The Enterprise RTO

Ross Woods Rev. Nov. 07, Sep. 16

An Enterprise RTO is an RTO training system that is integrated into the normal operational procedures and work schedules of an organization as seamlessly as possible. Let's tell a story.

Brad applies for a job at ABC Corp. The job ad has certain criteria that he must address as part of his application. It also states that ABC Corp. has a staff development policy and that he will need to continually upgrade his skills. He will get a recognized qualification as he does so.

He does the interview and gets the job. As part of the acceptance, he is admitted to a higher qualification than the one he has now.

He does an induction program and is assigned a supervisor. He is also given a set of policies and handbooks that he must read, and sent to one session a fortnight for other people in the same program. He also has a choice of electives which he may choose in consultation with the HRD manager. He is also give a set of performance objectives for the coming year.

At work, he is given a new project. It's a major challenge and he sometimes needs help. But, three months later, he is successful. The next step is part of another project, this time bigger, and this one will take most of the rest of the year. It involves researching, planning, testing and commissioning a new kind of product. His part of the project is recorded in a series of formal reports.  Team meetings are essential to discussing and resolving problems.

At the end of the year, his project is assessed against the performance criteria, and he graduates with a qualification. The boss invites him in and discusses next year. Would you like another challenge?

To some extent, most well-run organizations already do these things. The point, however, is that your organization could do it more effectively by being intentional.

 

Skills analysis

At this stage, we're simply looking at what people need to learn to do their jobs better. This stage is really a series of planning questions:

  1. What is the company trying to do as its core business in its current business plan? What skills do different kinds of staff need? Do they already have these skills, or is there still a training need? Exactly who is working without adequate skills?
  2. How do the training needs relate to what people actually do? Who feels the need of training? Why does the organization want training: promotion, effectiveness, career pathways, job retention, other? Are there some positions in which the possibility of higher skills would create enthusiasm?
  3. Who is working at routines that don’t require skills enhancement? Are there some positions in which the possibility of higher skills would create unrealistic aspirations for advancement? (Why train to be the supervisor if there are no supervisor jobs coming up?)
  4. What are the current trends and how should we work toward what we can forecast? Labor markets change with time, and so do skills.
  5. What are the current career pathways and pay increments?
  6. Should we map employees breadth of experience? Do people specialize in narrow jobs, or do they get a variety of experiences?
  7. What qualifications do people need?

 

Organizational dynamics

Get a feel for the organization. Is it dynamic and successful? Is it struggling? Is it doing better or worse than the impression it gives to the public? Are people open to change?

First, who are the stakeholders? They always include employees and management, and can include board members, unions, client groups, and shareholders.

You need to have decision-makers on board, and have some kind of continuing access to them. You should try to get the agreement of the Board and the CEO, and the program should be locked in through written contract, not just a memorandum of understanding. Ask Why do they want training? Their motives are probably not altruistic; they usually want to make more money. Could some of them try to sabotage training initiatives?

Lower down, you will also need to have local supervisors on board, so beware of turf problems. They need to see the program in their own best interests, and may be wary of extra workload. At staff level, some might feel that their jobs or careers would be threatened if you discover that they lack necessary skills. But that's like a sick person being afraid of the doctor because he might get cured. The purpose of the system is to up-skill everybody concerned. A more legitimate employee complaint is that they might have to take extra time to learn. If a union is involved, you may need a separate meeting with them.

Next, you might want to find out how the personal networks function. Who knows who? Who really calls the shots? Are there decision-making processes that don't show up in the formal structure?

Then you might find out who should be in the program and who shouldn't be. You need to identify those who will probably make good students andpeople won't:

  1. How are staff recruited and inducted?
  2. Does the organization proactively identify and develop talent? What do they do? How do they reward their best people? What happens to the best people?
  3. How is time managed?
  4. Do staff feel overworked and reluctant to take on anything extra?
  5. What does the organization do with marginal people who have little drive and initiative? Does it keep them in designated positions or departments?
  6. Which departments are actually trying to do better? Which aren't?

