CAIIB Human Resources Management Module C Unit 1 : The Learning Process

26/04/2024

CAIIB Human Resources Management Module C Unit 1 : The Learning Process (New Syllabus)

IIBF has released the New Syllabus Exam Pattern for CAIIB Exam 2024. Following the format of the current exam, CAIIB 2024 will have now four papers. The CAIIB Rural Banking includes an important topic called “ The Learning Process ”. Every candidate who are appearing for the CAIIB Certification Examination 2024 must understand each unit included in the syllabus.

In this article, we are going to cover all the necessary details of CAIIB Human Resources Management Module C Unit 1 : The Learning Process, Aspirants must go through this article to better understand the topic, The Learning Process and practice using our Online Mock Test Series to strengthen their knowledge of The Learning Process. Unit 1 : The Learning Process

Human Implications Of Organisations

All elements of the business strategy have implications for human resources. An important part of HRM is the Human Resources Plan. The purpose of this plan is to analyse the strategic requirements of the business in terms of manpower – and then to find a way of meeting the required demand for labour.

Creating Competitive Advantage

‘Competitive advantage’ is what makes the organisation to feel better than the competition in its customers’ view. The three determinants that conceptualize ‘Competitive Advantage’ are the following:

Benefit: Whether it’s goods or services, organisation must be clear on the benefit its product provides. It must be something that its customers truly need and that offers real value. Organisation must know not only its productʼs features, but also its advantages how they benefit from its customers.
Target market: Organisations should know as to who are its customers? It has to know exactly who buys from the organisation, and how it can make their life better.
Competition: That’s more than just similar companies or products. It includes anything else a customer could do to meet the need organisation can fulfill.

To be successful, organisations need to be able to articulate the benefit they provide to its target market that’s better than the competition.

Sustainable Competitive Advantage:

Just because a company is the market leader now, doesn’t mean it will be forever. A company must create clear goals, strategies and operations to sustain its competitive advantage.
The corporate culture and values of the employees must be in alignment with those goals as well. It’s difficult to do all those things well. That’s why few companies can create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Common Implementation Challenges

Most organisations do a relatively good job of figuring out what must be done to solve their problems or exploit their opportunities. The difficulty is that the vast majority is not able to implement these solutions very well as they unwittingly apply their resources toward identifying new solutions rather than realising existing potential.
Such new solutions (merger, reorganisation, updated processes, etc.) are announced and introduced to the organisation with a typical sequence of events to include announcing the project, providing new equipment or software, training, or a host of other related activities.

Moments of Truth

A ‘Moment of Truth’ is defined as an instance wherein the customer and the organisation come into contact with one another in a manner that gives the customer an opportunity to either form or change an impression about the firm.

Such an interaction could occur through the product of the firm, its service offering or both. Various instances could constitute a moment of truth – such as greeting the customer, handling customer queries or complaints, quickly and effectively, promoting special offers or giving discounts and the closing of the interaction. there are four possible outcomes: early termination, meltdown, installation, or realization.

Early Termination: Occasionally, approval is secured for a new initiative, but the project never really gets off the ground. Agreements are reached about what is to be done and budgets are set, but before any official announcements can take place, everything is discontinued. This is sometimes the result of an obvious financial or political crisis.
Meltdown: Sometimes a project is announced and engaged, but at some point during implementation, it is discontinued with a complete withdrawal of resources and activity. Meltdowns are visible failures for all to see, and the economic and political price they incur are so costly they are generally avoided if at all possible.
Installation: When change projects are first introduced into a work setting, they are deployed but have not yet achieved their ultimate intent. Installation is about placement; managing the tangible aspects of inserting a new initiative into the work environment (logistics, plugging in hardware and software, training schedules, work sessions).
Realisation: Realisation takes place when the key purpose for an initiative is actually achieved.

The impact of all these four stages on the human resource is substantial. Frustration and even abrupt withdrawal by way of resignations happen when projects are killed or terminated early for no apparent reason. When projects get delayed or discontinued due to a meltdown, a number of the staff involved could also be directly affected; by retrenchment or if they continue with the project, continued frustration at the slow progress.

Human Landscapes

Work environment is composed of two types of building blocks; those that are “inert” (dealing with such things as structures, policies, technology, strategies, capital, and tools) and those that are “human” (dealing with such things as perceptions, assumptions, resistance, fears, aspirations, beliefs, and values).
It is the human component of a landscape that provides all the links, bonds, and affiliations that exist within work settings. People are the bridging agents between themselves and all inert features of a work environment; therefore, it is the human landscape that is most crucial to the success or failure of efforts to change the way an organisation functions.

