Findcourses.co.uk spoke to Tricia Hartley to find out her views on Learning & Development and the role of employers, as well as the Government, in promoting lifelong learning.
Tricia spent 16 years working in the Further Education sector and is now the Chief Executive of the Campaign for Learning, a UK not-for-profit organisation that promotes social inclusion through learning. Tricia is responsible for co-ordinating Learning at Work Week each May in England and Scotland.
How important do you think learning in the workplace is?
Workplace learning is crucial because it is a leveller – everybody knows that whatever their background, whatever their role, they all need to learn in the workplace as workplaces are constantly changing and growing so everybody has to keep up. As change happens faster and faster and faster, it’s going to be more and more important that companies keep their people up to date with new systems and processes so that nobody gets left behind.
Workplaces that have learning cultures make people feel like learning is something positive – it’s not only for those who are not very good at something, or who need to improve in this or that, or only for staff at a certain level – but that it is something that everybody does, and everybody benefits from.
Everybody needs to be learning whilst they are at work, and one of the things we have found while running Learning at Work Week (LAWW) is that the mixing of people all learning things in their workplace at the same time really helps everyone benefit.
Being encouraged to learn in the workplace has huge impacts for certain individuals, for example if you are somebody who hasn’t previously had great learning opportunities you will see that it’s not only an ok thing to do, but you will see how it’s relevant to you, in the way that learning at school might not have been for you. And you will also see the relevance it has for your company, and you will see that your company wants to support you and help you develop. Thus for workplaces, taking part in LAWW can be really useful. It’s a win-win, positive for the individual and positive for the organisation.
What changes would you like to see happen in workplaces to encourage learning?
Simple things, like line managers being better equipped to support their teams’ development, and people thinking about their appraisals and performance management with learning and development in mind. Companies should move away from thinking that just sending an employee on a course is developing them, and focus on thinking through what that individual actually needs in order to develop.
Traditionally, a lot of the time companies have sent employees on courses simply because they had purchased so many places on a course, regardless of whether that course is truly relevant for each individual and their job or not. This is rather demotivating for individuals and they often come out not having learnt much at all. Learning and development needs to move much more to a tailored, personal approach with the needs of the individual at the heart of it. Line managers need to be aware of skills that their staff have or don’t have, and of the skills they are going to need in the future, making sure they have access to information, and also to support and coach employees’ use of skills in their role.
Learning and development needs to be a continuous two-way conversation between the manager and the employee. Rather than just looking at training at the 6 month appraisal where the focus is on what has and hasn’t been achieved, managers need to link learning and development into their coaching of staff throughout the year, helping individuals to understand where they are going, where the company is going, how the company can help the individual get there and in turn how they can help the company meet their goals. The role that training has in development needs to be adapted for each individual – whether it’s going on a course, learning something online or more along the lines of mentoring or connecting with another member of staff who can help them move along in the right direction.
Whose responsibility is it to ensure that employees get learning and development?
Companies have the responsibility to help develop their staff. There is a huge vexed issue around the role of Government and the role of public funding which is getting increasingly complicated - for example, in the case of employer contributions to the costs of apprenticeships at present. Companies need to move away from assuming that everything will be paid for: they have got to be willing to invest money and time in their own people in order to take their business forward, and the Government needs to help them see the link between this investment and the profitability and flexibility of their business.
We also need to look at how public funding is best targeted, and how we can support SMEs and start-ups and make sure they build Learning and Development into their company structures, as well as how can we support the non-profit sectors. While there are justifications for public money being invested in certain sectors, it’s not very coherent at the moment.
For example, the Government’s Train to Gain initiative was something that CfL helped to publicise, together with the TUC and other partners, as it offered good opportunities for lower skilled workers to improve their skills and qualifications, free of charge to themselves or their employers.
But this funding was not well targeted: I remember talking to the Head of Learning and Development at a large multinational, who said he felt it was scandalous that the government was giving them, a company with huge turnover, money to train their own people. However, on the other hand, small organisations and not-for-profits may need targeted funding that is specific to their needs to grow as a business.
The Government is working hard to take on the views of employers, but it is much more difficult for them to hear, understand and act on the views of the smaller companies who make up the bulk of employers. Government shouldn’t pay for everything, but there is an argument that in particular they should provide ‘top-up’ opportunities in small companies for those workers who have been failed by the school system. Additionally the Government could examine some of its approaches more closely to gain best value. For example, the Corporation Tax Relief that companies receive when they have spent money on training should be monitored and the benefits of this training and how it is distributed across employees should be monitored.
Historically many companies have not developed staff in the lower levels of their organisation, on whose skills they depend for much of their success, and changes to the Corporation Tax system could be a simple way that Government could influence this. Government funding for businesses to develop is not very well thought through at the moment.
In order for positive change in learning and development to happen, companies could benefit from adapting their approach through collaboration. Connecting departments internally is a big part of this. For example, bringing the internal comms function into contact with the L&D team would help develop motivation and employee engagement.
Also, working more closely with other companies in the same industry will further help companies. Our ‘Learning Connections’ theme for Learning at Work Week this year encouraged collaboration between companies and partners in their supply chains. This approach has huge potential in the future as training budgets are squeezed, and has the additional benefit of helping companies who work together to get to know each other better and develop in shared ways.
How is the UK doing compared with other European Countries in terms of further lifelong learning?
The information on this issue is patchy: some statistics suggest that the UK is not doing well on international comparators, but not all commentators support this view. A big worry is that when looking at the statistics of who participates in learning in the UK, there is an increasing divide between the have and have-nots. There are increasingly more examples of people who have been fortunate and have been to university and who now benefit most from workplace learning. The opportunities for those that have not previously had great educational experiences are much lower, and these need to be better publicised in companies.
Initial engagement activities to ‘hook’ people into learning have in the past been successful in helping people who think they aren’t good at learning to see the benefits and actually start learning new skills when at work. These used to be funded by Government but no longer attract funding, making it harder for some organisations, particularly smaller ones, to get involved in this type of initiative, which may limit opportunities for nervous and lower skilled learners to build up confidence to get involved.
Since I have worked in this field there have been plans to create a Unique Learner Identifier that would track people’s progress in learning throughout their lives. This would allow us to track the education that a person takes part in, and the effect it has on their life and career. Progression in learning and work is not always linear for adults: people move areas, change careers, have another baby, and this means their trajectories may jump about a bit. A Unique Learner Identifier would allow us to track their progress through the ups and downs of life, and help provide evidence that learning and development does have a positive impact on individuals and society.
In the UK there is no formal policy that employees must receive training in their role, compared for example to what exists in Sweden whereby each employee is entitled to 6 days of training per year. Professions usually require CPD training, such as accounting, legal, financial services etc., and many require training in order to obtain a licence to practice, but this tends to be the individual’s responsibility rather than their employer’s. There are so many people who never get the opportunity to take part in training, which is one of the biggest reasons why LAWW is so important, as sometimes an employee who has previously not had any training suddenly has an opportunity to participate, and realises how important learning can be to their individual goals and motivations - and that it can be fun and satisfying to take part in too!