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Delivering Work Based Learning

APPENDIX 2: EXAMPLES OF GOOD PRACTICE

The Role of the Case Studies

The case studies described in this appendix do not constitute a comprehensive guide to good practice in work based learning, but rather provide a taste of some of the approaches currently being implemented across Scotland. We have tried to include a mix of different kinds of practice.

1. Montpeliers Ltd: Developing Customised Training Centre for VQ Delivery

Background

Montpeliers (Edinburgh) Ltd owns and operates a number of bars and restaurants in the city including Montpeliers, Indigo Yard, Iguana and Favorit. There was a perception within the company that in the hospitality industry many individuals leave as a result of the poor opportunities for self-development and promotion on offer. The hospitality industry as a whole struggles with the problems of attracting and retaining good quality staff.

The Initiative

In order to address this difficulty the company has set up its own in-house training centre to provide customised:

• staff induction training
• skills development training
• management training.

The training is delivered in the specially created training centre and is provided both by restaurant staff and recently appointed Unit Trainers, employed directly through the restaurant due to the success of the programme.

The centre has developed from its original remit to deliver in-house training to restaurant staff and in 1998 received approval from SQA to deliver Hospitality and Customer Service based SVQ awards including:

• Customer Care Level II and III
• Food and Drink Level II and III
• Food Preparation Level II and III
• Food and Drink Level II and III
• Management Level III.

The company uses funding through the Modern Apprenticeship programme to train its own staff. In addition to providing training for staff within its own bars and restaurants the company provides training to external candidates charged at a commercial rate.

Benefits

Employees

• an opportunity for employees to attain a nationally recognised standard, transferable across employers
• a morale boost to individuals working in an industry that demands early-starts, anti-social hours and fairly low pay
• feel valued by their employers.

Employers

• more likely to retain staff within the company if there is a clear path for self development and progression
• company will be recognised as a quality working environment
• potential for customers to benefit from higher standards of service offered by well trained staff.

2. IT Graduate Summer Schools

Background

The Summer Schools programme is a joint initiative involving Scottish Enterprise National, Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Edinburgh and Lothian. It was launched in response to research work undertaken by the Scottish Enterprise Network, supported by evidence from Microsoft that suggested the need for the promotion of the Scottish Software Skills Base as an asset to the national economy.

The Initiative

The Summer Camps are delivered through a combination of academic and commercial trainers and employers including the Universities of Edinburgh, Paisley and Strathclyde, and Matrix Management. The courses are modular and are designed to be delivered over a 4-6 week period and then followed up with a 4 week work placement. The initiative has been designed to offer:

• web programmers and developers led by Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire
• software application developers led by Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, and
• software engineers led by Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothians.

In addition to the industry specific skills offered on the courses all participants are required to undertake a series of 'soft skills subjects' including communication, team work, presentation skills, influencing skills and project management and 'company skills' looking at company driven projects, CV and interview skills and commercial awareness.

Benefits

Graduates

• provided with the opportunity to undertake specialist skills training that will enable them to secure jobs in the industry
• increase business experience and commercial awareness
• raise overall employability.

Employers

• access ready trained individuals
• develop closer links between industry and academic establishments to enhance both industry specific and soft skills
• reduce the cost to industry of attracting and having to relocate staff from other areas.

3. The Semiconductor Skills Consortium: A Strategic Alliance

Background

In order to enable Scotland to compete in the global semi-conductor industry there needs to be an effective education and training infrastructure in place. A downturn in the industry and the poaching of college staff by industry led to a number of existing courses becoming vulnerable to closure. Industry recognised the need for joint working to keep up the capacity of the FE sector to provide training.

The Initiative

A Scottish wide Microelectronics Skills Consortium was set up between:

• four companies: NEC, Raytheon, Motorola and National Semiconductor
• four colleges: Bell College, James Watt College, Lauder College and West Lothian College (Scottish Advanced Manufacturing Centre)
• four intermediaries: Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Further Education Unit, Scottish Qualifications Authority and National Microelectronics Institute.

Senior staff from each of the institutions meet formally on a 6-weekly basis to look at:

• the development of relevant training and assessment
• delivering training to an agreed standard
• the provision of up-to-date training materials
• the ongoing training of teaching staff
• increasing the number of FE staff with the necessary skills to deliver for the industry
• sharing access to teaching facilities, staff and training equipment
• developing sustainable programmes to support the industry cluster.

Benefits

• commitment - all partners have remained committed to the consortium
• funding - 150,000 has been levered from the Further Education Funding Council
• resource sharing - a draft agreement has been reached for colleges to share staff
• qualification revision - to maximise the relevance to the cluster as a whole
• donations - more than 2,000,000 worth of equipment has been donated
• joint working
• development of some on-line learning packages
• staff development for FE staff delivered by industry employees.