Assessing Change Forces: Lewin’s Force Field Analysis

Before executing the plan for change, it is essential for the leadership to assess forces which affect change. The planned change is not automatic, rather there are many forces in individuals, groups or even organisation which may either accept the change or resist it, though in most of the cases, there may be resistance.

Therefore, unless the major forces resisting change agree to change, it may not be possible for the management to implement the change successfully. Various forces affecting the change work on the principle of ‘force field’, a concept given by Kurt Lewin. In a group process, there are some forces favouring to maintain an equilibrium while some may oppose the equilibrium at a particular point. Equilibrium is reached when the sum of the driving forces equals the sum of restraining forces.

Lewin’s Force Field Analysis

There may be three types of situations when both driving and restraining forces are operating. Management can take one of the following actions:

If the driving forces far outweighs the restraining forces, then the management can push driving forces and overpower restraining forces and change can be implemented.
If the driving forces and restraining forces are equal, then management can push up the driving forces and at the same time, can convert or immobilise the restraining forces to implement the change.
If the restraining forces are stronger than the driving forces, then the management can drop the change programme if it is not possible to change these forces.

The Learning Theory

Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviours, skills, values, preferences and understanding and may involve synthesizing different types of information, leads to change in behaviour.

Learning theory may be described as a body of principles advocated by psychologists and educators to explain how people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes. The three important elements of learning are:

Learning involves behavioural change
Changes resulting from growth and maturity are not considered as learning
Behavioural change should last for a long time.

Learning is a process of acquisition of knowledge, tastes and attitudes.

Associative learning is the process by which an element is learned through association with a separate, pre-occurring element. The learning process most characteristic of humans is imitation; one’s personal repetition of an observed behaviour, such as a dance. Humans can copy three types of information simultaneously: the demonstrator’s goals, actions and environmental outcomes.
Enculturation is the process by which a person learns the requirements of their native culture by which he or she is surrounded, and acquires values and behaviours that are appropriate or necessary in that culture.
Acculturation is the social and psychological process where one person learns the values and beliefs of another culture, primarily dominant one in their surroundings.
Associative learning is the process by which an element is learned through association with a separate, pre-occurring element. The learning process most characteristic of humans is imitation; one’s personal repetition of an observed behaviour, such as a dance. Humans can copy three types of information simultaneously: the demonstrator’s goals, actions and environmental outcomes.
Enculturation is the process by which a person learns the requirements of their native culture by which he or she is surrounded, and acquires values and behaviours that are appropriate or necessary in that culture.
Acculturation is the social and psychological process where one person learns the values and beliefs of another culture, primarily dominant one in their surroundings.

E-learning and Augmented Learning

Electronic learning or e-learning is a general term used to refer to internet-based networked computer enhanced learning. A specific and always more diffused e-learning is mobile-learning (m-Learning), it uses different mobile telecommunication equipments, such as cell phones.
When a learner interacts with the e-learning environment, it is called augmented learning. By adapting to the needs of individuals, the context-driven instruction can be dynamically tailored to the learner’s natural environment. Augmented digital content may include text, images, video, audio (music and voice).
Informal learning occurs through the experience of day-to-day situations It is learning from life, during a meal at table with parents, exploring or purely by association. Formal learning is learning that takes place within a teacher-student relationship, such as in a school system.

Types of Learning:

Motor Learning
Verbal Learning
Concept Learning
Attitude learning
Learning of principles

Domains of Learning

The three domains of learning are:

Cognitive – The cognitive domain involves the development of our mental skills and the acquisition of knowledge. Examples: To recall, calculate, discuss, analyse, solving problems, etc.
Psychomotor – The psychomotor domain is comprised of utilizing motor skills and coordinating them. Examples: To dance, swim, ski, dive, drive a car, ride a bike, etc.
Affective – The affective domain involves our feelings, emotions and attitudes. Examples: To like something or someone, love, appreciate, fear, hate, worship, etc.

Note: These domains are not mutually exclusive.

Learning Process

Learning theory may be described as a body of principles advocated by psychologists and educators to explain how people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes. learning may be explained by a combination of two basic approaches: Behaviourism and The cognitive theories.

