Darryl Dymock

Towards a learning organization? Employee perceptions

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to explore employee perceptions of the development of a learning culture in a medium‐sized manufacturing company that was aspiring to become a learning organization.Design/methodology/approach – The research comprised an extended interview with the companys Organizational Development Manager, a validated questionnaire on the learning organization with a cross‐section of 80 staff, and semi‐structured interviews with a stratified sample of 20 employees.Findings – The company was using learning to develop its competitive edge, and employees were at various stages of understanding and acceptance of the need for learning and competence development on the job to sustain and develop the company. A tension was detected between the companys objectives and the aspirations of some employees, but the majority appeared to accept the overt learning policy as good for them and the company.Research limitations/implications – Through circumstances, the sample of employees includ...

Developing a Culture of Learning in a Changing Industrial Climate: An Australian Case Study

The problem and the solution. An organization that does not have a history of being a learning organization but has experienced generally confrontational industrial relations began to change its learning culture. This study suggests that even without a systematic approach, some of the features of a learning organization can develop through efforts at the individual and the systemic levels but that the issue of power relationships in the organization is highly significant.

Last resort employees: older workers' perceptions of workplace discrimination

Many countries are becoming increasingly reliant upon an aging workforce. Yet, much literature positions older workers as ‘last resort’ employees, held in low esteem by employers whose preference for youth extends into decision-making about workplace engagement and support. As part of a broader study on maintaining the competence of older workers, we investigated the extent to which a group of employees in Australia aged 45 or more perceived they were discriminated against because of their age, including access to training, promotion opportunities and job security. Against expectations arising from the literature, informants reported little in the way of explicit age-related bias in their employment, opportunities for advancement and further development. Although the informants have particular characteristics and featured paraprofessional and professional workers, the contrast is noteworthy between what is reported in the literature and often premised on surveys, and our data were based on interviews. The findings indicate a need to be wary of making easy generalizations about the extent to which older workers per se are discriminated against in the workplace, while at the same time acknowledging that such discrimination exists, and perhaps for particular kinds of workers. In addition, we found a range of nuanced responses that suggest there are tensions between discriminations policies and practice that are a challenge for human resource development professionals.

The discursive (re)positioning of older workers in Australian recruitment policy reform: An exemplary analysis of written and visual narratives

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a methodological demonstration of how written and visual language in narrative and small stories about older workers might be read in multiple ways as supporting and/or constraining recent policy reform.Design/methodology/approach – Critical theory and critical discourse analysis, supported by narrative analysis and visual analysis, offer a robust methodology to problematize the manner in which textually mediated discourses impact social policy reform for recruiting, retraining and retaining older workers.Findings – The results show that still in such an “age positive” social policy environment, negative stereotypes about older workers persist, threatening to constrain social change.Research limitations/implications – An exemplary analysis of two texts, representative of those related to Australian government initiatives to reform access to work for older citizens, provides an accessible means of (re)evaluating if and how such policies are more inclusive o...

Learning in Response to Workplace Change

Across the world, and particularly in developed countries, workplaces are changing, arguably more rapidly than ever before in response to external and internal forces. Altering the ways workplaces operate inevitably requires changes in the knowledge and skills workers need. This relationship is evident in the conclusion by the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (Future focus: 2013 National workforce development strategy, AWPA, Canberra, 2013) that the major influences on the nation’s skills and workforce development needs are driven by globalisation, technological change, the changing nature of work, the need to respond to climate change impacts and issues of sustainability. These are very broad influences that raise questions about the extent to which they impact workers, as distinct from affecting industries and enterprises. In order to examine how employees perceive the impact of change, 86 workers in various occupations in four different Australian industries were asked about current and anticipated changes in their jobs. Analysis of the semi-structured interview transcripts revealed that workers tend to perceive workplace changes in terms of their immediate work tasks rather than with, say, an organisation’s strategic directions or industry workforce development perspective. That is, their need to learn as a result of workplace change is essentially based on maintaining their individual competence and hence their employability. This focus on their own workplace practice suggests that the most appropriate setting for individual learning in response to change appears to be the workplace itself, which in turn has implications for the way such learning is organised.