The consortium needs to be able to respond to changes within the industry and labour market and to persist in the continuing joint efforts to offset poaching. There is also a need to look at the training provision within the Higher Education sector to ensure a throughput of individuals for higher level occupations.

4. The Training Pool: An Internet Based Training Resource

Background

There was a recognition that despite the large number of training providers within the Inverness local area there appeared to be a gap in training for management and supervisory staff. The Training Pool does not intend to say anything new, rather to provide a cohesive approach to accessing and delivering training in the local area.

The Initiative

The Training Pool is an Internet based initiative provided free of charge by Inverness & Nairn Local Enterprise Company. It has been developed jointly by the Highlands & Islands Enterprise Network and local training providers and can be found at http://www.thetrainingpool.com/ The initiative is two way, enabling organisations offering training to advertise and promote their services on line and individuals and companies seeking training to access information and advice about relevant courses. For those with a clear idea of the type of training that they are seeking there is an easy to use interface that allows individuals to search the site by course type, duration or training location. There is an e-mail helpline available to any user that is unable to find the training solution that they are seeking.

The Training Pool can also help organisations to look at their training needs, for example, providing assistance to senior managers who wish to undertake a full training needs analysis of their operation. The Training Pool is continuing to grow and all local training providers and professional institutions are invited to join.

Benefits

• easily accessible information resource open to all individuals and companies
• free of charge
• pooled resources provide a much stronger focus on management training
• an important new marketing and business development tool for training providers.

5. Action Learning Sets: Leaders Developing Leaders Programme

Background

Falkirk Council aims to ensure that it has a 'well motivated and trained workforce that is outward looking'. To facilitate this process the Social Work service has invested in both in-house and external management training.

The Initiative

Employees from within the Health Authority, Local Authority and the University of Stirling devised the programme. The Leaders Developing Leaders Programme had four main components that comprised:

• a conference with key note speakers
• an opportunity to create and develop groups of 8-10 individuals across departments/organisations at similar stages in their career who face similar management challenges in Action Learning Sets
• a commitment to meet six times in a six month period
• a willingness to participate in a formal evaluation.

Once allocated to an Action Learning Set participants met with a facilitator who enabled them to examine some of the issues that arise in a management setting by dealing with real situations and formulating workable solutions. An additional bonus is more effective co-operation between individuals from different agencies.

Subject to a positive evaluation this initiative will be repeated with the formation of new Action Learning Sets encompassing a wider range of organisations and more layers of management.

Benefits

• improve participants negotiating, listening, presentational, planning and reviewing skills
• participants were provided with a safe environment in which to improve their management skills
• greater co-operation between the agencies participating.

6. Scottish Learning Centre Network

Background

United Engineering Forgings (UEF Automotive), an Ayr based company engineering vehicle front axles is the first SME in the region to commit to the new Scottish Learning Centre Network (SLN) pilot.

The Initiative

The company is providing its employees with access to online non job specific training through two networked PCs set up in the learning centre. Employees have access to over 180 learning opportunities in areas such as:

• communication skills
• finance
• health and safety
• IT
• languages
• marketing.

Almost half of the 200 employees in the company are attending IT classes through the facility, which is a veritable success as the courses are undertaken in their own time.

Benefits

• provides easy access to learning opportunities for employees who are 90% shift workers and would otherwise find it difficult to attend courses
• provides learning opportunities to employees with no or few qualifications.

7. 'Creating the Right Atmosphere': Cedalion

Background

Cedalion is a global software application development company creating specialist products for blue chip companies. The vast majority of Cedalion staff are highly qualified, many with higher degrees and PhDs and valuable to other employers therefore the company was faced with having to ensure that employees were motivated to stay within the company. The company recognised that alongside training it had to provide the right working atmosphere and their approach to training works well with the highly motivated individuals who it employs.

The Initiative

Weekly development conferences or 'Dev Cons' provide employees with a forum to put forward new training ideas, share experiences and draw upon the expertise of others. The staff controls 50% of the company's learning budget and any staff member can identify and participate in the training they need. The company has no system of control or veto on training.

Benefits

• staff can obtain relevant training that they want to undertake
• the informal atmosphere leads to more open discussions and hopefully better solutions for clients.

8. Scottish Network Partnership for the Biotechnology Industry:

Background

Biosolutions is a partnership between private companies, government bodies, colleges and universities sponsored by Adapt / UFI and managed by Scottish Enterprise. It offers access to learning and training information and a range of products and services to help firms analyse and meet their skills and training needs, and can be found at www.biosolutions.co.uk

The Initiative

The project is intended as a sharing of ideas and resources to improve the learning and knowledge of individuals in the biotechnology sector. It offers a range of e-learning products and services accessible on-line:

• a skills audit process for SMEs
• skills profiling
• a database of courses and training providers
• personal development analysis
• matching company needs with current training delivered through a combination of traditional learning and e-technology
• disseminating and sharing the learning models throughout Europe.

