In the workplace learning and development of work identity can be assumed in at least three ways. First, the processes are managed by the organizational context, which promotes a particular model of workers as skilled, flexible, and adaptable to developments within the organization. In order to achieve its objectives, the organization “manages” the subjectivity of individual employees by implementing learning practices (e.g., training programs, mentorship, communities of practice). Second, learning processes in the workplace concern the ways in which individuals and groups negotiate social and professional recognition, as related to their ability to renew their knowledge, competences, and skills independently, in order to fit within the demands of the organization (Wittorski, 2011). Individuals may use any of a variety of learning spaces in this process. In this respect, the workplace is driven by the production of goods and services, but not necessarily by learning (Evans, Guile, & Harris, 2011). Between these two contrary extremes lies a third (and more realistic) possibility (Elkjear, 2004), in which organizational and professional developments (both occupational and personal) are produced through the pragmatic learning processes in work and continuing identity construction and transformation carried out by employees and managers (Van Dellen & Slagter, 2009). The subjectivity of the individual plays a role in each of these manifestations of workplace learning. Nevertheless it seems that there are culturally preferences to use one of the configurations in particular. But this may be wrong for reasons of conscious thinking about work and individual selves. In this paper the focus is on conscious thinking modes individually as well as collectively to bridge the gap between work and learning. This focus is based on the work of neuroscientist Damasio and the work of Baumeister and Masicampo (2010); they all challenge the understanding of the role of non-conscious and conscious processes in real everyday life. Consciousness ´only´ enables people to engage with their social and cultural environments, as well as with the underlying non-conscious processes (Baumeister & Masicampo, 2010). The question in this contribution to the symposium is: what kind of conscious thought does facilitate the work places as learning spaces in the perspective of the three manners of approaching working and learning in organizations?

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