Learning Organisation Survey (by Corrine)

Organisation: City University of Hong Kong

Organisational Background

The organization I am going to study is the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). It was founded as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong in 1984, and then assumed full university status 10 years after. During the past quarter of a century it has grown from relatively humble beginnings to become a high-ranking world university with a talented team of international and local scholars and an energetic campus community.

CityU offers professional education that prepares its students for the challenges and exciting opportunities opening up in Hong Kong, the Asia-Pacific region and throughout the world in business, science and engineering, energy and environment, law, creative media and social sciences. Through its extensive links with relevant industries, CityU provides real-life opportunities for students to work with and learn from professionals in the workplace, from bachelor degrees and postgraduate studies to associate degrees and continuing education.

The University has a steady rise in world rankings in the past few years. It dramatically improves its standing in world university ranking exercises. It is currently ranked 15^th in Asia and 129^th in the world, according to the 2010 University Rankings published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). It is ranked No. 1 in the Greater China region for mathematics and computer science in 2010 and has been No. 1 in Hong Kong in engineering research papers for three consecutive years, according to a survey by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan.

Organisational Structure

City University of Hong Kong, occupying 15.6 hectares, comprises 7 colleges/schools, named as the College of Business, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, College of Science and Engineering, School of Creative Media, School of Energy and Environment, School of Law, and the Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies. There are 20 academic departments and 23 research institute/centres in total. There are altogether 924 full-time academic staff in the University.

(to be continued)

Learning Organization Survey---- Training Center of Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation

By Mia

Background of the Organization

Training Center of Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation is organized and managed by Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation. It is a large-scale education and training base. The Training Center was built by 1978, which undertakes the technical training, project development, technology services, skill evaluation, continuing education and other tasks. It has trained a large number of talents for Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation.

The link of survey result: https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDAC97F004A87C7C 

All these are closely related questions. According to the survey results, some findings are as follows:

The first part is the Learning Organization Scores Summary. Two of three indexes are at the bottom quartile. It is easy to see that the leaders of the organization did not play an important role in the learning process. Lacking truly communication, it can leads to inadequate connection between leaders and employees. In my organization, the leader seldom provided time to listen to the opinions of the employees, and at the right time, able to give advice. It is the result of the employees unwilling to express different opinions. We must heed the correct views and act upon them. At the same time, leadership behaviors affect the learning process and environment.

As a professional training organization, when comes to the concrete learning process and practices, the result is quite otherwise and not nearly so much high as I thought. After reflection of the truth, I think we still need for improvement.

To serve as a high-tech enterprise, we usually provide the new technical support and service to our learners. On the other hand, although we usually try out new teaching method instead of the certain pattern, we do not have a set of intact, effectualexperiment system. Even if employees have some constructive ideas, they do not know how effect the new ways can actually be used in the practice.

Then, the information collection, we require continue to collect information, in accordance with the present level of technical and social development trend. However, because of the specialty of our enterprise, which is organized by the Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation, we do not need to consider about the competitors. This is a hidden danger.

When comes to the analysis, in my department, the colleagues will discuss with the training problem frequency. Although there are various opinions can be issued, leaders will make the final decisions in accordance with his argument.

In the aspect of education and training, and information transfer, training is important, especially newly hired employees, who will accept a serious of training and tests to make sure whether they can accomplish duties and responsibilities. But for the experienced employees, supporting training is not sufficient. Also, my organization will share information during the form of conference and symposium, however, the model is comparative traditional.

Last, the supportive learning environment, which is in a poor condition. Three of them are in the bottom quartile. The openness to the new ideas got the lowest score among all the indexes. Time for reflection is relatively high. There is one thing need to know from the result, we still did not form a good learning environment.

Overall, we need to realize how serious the whole situation is. Hardly any index located to the top quartile. Instead of this, many indexes have been placed to the bottom quartile. I need to collect the data more details and come up with the solution.

Learning organization survey analysis in my trading company.

By Rainbow

The data of this survey is from the trading company where I had my internship.

Background of this trading company

The company is a big company which exports clothes and it has its subsidiaries as well as its own clothes factories. In my perspective, no matter the management or operation in this company is very good, but in terms of the items from the learning organization survey, it deserves an analysis.

As can be seen from the graph, the scores of my company are not so high according to the percent located in the building blocks. The results are located either in bottom quartile or second quartile.

As our company is very practical and it is associated with trade, so it lacks in Experimentation. However, on the whole, there is still much to be improved in that the turnover rate is so high. I am not so sure about the information collection since I only worked for six months. Actually the communication between the headquarter and subsidiaries and factories. Next is the analysis. There is adequate time for the staff to reflect and self-analysis at least in my department. But the degree varies in other departments. Our company pays great attention to education and training. Every new staff will receive training regularly and people who move to new positions will receive corresponding training, but I think the effectiveness of the training can be further improved. As for information transfer, I think there is formal and casual communication between the team managers and the team members. If there is branch point, we can solve it by discussing. However, most of the time the managers are the decisions makers, so I think it would be better if there is some communication channels such as the forum.

Our company values reflection and staff will be evaluated with respect to their work performance and social activities. As I feel there is relatively strong sense of hierarchy in our company, so there is less spark for new ideas. This may be a weak point to be improved. In conclusion, a company should be well-organized, so that every member in this company will feel satisfied and rewarded.