Continuing Education and Training: Needs, Models and Approaches

This chapter sets out the context, framing, procedures and broad outcomes of a 3-year investigation of continuing education and training in Australia. The investigation sought to identify what might comprise approaches to and models of continuing education and training that might be applied across Australia, nationally, its regions and industry sectors. The aims of these approaches are to: (i) assist individuals sustain and develop further their workplace competence and secure advancement across lengthening working lives; (ii) address the needs of competent industry workforces, (iii) make workplaces safe and productive sites of employment and learning, and (iv) provide communities with the kinds of skills they require. In this way, these goals for continuing education and training are about supporting individuals’ employability and sustaining the social and economic viability of workplaces, industry sectors and communities. Specifically, the challenge for the investigation reported here was to identify a set of models through which continuing education and training provisions could be planned, implemented, supported and evaluated to achieve these goals. A key finding of the investigation was that most categories of workers interviewed preferred to continue to learn about their work learning through that work and as part of their work activities. These informants reported that much of this learning was secured by individuals through their everyday work activities, but often supported by other workers or experts present at the work site. In contrast, their managers and employers tended to prefer training programs to bring about particular changes and secure particular kinds of learning associated with workplace goals.

The Critical Role of Workplace Managers in Continuing Education and Training

As workplaces respond to ongoing internal and external change, continuing education and training has become an imperative, as Chap. 11 and other chapters in this book have made clear. Within this dynamic framework, the roles of managers are also changing, partly through what has been called ‘job enlargement’. That is, more responsibility for an increasing range of activities that were once handled elsewhere in the organisation, usually by specialists. These expanded responsibilities may include occupational health and safety, budget control, and human resource management, but there is also emerging evidence of an increasing role for managers in the training function, both direct and indirect. In the research reported in this chapter, 60 managers in five industries and across four Australian States were interviewed about the changes influencing their workplace policies and practices, and of the role of learning and training in helping workers keep current and employable. The findings show that ongoing worker development is an overt, but often under-acknowledged part of these managers’ everyday responsibilities within their workplaces. Specifically, these managers’ roles in training were found to be essential for effective continuing education and training, including fostering workers’ positive attitudes towards lifelong learning for work-related purposes. This chapter discusses the range of training roles required of these managers, as identified in the research, and concludes with a discussion of how managers’ capacities as trainers might be supported and further developed.

Adult Education in Universities in the Asia-Pacific Region

In many countries the education of adults has taken second place to the education of children, because school education is usually compulsory until a specified age, and governments have tended to focus their efforts and resources on that period. Adult education has generally been left to non-governmental agencies, except sometimes in specific areas, such as literacy, where national campaigns to educate adults have been government-initiated.

Towards a more systematic approach to continuing professional development in vocational education and training

ABSTRACT Vocational education and training (VET) teachers and trainers have a key role in ensuring that workers in business and industry are upskilled and up-to-date in a rapidly changing industrial, economic and technological environment. It follows that the VET practitioners should themselves keep up to date, not only with industry developments but also with the pedagogical skills needed to embrace technology and adapt to new sites for learning. However, in Australia and other Western nations, continuing professional development for VET practitioners has been spasmodic and not always well supported, in contrast to the ways it has been established and accepted in other professions. This paper examines the professional development approaches of some of those other professions and identifies the key features that might be adopted in any genuine attempt to develop a more purposeful and systematic provision of ongoing learning for teachers and trainers in VET. The paper concludes with a number of recommendations aimed at Australian VET practitioners in particular, but which might be applicable to VET in any developed country.

Educating soldier-citizens: conscripted teachers in Papua New Guinea 1966-1973

Abstract Between 1965 and 1972, the Australian Government undertook a scheme of National Service, selecting 20-year-old men by ballot for 2-year terms in the Australian Army. Almost 64,000 men were called up, including some 300 school teachers who were posted to the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) with the Royal Australian Army Educational Corps, for 12-month terms. Their task was to provide a general education to indigenous troops of the 3000-strong Pacific Islands Regiment in what turned out to be the years leading up to Papua New Guinea’s self-government and independence. This article describes how this previously undocumented educational ‘scheme’ evolved as a result of a response to circumstances rather than strategic planning, identifies the key roles played by Army leaders and presents the recollections of more than 70 of those former conscripted teachers, obtained through a recent survey, about their role. The article concludes that the scheme was based on the belief that education had a significant role in developing an army loyal to the government of an emerging nation, was a unique development in Australian Army Education, especially in developing ‘soldier-citizens’, and relied on a vision within the Army leadership in TPNG that was ahead of the Australian Government.