 

Courses

You should resolve an underlying conflict early in the process: Are you primarily providing people with training or with qualifications? Providing training assumes that students presently lack those skills, while providing qualifications assumes that students already have the skills but presently lack formal qualifications. In practice, you probably need to find the role of both:

Identify particular courses. As a rule of thumb, a qualification course should parallel a job role. For definitional purposes, a qualification is made up of a number of units. You'll ask questions like: Should we go for could be VET sector qualifications , higher education qualifications, or an internal certification that could be transferable to a recognized program? What courses suit which job roles? What units should we require all workers to do? What courses should we encourage all workers to do?

 

Establish a training system

You've heard of getting two birds with one stone. There are lots of two-for-ones in enterprise training, because most of what needs to be done directly parallels normal employment structures. You should use them as much as you can.

Career pathways

The career structure and pay increments are nearly the same as the qualifications framework.

In reality, however, people want some flexibility to explore beyond their immediate work goals, and a system of electives can accommodate it. It would be a mistake to presume that people's work roles are identical to the learning direction they want to take and their unique blends of individual abilities.

Subsequently, the options for skill acquisition are:

Admissions systems

I would be a little concerned if an employer simply tried to require all employees to do a course. It can succeed when the need is clear and the presenter is particularly engaging, or when the extra learning is quite painless. But in other situations, it could be perceived as an ultimatum that "you must do this course if you want to keep your job."

In many cases, like the jobs themselves, competitive entry is entirely appropriate, so that it follows the existing employment and promotion structure.

Staff would probably need an interview to get into the program, and a recommendation from their superior. They need to have some initiative or drive to do better.

Staff

Supervisors are natural on-site staff. They might not be trained instructors, but they can provide on-the-spot help and advice, especially on what to do if you get stuck. Even if they are not trained assessors, they can still give competency-specific references. It usually works better to discuss the employee's skills and fill in the form together. They might also help gather other kinds of assessment evidence.

Materials

Most organizations have their own instructional materials, policy handbooks, and forms. Job descriptions are also a kind of instructional material in that they describe expectations.

Training sessions

Staff induction and professional development (PD) can be useful kinds of training if done well. (We should probably exclude the PDs comprising only announcements updating people on current policies.)

So are meetings for strategy planning, teams, and program review and improvement.

Team meetings are good opportunities for action learning when the team is facing major challenges or change. They are best for more advanced learning; beginners can feel they are thrown in the deep end if they are not up to speed with the discussion.

Learning and assessment exercises

Many projects are excellent training and assessment exercises, and they usually produce documents that are good evidence. But even a period of routine work is a good assessment opportunity.

Assessment

Most modern employees face an annual performance review and it should follow performance indicators (a.k.a. assessment criteria).  It might comprise a portfolio, an interview, and a supervisor assessment.

Work tasks and documents can be good evidence of competence. For privacy reasons, it may be necessary to have people internal to that department as assessors or evidence-gatherers.

Assessment can also include a 360º assessment, in which the students assesses his/her own performance, while one or two superiors, one or two subordinates, one or two peers, and one or two clients, also fill in assessment forms. This is best for management positions where a great deal might depend on an individual's skill levels.

What role should essays have in assessment? As a matter of opinion, they should be more prominent at higher levels, where it is important to think through hard issues. They shouldn't be politically correct attitude surveys or "explain-the-basics" literature reviews. Their results should be significant, more like working reports than academic essays.

 

Some keys to success

 

What else?

Quite frankly, some people don't want to learn something new all the time. They want to get on with the job, no matter how rich a learning experience it is.

I think it's a fallacy that the training program can be completely cost free. It does require outlay and cannot be totally absorbed into other existing systems. But it may be cost-effective, that is, it may add more value to the organization than it costs.

Another point, people still need to learn things that they can't learn completely on the job.

First, students should learn some kinds of things off the job before they ever show up in a workplace. Otherwise, they might be a danger to themselves or others, or generally confused and useless.

Second, read some books and have separate sessions for discussing them. Find the big picture issues. Put some structure to your knowledge and discipline in your thinking. This is one thing that work-based learning is not always so good at. When people only learn in concrete contexts, their knowledge follows the structure of the learning context. they know what to do, but might not have a well thought-through big picture.

Other thoughts

  1. Identify Critical Success Factors. Any program normally has criteria for success or failure.
  2. You can get funding for traineeships and research.
  3. Keeping it working. You’ll need to have a full team meeting fairly regularly to make sure it is still working and to resolve problems as they arise.