplace practices, the newcomers being adult immigrants in job placement schemes. Focus is on how the novices enter work sites, how they participate and what their duties in daily work situations are in three working life sectors in Norway. The discussion draws attention to courses of involvement and participation through the structuring of work activities and the acceptance of the newcomers in the communities of practice.

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Purpose: Marginalization exists in many organizations, despite a zero-tolerance stance on discrimination, abuse and harassment. Human resource development (HRD) professionals are increasingly asked to respond to the calls for crucial conversations on race and diversity. However, traditional HRD methods and tools may not be sufficient to address and eradicate racism in the workplace. The usage of testimonio could enable oppressed groups to communicate their narratives to counter stereotypes. This paper aims to describe testimonio and the various ways it can be used as a research methodology and to perturb the dominant practices in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper uses testimonio, a narrative methodology with Latin American roots in indigenous oral storytelling, to expand beyond Eurocentric qualitative approaches to capture the voices of marginalized groups. This study gives examples and theorizes how leaders, including human resource professionals, may use this approach to give voice to underrepresented stakeholders in the margins of organizations. Testimonio serves as a non-Eurocentric framework and venue to legitimize their stories. Their voices are assets, enriching while transforming and perturbing and so are needed for communities and organizations to foster a just and sustainable culture and climate. Findings: The use of testimonio as an HRD approach to amplify unrepresented voices in the workplace may be an asset to HRD professionals. However, to realize the full potential of this research tradition in HRD, researchers and practitioners must create more space where trust is present for these groups to tell stories that matter most to them.

Research limitations/implications: This study on the testimonio approach provides a view into organizational power dynamics and voices from the margins. It serves as a means to acknowledge the voices of underrepresented stakeholders in the workplace. HRD scholars should contribute to organizational effectiveness and inclusive workplace climate by using scholarship to highlight the harm of marginalizing policies and behaviors. Practical implications: Testimonio implies that HRD practitioners in positions of privilege should use their authority to foreground the voices of marginalized individuals who are typically silenced. This can be accomplished by prioritizing unheard voices in the work of HRD professionals. Testimonio as a methodological approach and workplace tool highlights the personal experiences of oppressed groups who experience social injustice, particularly racism. This method encourages organizations that do not operate in a culturally sensitive and inclusive environment to reconsider the discourse that influences their social position. Originality/value: While there is a clear need to address inequities, few practical inquiry tools are presented. Moreover, through their epistemologies and research procedures, scholars and practitioners may unintentionally maintain and reinforce existing inequitable structures and processes. This paper presents testimonio as a non-Western alternative to Eurocentric qualitative research methodologies to perturb dominant practices in HRD.

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Under [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19, low-wage service sector workers found themselves as essential workers vulnerable to intensified precarity. Based on in-depth interviews with a sample of 52 low-wage service workers interviewed first in Summer 2019 and then in the last two weeks of April 2020, we argue that COVID-19 has created new and heightened dimensions of precarity for low-wage workers. They experience (1) moments of what we call 'precarious stability', in which an increase in hours and predictable schedules is accompanied by unpredictability in the tasks workers are assigned, (2) increased threats to bodily integrity, and (3) experiences of fear and anxiety as background conditions of work and intensified emotional labor. The impacts of COVID-19 on workers' lives warrant an expanded conceptualization of precarity that captures the dynamic and shifting nature of precarious stability and must incorporate workers' limited control over their bodily integrity and emotions as core components of precarious working conditions.

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Nursing and midwifery are priority professions for which there are current and future (projected) workforce shortages. This study takes a work-life perspective to examine the key workplace factors that impact on retention and well-being. Two qualitative studies are described. Study one explores the meaning of work-life interaction for these professionals, to inform the focus and emphasis of policy and practice initiatives. Study two presents an in-depth examination of five key issues: work scheduling, workload, accessing leave, child-care and casual work. It was clear that nursing and midwifery was a significant source of meaning, purpose and satisfaction in workers' lives. However, the potential for high levels of work-life conflict and negative spillover of stress into non-work-life was very evident. The paper concludes with a summary of recommendations to improve administrative, procedural and cultural aspects of nursing and midwifery work to support and enhance work-life interaction and well-being.

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One of the key challenges in work-integrated learning (WIL) courses is how to account for learning that takes place away from campus, where the work space, daily routines and emergent actions within an organisation shape the possibilities for student learning. What do students do on placement to open the possibilities of working and learning in temporary sites of work? Using a practice-based approach, this paper outlines an ethnographic study of learning on placement. The paper draws on Gherardi's ([2019]. How to Conduct a Practice-Based Study: Problems and Methods. 2nd ed. (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing) work on learning and knowing in practice to demonstrate how students learn to participate in situated practices to accomplish work tasks. It employs a rock-climbing metaphor to illuminate what students do in order to continue on with work when they encounter something surprising, make an error or have a question.

The findings suggest student learning relies on the sociomaterial practices that produce and are produced by each unique workplace situation. The paper shows how learning on placement comprises the identification and use of distinct 'handhold' activities performed through simultaneous processes of knowing, doing and inventing.

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The purpose of the study reported in this article is to explore development engineers’ and product designers’ conceptions of their learning in a work context from a process-oriented perspective. The empirical data consist of six weeks’ observations and interviews with 18 employees in two companies in Finland. Phenomenographic analysis of the interviews yielded six categories of descriptions: learning through doing the work itself, learning through cooperation and interaction with colleagues, learning through the evaluation of work experience, learning through taking over something new, learning through formal education and learning from extra work contexts. The results reported here suggest that all the categories are relevant dimensions of the learning phenomenon, while the construction of competencies through work experience and learning as participation and collective action will receive closer scrutiny at a subsequent stage of this research effort.

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