Behaviourism: Behaviourists believe that animals, including humans, learn in about the same way. Behaviourism stresses the importance of having a particular form of behaviour reinforced by someone, to shape or control what is learned. Frequent, positive reinforcement and rewards accelerate learning. In general, the behaviourist theory emphasises positive reinforcement rather than – negative reinforcement or punishment.
Cognitive Theory: Cognitive theory focuses on what is going on inside the student’s mind. Learning is not just a change in behaviour; it is a change in the way a student thinks, understands, or feels.

There are several branches of cognitive theory. Two of the major theories may broadly be classified as the information processing model and the social interaction model.

The Information Processing Model says that the student’s brain has internal structures which select and process incoming material, store and retrieve it, use it to produce behaviour, and receive and process feedback on the results.
The social interaction theories gained prominence in the 1980s. They stress that learning and subsequent changes in behaviour take place as a result of interaction between the student and the environment. Cultural influences, peer pressure, group dynamics, and film and television are some of the significant factors. Thus, the social environment to which the student is exposed demonstrates or models behaviours, and the student cognitively processes the observed behaviours and consequences.

Training vs Learning

‘Training’ is an organisational procedure to enhance knowledge, skills for doing a particular job. It is mostly initiated by the organisations to enable their employees to improve their skills to perform their jobs. Whereas,
‘Learning’ is a process which is inbuilt in training. It is a human process by which skills, knowledge and habits/attitudes are acquired and utilized to modify the behaviours.

Characteristics of Learning

Yoakman and Simpson have described the following nine important characteristics of learning.

Learning is growth: This growth implies both physical as well as mental development of the learner. The individual gains experiences through various activities. These are all sources of learning. The individual grows through living and learning.
Learning is adjustment: Learning enables the individual to adjust himself properly, with the new situations. The individual faces new problems and new situations throughout his life and learning helps him to solve the problems encountered by him.
Learning is purposeful: All kinds of learning are goal-oriented. The individual acts with some purpose. They get interest when they are aware of their objectives to be realized through these activities.

Learning is experience: The individual learns through experiences. All these experiences provide new knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes. Learning is not mere acquisition of the knowledge, skills and attitudes. It is also the reorganisation of experiences or the synthesis of the old experiences with the new.
Learning is intelligent: Mere cramming without proper understanding does not make learning. Any work done mechanically cannot yield satisfactory learning outcomes. Learning therefore must be intelligent.
Learning is active: Learning is given more importance than teaching. It implies self-activity of the learner. Without adequate motivation he cannot work whole-heartedly and motivation is therefore at the root of self-activity. Learning by doing is thus an important principle of education, and the basis of all progressive methods of education like the Project, the Dalton, the Montessori and Basic system.
Learning is both individual and social: Although learning is an individual activity, it is social also. Individual is influenced by his peers, friends, relatives’ parents and classmates and learns their ideas, feelings and attitudes in some way or others. The social agencies like family, church, markets, and clubs exert immense influence on the individual minds.
Learning is the product of the environment: The individual lives in interaction of the society. Particularly, environment plays an important part in the growth and development of the individual. The physical, social, intellectual and emotional development of the child is molded and remolded by the objects and individuals in his environment.
Learning affects the conduct of the learner: Learning is called the modification of behaviour. It affects the learner’s behaviour and conduct. Every learning experience brings about changes in the mental structure of the learner. Therefore, attempts are made to provide such learning experiences which can mould the desired conduct and habits in the learners.

Adult Learning

In adult learning theory, it is presumed that adults have specific learning requirements. The adult learning theory also suggests that the best learning environments are the ones that are collaborative and utilize a problem-based approach.

Main Characteristics of Adult Learning

Adult learning is self-directed/autonomous: Adult learners are actively involved in the learning process such that they make choices relevant to their learning objectives. As such, adult learners also direct their learning goals with the guidance of their mentors.
Adult learning utilizes knowledge & life experiences: Under this approach educators encourage learners to connect their past experiences with their current knowledge-base and activities. Learners are taught ways to bring to their current placement past knowledge, opinions, and experiences.
Adult learning is goal-oriented: The need to acquire relevant and adequate knowledge is of high importance. With this in mind, adult learning is characterized as goal-oriented and intended learning outcomes should be clearly identified. Once the learning goals have been identified, it is now imminent to align the learning activities such that these objectives are fulfilled within a certain period of time.
Adult learning is relevancy-oriented: One of the best ways for adults to learn is by relating the assigned tasks to their own learning goals. If it is clear that the activities they are engaged into, directly contribute to achieving their personal learning objectives, then they will be inspired and motivated to engage in projects and successfully complete them.
Adult learning highlights practicality: It is very important for educators to identify appropriate ways and convert theoretical learning to practical activities.
Adult learning encourages collaboration: When learners are considered by their instructors as colleagues, they become more productive.