The on-line database covers courses, method of delivery, content and level of knowledge, performance indicators, accreditation and standards. It is open to anyone with a course or programme in biotechnology. Learning Environments combine traditional and on-line learning in management/business, technical and computer training. The Skills Audit can be used to analyse skills need for future business growth. The Personal Development Environment is designed for employers and employees to access assessment tools. A Learning Environment Questionnaire, a Personal Skills Assessment Profile and a Personal Training and Development Review are designed to give an understanding of present and future learning and training needs.

Benefits

Employers:

• greater ability to respond to skill shortages
• reduced training costs by migrating classroom-based events to E-learning
• track and measure the impact of learning against business objectives
• leverage learning into schedules
• overcome rapid obsolescence of information, knowledge and training.

Employees:

• easy access to learning
• connect and collaborate with others
• learning tailored to an individual's needs.

9. Oriel Training Services

Background

Oriel Training Services formed in 1965 to cater for the engineering industry by providing training for young people at craft technician and operative levels. Oriel now focuses on small firm needs and tailors packages to suit these needs. Projects make use of technology and distance learning to allow firms to access training and assessment on-line in the workplace. Oriel is a charitable trust with a Board composed of members from the manufacturing sector. Its training centre reflects an industrial environment and instructors are from an industry background

Initiatives

Oriel offers two main programmes that receive European funding. The E-Net project is aimed to design and establish a network of complementary, non-competitive SMEs in engineering. Each SME receives equipment including a website, e-mail, bulletin boards, ISDN lines, videoconferencing capabilities and scanners and IT and Internet training. Companies are linked via a secure project website with industry lead bodies and qualifications providers. E-Net aims to show employers the benefits of training in raising production.

The Planet project was born out of the E-Net initiative. It provides computerised remote assessment and verification. Through use of an electronic portfolio trainees record their progress toward a vocational qualification. Skills can be demonstrated by camera and video. Oriel assessors provide support via a telephone video link. The project aims to offer a simplified training and qualification procedure. The cost of the project is 400,000 of which 45% was granted by Objective 4 of the ESF.

Training to Customer Service Level II has been piloted in the Planet format linked with the Scottish Learning Network. This may be extended to Customer Service Level III and Administration Level II.

Benefits

Employers:

• offers assessment and appraisal tools
• gives a full record of trainee progress
• saves cost and time by providing on-line assessment with less employee time off the job
• dispenses with paperwork
• improves IT skills.

Employees:

• offers a simplified VQ procedure
• teaches practical, transferable skills
• training uses up-to-date technology
• improves IT skills
• can be assessed in their own workplace requiring less time off job
• gives an electronic skills portfolio to show prospective employers.

10. Food Skills Group

Background

The food and drink industry is characterised by a large number of small businesses, with 75% of the businesses employing 50 people or less. This characteristic of the industry creates problems for investment in skills as:

• the human resource management function within each business tends to be modest in scale
• the fixed cost of developing skilling programmes within the business tends to be high relative to the number of people being trained
• competitive pressures militate against all forms of investment where the returns accrue in the longer term
• generating clear demand signals to the training supply side infrastructure is often difficult to facilitate.

Where there is investment in training it tends to be driven by legislative requirements, such as health and safety. The businesses do not tend to look at human resource development as a strategic investment in securing their business goals.

Initiatives

The Food Skills Group was set up to try and address the implications of the fragmented nature of the industry for investment in training. It draws together senior figures in the industry, National Training Organisations, Further and Higher Education Institutions, SQA, the Enterprise Networks and the Scottish Executive.

The Food Skills Group operates at a strategic level and focuses on action to:

• create interest by raising the image of the industry to facilitate recruitment of quality staff
• develop strategic awareness in the industry, getting leaders to realise that they need to develop themselves and at the same time raising awareness of the benefits of human resource development
• enhance the Food Learning Network which has a key infrastructural role in the industry.

The effort on skills is nested within the broad strategic approach to the development of the food and drink cluster and links the to Food Skills Group's strategic role.

The Food Learning Network is the key operational arm of the Group. Its fundamental purpose is to:

• create more effective skills demand and supply; and
• facilitate the connections between the two.

The emphasis throughout is on building relationships, not structures. A key element in all of this is facilitating more effective collaboration on the supply of skills side of the equation. Never mind the large number of training providers, there are 5 NTOs covering the food and drink industries.

An important practical lesson was that promoting SVQs in isolation did not work. SVQs have to be 'sold' to the businesses as part of a process of significantly raising their business performance.

Benefits

• participating employers have experienced significant improvements to their business performance, including:
  • enhanced productivity
  • improved quality
  • reduced wastage
  • fewer complaints
  • fewer accidents
  • less absenteeism
  • higher staff retention rates
• access to more coherent and customised training services
• raise the image of the industry for quality products through increasing the number of employees with accredited training
• increasing numbers of employees who have gained SVQs.

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