Relevance of Workplace Learning in Enterprise Transformation: The Prospects for Singapore

Abstract

In Singapore, as in many other countries, there is a growing focus on working age adults’ learning across their working lives to remain employable and contribute to the viability and continuity of the public and private sector enterprises in which they work. This focus extends to these workers’ ability to be innovative. Those innovative capacities are being increasingly requested by employers and governments alike to respond to ongoing and emerging social and economic challenges. This paper proposes responses to these two key government goals: (i) enhancing skills upgrading, and (ii) enterprises becoming more innovative in response to global economic challenges. First, it proposes approaches to Singaporean workplaces becoming “learning practices” to maintain and upgrade workforce skills, largely through their engagement in everyday work activities and interactions. The case made here draws on Australian studies of learning in and through work and its augmentation. Second, it proposes engaging workers more in initiating, enacting, and monitoring innovations at work to be both generative of their learning and bringing about change in their workplaces. This case is made by drawing upon the findings of investigations of innovations and learning in Singaporean small to medium sized enterprises.