From training to learning: Transition of a workplace for industry 4.0

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Transition into Industry 4.0 has had many significant impacts. Customization symbolizes leanness, flexibility, adaptability, and agility. A business operator needs to recognize the factors that contribute to better utilization of the talents of its workforce and more effective workplace learning. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to provide a construct which highlights effective workplace learning. In this context, a construct represents a broad view of various interrelated ideas and concepts which can point to academic and practical implications. METHODS: The study applies action research which is suitable when observing a transformative change. The study intends to observe and notice how the environmental factors have changed and try to predict their impacts on human capital development. To help verify the suitability of these impacts, a comparison with similar studies or findings is made. Focuses on literature reviews which look at the impacts from Industry 4.0 (on a need to tackle the waste of the talents in a workplace), recent developments of learning (on an emerging importance of informal learning), and survey’s data (on a shift in a workplace’s expectation on the workers). RESULTS: Workplace learning has gradually replaced training and education. The proposed construct can help tackle the underutilization of the talents in a workplace as the workers are nowadays expected to perform the tasks and learn at the same time. CONCLUSIONS: Sustaining learning in a workplace needs to understand behavior, motivation, emotion, and workplace engagement. Informal learning, which reflects the individualization of learning, can enable an organization to deal with workplace learning.