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To keep up with their changing environment, organizations are investing in continuous skills development of their employees and therefore implement personal development plans (PDPs). However, to be effective, PDPs require employees to show self-direction in learning (SDL). Autonomy-supportive supervisors can foster employees’ SDL. Therefore, the purpose of this cross-sectional study is two-fold. First, this study explores the relationship between perceived autonomy support and learning at the workplace. Second, this study investigates the mediating role of SDL when using a PDP.

Based on data from a convenience sample from employees in various industries (n = 193), structural equation modelling was used to investigate the relationships between the different variables.

First, a positive relationship was found between perceived autonomy support and informal learning activities, but not with formal learning activities. Second, results indicated that SDL when using a PDP mediates the relation between perceived autonomy support and both formal and informal learning activities at the workplace. These results suggest that a supervisor who is perceived as autonomy supportive can foster employees’ SDL when using a PDP and, in turn, support learning at the workplace.

Also, these findings indicate that autonomy-supportive supervisors can encourage the undertaking of learning activities by stimulating SDL when using a PDP.

For a PDP to be effective, a degree of SDL is assumed. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate SDL within a PDP setting.

This study aims to examine which variables at the level of the individual employee and at the company level are predictors of self‐directed learning in low‐qualified employees.

Results were obtained from a sample of 408 low‐qualified employees from 35 different companies. The companies were selected from the energy sector, the chemical industry and the food industry. Multilevel analysis was applied to examine which variables are significant predictors of perceived self‐directed learning.

At the company level, the economic sector in which the employee is employed in particular played a striking role in the prediction of self‐directedness, as did presence of a participatory staff policy. At the level of the individual employee, a proactive personality (a disposition to take personal initiative in a broad range of activities and situations), striving for knowledge work, past learning initiative, task variety and the growth potential of the job were significant predictors of self‐directed learning.

Research on the predictors of self‐directed learning has primarily focused on correlational studies examining the relation between individual variables and level of self‐directedness. There is little research available that systematically traces the extent to which individual as well as company factors play a role in level of self‐directed learning. Nor is it clear which category of variables should be considered as the most critical. In addition, earlier research on this subject has mainly focused on a higher‐qualified group of workers (employees with at least a diploma of secondary education). Factors that are predictors of self‐directed learning and their relative weight might differ for certain groups of employees. This issue has hardly been addressed up to now.

A central issue in the field of workplace learning is how work‐related learning can be stimulated so that a powerful learning work environment is created. This paper seeks to further enlarge understanding on this issue. Based on the demand‐control‐support the aim is to investigate the influence of job‐characteristics on the work‐related learning behaviour of the worker such as job demands, job control, social support at work on the one hand and self‐directed learning orientation on the other.

The study took place in the ICT‐department of a large company in Flanders. By means of an online questionnaire, all employees of the ICT‐department were asked to complete this questionnaire, which, apart from general information on the participants (age, gender, prior education, etc.), consisted of statements on five scales (job demands, job control, social support, self‐directed learning orientation, and work‐related learning behaviour) adapted from validated instruments. There was a total of 73 participants (response rate of 52 per cent, 73 per cent men, 27 per cent women, age varying from 20‐51 years old). In addition, all scales had Cronbach's alpha values above 0.79. Relations between the variables under study were tested using the Pearson correlation. The predictive value of the variables for the variance in work‐related learning was tested using the enter method of a multiple regression analysis.

The regression analyses show that job demands and job control were moderately positive and significantly linked with work‐related learning behaviour. Social support did not show a significant positive correlation with work‐related learning at all. Self‐directed learning orientation on the contrary had a strong and positive relation with work‐related learning. The results of the linear regression analyses indicated that only the self‐directed learning orientation scale significantly predicted the work‐related learning behaviour.

The study is one of the few investigations that takes into account both the role of personal and workplace‐related variables in order to better understand work‐related learning. The results stress that personal related variables such as self‐regulated learning orientation need to be taken into account in further research and in the daily practice of human resources development.

Theoretical explanations for the diverse reactive feedback from secretarial employees in different career phases are relatively unexplored. However, research examining age differences in the impact of feedback suggests that the effects of performance feedback may differ for employees in the early career phase and employees in the late career phase. This paper aims to address this issue.

This contribution reports an experimental study on feedback perceptions and attribution by 173 secretarial employees of 12 Dutch organizations. Each participant responded to one of eight scenarios, which varied in terms of feedback content, sender status, and sender performance appraisal. Feedback perceptions were measured in terms of perceived fairness, acceptance, usefulness, willingness to improve and affect. An additional scale measured attribution.

The results reveal that elaborated specific feedback is perceived as more adequate, irrespective of feedback sender status and appraisal. Complex three-way interaction effects were found for educational level on affect and attribution, and for career phase on willingness to improve and affect. Low-educated employees reacted more strongly to supervisor feedback. Employees in the late career phase were more oriented towards the content of the feedback than feedback sender status, whereas the latter was of more concern for employees in the early and middle career phase.

In order for feedback to be considered as adequate, it is necessary to formulate the feedback as specific and as elaborated as possible. Employees in their late career phase especially react differently in comparison to employees in early and middle career phases. They are more inclined “to opt for quality” and appreciate elaborated feedback from a high experienced sender. Human resource managers should be aware of this in their policy towards employees in their late career phase

The present study shows that feedback content and sender characteristics (status and performance appraisal) differentially affect feedback perceptions and attribution. In addition, the study reveals that perceptions and attributions of performance feedback might be mediated by educational level and career phase.