Brave New World - Customer Response Delivery
EXEMPLAR | Greg Madden, TAFE NSW ICVET
John Paterson, Head Teacher (Tourism and Hospitality in Sydney’s Western Institute) loves teaching in the classroom but John’s passion for the teaching is tempered by workplace realisties when he says: “I love it, I miss it, but you have to go where the business is. I do have a little class but guess what? It’s going in time. There won’t be anymore classes! It’s scary and I’m really sad about that, but that’s how it’s gone. In industry they’ve seen it as very negative when a worker has to go to TAFE for one day a week”. For small businesses with their limited resources, it can be especially difficult. “In the country they were even worse off, because the apprentice is out of the shop for 2-3 weeks at a time, on block release”.
Allied to his natural inclination to listen, learn and respond to the customer, John recognized that the government had deliberately made the training market more competitive. He was concerned that other training providers “were snooping around” and he readily imagined other RTO’s offering ‘on-the-job training’ without the need to have a facility. As John put it - “Just a vehicle, their office in the boot of their car and off they go. In actual fact that was happening ….”
Workplace Delivery was appropriate
The emerging competition has a way of focusing the mind and John began to take a fresh look at the training package, at what modules they were offering and how they were offering them. John realized that all his students were making large quantities of product ‘at work’ every day – “so I thought it was pretty silly for them to come to TAFE, when they are making hundreds of kilos per week at their workplace”.
He started ‘workplace delivery’ with just one module but gradually recognized that it was appropriate for other modules too. Now the whole course is done in the workplace.Explains John: “It sits very well in our industry because the large majority of retailing outlets are doing all the competencies that are required of the training package qualifications”.
The Workplace Practitioner as Training Consultant
John’s situation is particularly interesting because he has approximately fifty small businesses on his books that are serviced by two fulltime ‘workplace practitioners’ and three part-timers. John explains: “They virtually go out and negotiate their own entrée of the shop”. Their main job is to inform the business owner/manager and apprenticed worker ‘in a very structured manner’ what training is required. In this model, the workplace is doing the majority of the training. All the practical skills are developed in the workplace, by the employer or by a delegated mentor. The TAFE practitioner goes with two major documents for each unit or integrated unit - a workplace training plan and the workplace assess guide. It was a big job preparing all those documents over forty units.
The TAFE practitioner assists by structuring the training. He or she provides the business with a training plan for every unit. It clearly documents what training needs to occur for that particular unit. With this tool, the apprentice can look at what they need to be doing and then do their own self assessment. If they find they can’t do what’s required then we make sure the employer gives them training. Explains John: “We are monitoring that the training is happening, if it’s not happening we will take action. We might go to the employer and say - This is not moving along at fast enough rate, you need to have these skills by the end of this period”. The TAFE practitioner has to drive it, monitor it and keep a profile to ensure it doesn’t fall behind. If it starts to fall behind they have to do something to bring it back up to speed.
It’s a very practical trade with lots of hands-on. While there isn’t a high degree of theory like you might have in some trades the apprentice is provided with a learner’s guide that they work through themselves (so they do have theory notes as such). Then they do an open book assessment on it. The TAFE practitioner talks about it with them too. John adds reflectively: “I’m not saying that it’s going to work for every trade, but I can tell you, it will work for parts of it. I’m in a section here where we have three trades and I’m managing meat and baking. Then we’ve got the commercial clients where we’ve got apprentice chefs. They’re trying to break into it too, but it’s not quite as straight forward”.
John contends that with workplace practitioners, it’s very important, particularly when you have so many clients, to have good communication skills. You need to be flexible and get along with people and be prepared to work in where you have no control. For John: “It’s all about relationships – relationships with the apprentice, with the employer and with the other employees in the workplace. It’s about getting along with other people and working together in a collaborative manner to get the best for the apprentice. A big part of the skill is communicating positively and at the same time driving the process”.
On the other hand, John contends that: “Rigor in assessment is important ‘even if it drives them nuts’,” he laughs. “At the end of the day they will only speak favorably of you if you have had a degree in rigor rather than just tick and flick.”
A Simple Tracking System
Typically, a workplace practitioner would spend 3 days out in the field visiting shops. They budget the workplace practitioner, forty-five minutes per apprentice. Each fulltime practitioner has a stable of about 20-30 shops. The number of workplaces visited during a day, would depend on the nature of their visit. They might be dropping off material off or explaining what training needs to occur or they might be doing a major assessment. In order to be increasingly cost effective, John with an eye to continuous improvement is considering tweaking their practice and procedures, by reducing visitations and using other methods of communicating and information delivery.
With 50 small businesses to service it would be easy for things to get fragmented but John explains that a major part of his role as head teacher is to help them control the pieces by setting up documented tracking system. “I can pick up any of my colleagues folders and go straight out to the business and the apprentice. I know exactly where they are and what they’ve got to do, whether they need to be assessed and what workplace training program they need to be given. No one seems to get lost”. John is really supportive with the setting up of tracking systems. “We have clams rolls for every individual apprentice. I do all the admin side of it. All I say to them is – ‘you do your job out there and I’ll take care of everything else. Just do a good job out there”.
Once the training plan is completed, the employer and apprentice sign-off a statement that indicates that the apprentice has been supplied with training in all the tasks and activities outlined and they believe they are ready to be assessed.