Workplace Practice: A team approach
EXEMPLAR | Greg Madden, TAFE NSW ICVET
Delivering educational services to industry can be quite complex. In the past, the customer came to the campus and the teacher turned up ready for action. It’s not so simple when we reverse the location and the campus goes to the customer. There’s liaison, negotiation, sales talk, legal contracts, administration, organizing, rapport building. There’s a kind of ‘complex ritual’ that goes on, even before we get down to delivery of the actual service. One response to that complexity has been the creation of ‘Service Delivery Teams’.
Main Point Summary
Backup Team for the Workplace Practitioner
- There’s a Team Approach – the Training Consultant & Industry Officer’s activities provide the backdrop to the ‘workplace practitioners’ work. By the time the ‘workplace practitioner’ goes into a company, they’re going into an environment where the whole management structure actually supports having him on site.
- They don’t negotiate on the basis of fifty nominal hours as suggested by the TAFE syllabus, because the company is saying “Hey I want my people on the job producing things!’”
- A key concept when negotiating is to focus on ‘the outcome’ not nominal hours.
Diagnostic & Design
- Firstly the practitioner relies on recognising their current skills and prior learning. Then they develop projects in line with management needs and from those projects we will extract evidence to satisfy our assessment needs. They will walk into the company and look about for projects that relate to that unit.
- Two important jobs for the TAFE practitioner are ‘looking for areas that can be improved and the looking for collection of workplace evidence opportunities (not assignments).
- They do “work based projects” because if the managers can see advantages in something, you can get the bosses excited. One of the things is to collect facts and then try and integrate as many facts as possible into some sort of workplace project”.
- Part of the work is being able to construct tools. “You need to have new tools for new situations. We’re back to basics all the time”
Training & Assessment
- Because the company doesn’t want to take their trainees off the line for very long, the main pedagogical approach is mentoring. There are a few group training sessions but generally the assessment is individual.
- They partly rely on a supervisor’s report and also ask knowledge questions. To get them to a particular level of competence, they provide a list of self-assessment questions where they’ll have to suss out the work system and look at definitions to confirm their understanding
- As a coach the practitioner impacts the individuals and the company as a whole. Competence becomes confidence and that in turn assists the company with their productivity”.
Geoff Tye is a Training Consultant working out at the Mt Druitt Campus in Western Sydney. Geoff co-ordinates the manufacturing units ‘workplace based delivery’ program. He liaises with industry and generally handles the commercial side.
Says Geoff of his work: “I’ve got this sort of hybrid role where I’m a head teacher with a team of ‘workplace based part-timers’, plus I do the sales consultancy as well”.
Geoff works closely with Western Sydney’s Industry Officer for Manufacturing & Engineering, Elizabeth Hellenpach.
Liz’s role is to research trends and liaise with industry networks. She supports Geoff by feeding through ‘leads’: “I don’t do as much of the commercial work, (rather) I might meet somebody at a function. They may have a training need and if it is ‘cut & dry’ I’ll refer them onto the National Commercial Business unit and possibly Geoff, but if it is something that they want to tease out and talk about, then I and sometimes even the Director of Education might become involved”.
Geoff and Liz’s activities provide the backdrop to John Yealland’s ‘workplace practitioner’ work. They negotiate with the higher levels of management in a company, find out what their needs are, talk with them about different qualification pathways and learning pathways. By the time John goes in: “He’s going into an environment where the whole management structure … actually supports having him on site”. Geoff negotiates about “how many hours we’re going to have workers off the floor” and how they’re going to deal with getting the evidence for those qualifications and all those issues. “So I think there’s a whole lot of stuff going on in the background to support what the practitioner’s are actually doing”.
Together Geoff & Liz are carving out a niche market for TAFE in Sydney’s western suburbs (and beyond). The program is ‘Competitive Manufacturing’. There’s different levels of it: Certificate III is for the hands-on process workers and Certificate IV is for workers moving towards leadership roles. Geoff & Liz have managed to get a couple of reasonably large companies involved.
John Yealland is one of Geoff’s experienced part-time ‘workplace practitioners’. John might do a couple of hours with one company in the morning, then another couple of hours with another company in the afternoon. Says Geoff: “We’re selling them a practitioner (or it might be a few of them) over the rest of this year to do one unit. They don’t want the workers off the job for too long, so we’re doing an introductory day of seven hours and then we’ll set them some project work.
A Project Based Approach
The main training & assessment approach is “work based projects” because “if the managers can see advantages in something, you can get the bosses excited. They might have in mind their own particular projects of improvement. On the other hand, the workers, have got their own ideas on how to do their work or how work could go better. So we’re trying to gather those ideas and get their suggestions for projects”.