Principles of Learning

Readiness: Individuals learn best when they are ready to learn, and they do not learn well if they see no reason for learning. Getting students ready to learn is usually the instructor’s responsibility. If students have a strong purpose, a clear objective, and a definite reason for learning something, they make more progress than if they lack motivation.
Exercise: The principle of exercise states that those things most often repeated are best remembered. The mind can rarely retain, evaluate, and apply new concepts or practices after a single exposure. Every time practice occurs, learning continues. The instructor must provide opportunities for students to practice and, at the same time, make sure that this process is directed toward a goal.
Intensity: A vivid, dramatic, or exciting learning experience teaches more than a routine or boring experience. The principle of intensity implies that a student will learn more from the real thing than from a substitute. The classroom imposes limitations on the amount of realism that can be brought into teaching. But today, instructors can benefit from a wide variety of instructional aides to improve realism, motivate learning, and challenge students.
Recency: The principle of recency states that things most recently learned are best remembered. Instructors recognise the principle of recency when they carefully plan a summary session after each major topic gets covered. The instructor repeats, restates, or re-emphasises important points at the end of a lesson to help the student remember them. The principle of recency often determines the sequence of lectures within a course of instruction.

The Learning Process

Learning Styles can be divided into three broad categories: auditory, visual and kinesthetic.

Characteristics of each are:

Auditory- “I hear”: Learn best through hearing, using their ears and voices. These learners remember what they hear and remember by talking aloud, like to talk through a concept, enjoy class discussions.
Visual -“I see”: Learn best through seeing. These learners remember seeing things written down, enjoy pictures of what is described, like written assignment instructions, observe the physical elements of the teaching situation.
Kinesthetic: “I do”: Learn best through doing, touching. These learners enjoy acting out a situation, making a product or completing a project, remember and understand through doing something.

Note: Initially, all learning comes from perceptions which are directed to the brain by one or more of the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Psychologists have also found that learning occurs most rapidly when information is received through more than one sense.

Perception

‘Perception’ is the process of selecting, organising and interpreting information in order to make sense of the world around us. It is the dynamic and complex way in which individuals select information (stimuli) from the environment, interpret and translate it so that a meaning is assigned which will result in a pattern of behaviour or thought.

Perception Process

Receiving Stimuli – Picking up all external and internal factors.
Selecting Stimuli –This is where the introduction of new employees is important, they need to be presented in a way where the selected stimuli are positive.
Organising – Grouping and selecting which are the perceptions to keep.
Interpreting – Fundamental Attribution Error, stereotyping, Halo Effect and projection.
Response – The perception is then turned into attitudes, motivation, feelings and beliefs, which will change the behaviours of the individuals.

Johari Window

It is a popular model in perception, for understanding how co-workers can increase their mutual understanding. This model was developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram.

This model is based on two ideas- trust can be acquired by revealing information about you to others and learning yourselves from their feedbacks. Each person is represented by the Johari model through four quadrants or window pane. Each four window panes signifies personal information, feelings, motivation and whether that information is known or unknown to oneself or others in four viewpoints.

Open area – It includes information which are known to the individual and their colleagues.
Blind area – It includes information known to others but not known to individual.
Hidden area- It includes information which is known to self but hidden form others.
Unknown area- It includes information which in unknown to both individual and others.

Self-Concept

Self-concept is a powerful determinant in learning. A student’s self-image, described in such terms as confident and insecure, has a great influence on the total perceptual process.
Self-concept is the ability to reflect on one’s own traits, skills and behaviour. Traits, competencies and values are the three factors that are part of the self-concept theory.
Traits are specific patterns of behaviour that exist within an individual. These traits lead to the idea that other people will view an individual based on these repetitive trait behaviours.
The second factor of self-concept is This is where an individual grows to understand what skills, abilities and knowledge they have in an organisational environment. Once these skills are identified, the individual will create a self-concept about where they excel at work.
The last part of self-concept deals with an individual’s values, which are concepts and beliefs about their behaviour. An individual’s values can be determined by their actions and verbal expressions. For example, the child spends enormous amounts of overtime at work, and he/she views himself/herself as a hard worker.
Negative self-concept inhibits the perceptual processes by introducing psychological barriers which tend to keep the student from perceiving. They may also inhibit the ability to properly implement that which is perceived. That is, self-concept affects the ability to actually perform or do things unfavorable. Students who view themselves positively, on the other hand, are less defensive and more receptive to new experiences, instructions, and demonstrations.