Learning organization survey

By Fay

Organization Name: 

Happy Dictionary Programme, China central Television

Organization Background:

This programme is famous around China. It is featured as a quiz show. Guests can reward with prizes by answering quizzes correctly. There are about 20 staff in the TV team, including producers, hosts, directors, photographers, lighting, interns and so on. Like all entertainment shows team, we are also a very active group.

Survey Results:

Colleague	Leadership that reinforces learning	Learning Process composite	Learning environment composite	Experimentation	Information collection	Analysis
Me	65	85	84	75	93	86
A	63	78	69	86	86	71
B	75	82	69	93	89	74
Average	67	81	74	84	89	77
	Education and training	Information transfer	Psychological safety	Appreciation of differences	Openness to new ideas	Time for reflection
Me	79	93	86	86	100	66
A	76	71	60	61	93	63
B	76	82	71	71	82	54
Average	77	82	72	72	91	61

 

 Analysis

5 items reach top quartile among 12, while 3 of them only get second quartile. There are 4 elements out of 5 top ones belong to the concrete learning process and practices.

Good learning items:

From the table above, the RED item are the ones who jump to the top category. As 4 items are in concrete learning process and practice. It reflects the organization is a open information communication group. And in practice, the TV team does share information quite often due to the following potential reasons. People who are in this field especially entertainment area are full of passion and must have creative minds. Their characters are open and brave. Working with them, I could acquire many information all the time, never feel bored. 

Experimentation:

The organization experiments with new ways of working frequently. When some good ideas come up, after the meeting approve, we will do the pre-test. If something that come raise our audience rating, we will embedded it into the programme. The test is carried out in a professional method. The leaders are encourage and stimulate us to explore new ideas.

Analysis:

When we have meeting , it engages in productive conflict and debate during discussion seeking dissenting viewing.

Information collection and transfer:

In order to have a scientific assessment, the organization not only collect information inside, as well as outside like experts, audience, advertisement customers, etc. The data is public. When we in a low point, the leaders will not just hide it, they let everyone knows in oder to stimulate us.

Learning process composite:

Organizational learning is strongly influenced by leadership. I cannot totally agree this organization is a well-processed learning environment. When I worked as a intern, I did learn lots of professional and practical things gradually.

What should be improved?

Phycological safety

Although we are brave to express our ideas, while everyone in this organization is over stressed. For me, I always express my views, but compare with the other two colleagues, perhaps not everyone in this group like me. Especially some senior staff, they might hide their views due to different reasons.

Systematic training

In this organization, the leader level staff always have chance to go outside and open horizon. While these opportunities are not for everyone. Some staff seldom learn more things according to my observation. The huge imbalance in this organization might create a gap gradually--a knowledge one. The working staff are not ones who receive new things for the first hand, they have to listen to leaders oder. While leaders seldom participant the recording process all the time. The team should create a systematic training plan for all , not just for the few.

Summary

Organizations need to learn more than ever as they confront mounting forces. Although still some shortages exist in the organization in learning environment prospect, it is not a bad one. Strengthen staff is also strengthen the organization.

Reference

David A,Garvin, Amy C   Is your a learning organization?   March 2008  Harvard Business Review

Attachments:

Fay:

https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDA225B0195BD002

Colleague A:

https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDA95CCFF8B99E7D

Colleague B:

https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDA95DBCFBDE8802

Does the company can be called a learning organization?

By Emma

https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDB84CDB72AF2E71

this result of survey is from a product line manager of my father’s engineer company.

 

the background of this engineer company

this company is a motor components maker, which has developed for 16 years. It mainly focuses on the quality of products from the beginning, but neglects management system. It is a traditional manufactory, the decisions are always made by the boss and the boss encourages normalizing operation

Training and learning environment

From the data showed in the survey result, we can notice the learning passion is not quite high in this organization. It can be understood because it is a manufactory industry--almost every process has been ruled, employees repetitively operate everyday, no much need to change. But compared with few years ago, it is better now, because the learning room was built. Managers in different department can give lectures for their fellows and solve usual problems for them. So the learning environment has a little improved.

The company never provided a formal training. if new employees come in, the manager of certain department will offer technical instruction and give help. To the experienced employees, the company encourages them communicating with managers who are working in other organizations(e.g. supplier). But one thing needs to be mentioned, managers in individual department regularly take classes for problem solving and make monthly conclusion to improve producing skill.

Information transferring

Among manager and employees

Information transferring is open, once something happen, product manager can solve problems in time, and avoid grave consequences.

Among boss and manager

The boss is a traditional manager, who are inclined to keep original operation model. Therefore it is hard to let him accept new ideas, even implement different working ways. But he encourages group discussion, and focuses on improving product quality. Information transferring is not quite easy.

Among different managers

The frequency of correlation always happened among managers, they transfer new ideas and creative thinking during workdays. Besides, they help each other solve difficult problems if necessary.

Conclusion

This unit has a low learning environment, the reasons are:

(1)    industry type

most employees do the simple work, like assembling components, not have to master high-tech skill, 3days training is enough to get to work, and from then on, it is not necessary to do a big change or improvement. So further learning is not essential for ordinary workers

(2)    leadership

the boss is not a person who likes innovating and creating, just keeping manufacturing current products and ensuring product quality. However, managers in different section are eager to learn more skills, not just producing skill, but also management approach. Therefore, managers are willing to learn from other department managers in or out of the organization

however, from the survey result, it shows high degree in information analysis. It proves that the unit still has high efficiency in information dealing.