Being in the workplace, the TAFE practitioner has to start working in different ways. Says Geoff of the training package: “You’re not going to have the people there for nominal hours as suggested by the TAFE syllabus. You’re not going to be there for fifty nominal hours, because the company is saying ‘Hey I want my people on the job producing things!’” He remembers the early days of workplace delivery when teachers went out and said to the company: “We need to have your people for twenty hours to get through this unit and here are the six assignments that we get our students to do”. But things have evolved and companies are more hawkish in stating what they want: “Nowadays, I don’t think industry is going to put up with that” says Geoff. These days he focuses on ‘the outcome’ and doesn’t bother with nominal hours: “That’s the problem of selling it to fulltime staff,” he adds.
Given this workplace imperative that says ‘the production process has the highest priority’, the role of the ‘workplace practitioner’ becomes adaptive rather than controlling.
“We have to really rely on recognising their current skills and prior learning. Then we develop projects in line with management needs, or for business correction. Projects that we can get their workers attacking and then from those projects we will extract evidence to satisfy our assessment needs.”
Geoff explains further: “We will develop projects with a student and with a company to help resolve company issues, to solve problems, or it might be some ideas that the bosses have been throwing around for a while”. Then the TAFE Practitioner will put it in a framework that helps the company but it also helps him or her get the evidence.
One of the main jobs of the workplace practitioner becomes looking around and trying to find these projects. They might realise that there’s a unit in the Competitive Manufacturing Qualification that’s about having a tidy, orderly workplace, cutting down on mistakes, cutting down wasted time. Then they will walk into the company and look about for projects that relate to that unit. “They might say this area over here has got a bit of a problem or alternatively the company might say they’ve got a problem with communication skills or whatever.” They’re looking for theme based activity that can display competence.
John confides that: “Before I conduct a workshop out there, I myself get an orientation to the workplace and talk to a couple of managers available to find out if there are any current workplace issues …pretty much all the activities I set up are somewhat going on in the workplace.”
John will walk them through a number of different things he’s provided on a sheet of paper. The sheet of paper has different sections and they will need to fill out each section. There are questions based on their own jobs and they must apply their problem solving skills to those questions.
Mentoring Approach
Two Key Steps for Project Design:
- Get an orientation to the workplace and talk to a couple of managers to find out if there are any current workplace issues and then set up activities that are going on in the workplace.”
- Collect facts and then try and integrate as many facts as possible into some sort of workplace project”.
Because the company doesn’t want to take their trainees off the line for very long, the pedagogical approach is mentoring. The TAFE practitioner might walk through the company and say “Okay, what are you doing about this and this and this?” It might be with an individual or it might be two or three over morning tea or something. He’ll ask: “How is the project going? Have you thought of looking at this sort of solution to your problem there? Have you noticed that on the chart that you’ve got in your section, you’re looking at measuring the kilo’s of product that are left over at the end of the process? Show us on the charts, you know, your understanding of this improvement process that you’re doing”.
So in the workplace, generally the work of the practitioner is doing ‘walkabout and one on one’. “I don’t walk about with a clipboard with checkboxes at this stage because what I’m looking at is how I can help with some of the obstacles. I might speak to the supervisor and have a talk with the other guys. Often they feel they are not authorised to do these sorts of things.”
Assessment
There are a few group training sessions but generally the assessment is individual. Geoff explains: “It’s all right to be part of a team but they’ve also got to have some individual skills as well. We can get a supervisor’s report and also we’d ask them knowledge questions. To get them to a particular level of competence, we will provide a list of self-assessment questions and they’ll have to suss out the work system, look at definitions or whatever, just to confirm their understanding, so that they’re ready for assessment”.
Key Assessment Components:
- supervisor’s report
- knowledge questions
- self assessment questions
- sussing out a work system
- definitions to confirm their understanding
The Impact of Workplace Delivery
A ‘workplace practitioner’ is really a ‘coach’ working alongside the players, often finding him or herself deep within ‘the field of play’ perhaps at times, becoming a player. As a coach the practitioner impacts the individuals and the company as a whole. Explains Liz Hellenpach: “Within the workplace there are people who have been doing a job for twenty years and then the TAFE practitioner comes along and they earn a training qualification. Their competence is recognised officially. Through that recognition comes empowerment. They begin putting their hand up at a toolbox talk in the morning and making a suggestion. Their team works out what is the continuous improvement here? How am I going to save that bit of steel that is costing us $1.40 a kilo? What are we going to do about that? So I think it’s that competence and confidence that in turn assists the company with their productivity”.