Memory

‘Memory’, remembrance’, ‘recollection’, ‘reminiscence’ – mean the capacity for or the act of remembering, or the thing remembered.
Memory applies both to the power of remembering and to what is remembered. Remembrance applies to the act of remembering or the fact of being remembered. Recollection adds an implication of consciously bringing back to mind often with some effort. Reminiscence suggests the recalling of usually pleasant incidents, experiences, or feelings from a remote past.
Memory is an integral part of the learning process. Although there are several theories on how the memory works, a widely accepted view is the multi-stage concept which states that memory includes three parts: sensory, working or short-term, and long-term systems.
The ‘sensory’ register receives inputs from the environment and quickly processes it according to the individual’s preconceived concept of what is important. The sensory register processes inputs or stimuli from the environment within seconds, discards what is considered extraneous, and processes what is determined by the individual to be relevant. This is a selective process where the sensory register is set to recognise certain stimuli and immediately transmit them to the working memory for action.
Long-term memory is where information is stored for future use. For the stored information to be useful, some special effort must have been expended during the coding process in working or short-term memory. It also is subject to limitations, such as time, biases, and, in many cases, personal inaccuracies. This is why two people who view the same event will often have totally different recollections.

Transfer of Learning

‘Transfer of learning’ is the application of skills and knowledge learned in one context being applied in another context. Successful transfer of learning requires that training content be relevant to the task, that the learner must learn the training content, and that the learner must be motivated.

The following suggestions are representative of what educational psychologists believe should be done:

Plan for transfer as a primary objective. As in all areas of teaching, the chance for success is increased if the teacher deliberately plans to achieve it.
Make certain that the students understand that what is learned can be applied to other situations. Prepare them to seek other applications
Maintain high-order learning standards: The more thoroughly the students understand the material, the more likely they are to see its relationship to new situations. Avoid unnecessary rote learning, since it does not foster transfer.
Provide meaningful learning experiences that build students’ confidence in their ability to transfer learning. This suggests activities that challenge them to exercise their imagination and ingenuity in applying their knowledge and skills.
Use instructional material that helps form valid concepts and generalizations. Use materials that make relationships clear.
Use modern teaching aids, such as multimedia, e-learning and more of animation and visuals to help retain more.

Employee Behaviour

There are some steps that an organisation can take to facilitate behavioural changes with their employees to reinforce positive behaviours while reducing those that are negative.

Be a coach: Coaching is an ongoing and collaborative process that works at developing employees over time. It involves providing consistent feedback, which is communication intended to adjust behaviours. Employees will feel encouraged and supported by their company and manager.
Tackle One Issue at a Time: Identify the main behaviour that you’d like altered, and work on that specifically. Behavioural change theories cite a variety of stages associated with a change, so it is important that your employees have ample time to go through each to make sure that any change becomes a permanent one.

Reinforce Positive Behaviours: When you reward employees, you reinforce positive behaviours. When you notice a behaviour in your workplace that you want to see more, be sure to acknowledge, recognize, and possibly reward it. Likewise, when an undesirable behaviour pops up, be sure to provide constructive and direct feedback right away so that your employee understands that it is wrong.
Inspire Your Employees: One of the best ways to achieve behavioural changes amongst your employees is to inspire them. Inspiring an employee is essentially tapping into their passions and motivations at a deeper level, and this can be done by using inspirational language and sharing stories. Bringing in popular motivational speakers can be a great way to accomplish this task, these sessions can help to build self-esteem and confidence, leading to greater employee productivity.
Create Collective Goals: Sometimes changing employee behaviour is best done when working with your entire team rather than an individual. You should be sure to set clear goals for your entire workforce that will guide all of your employees to act out positive behaviours.

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CAIIB HRM Module C Unit 1 The Learning Process(Ambitious_Baba)