Skills for the Future: Securing the UK's long term competitiveness

Skills for the Future: Securing the UK’s long term competitiveness

Rachel Burnham of Burnham L&D Consultancy writes: This excellent conference took place last week in London and was jointly organised by the Work Foundation and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).   Matthew Hancock, the Minister of State for Skills & Enterprise and Liam Byrne, the Shadow Minister for Universities, Science and Skills and a whole host of speakers from the OECD, UKCES, businesses and organisations from throughout the skills field shared their ideas on this important topic.  Here are the key themes that I picked out from this event:

1.    Skills development is really, really important for the future of the UK.  The types and level of skills available amongst people have a huge impact on the effectiveness & success of individual organisations, the wider UK economy and on individual’s life chances – not just access to work & income, but also health.  The conference was also the occasion of the launch of a new report ‘The Future of Work: Jobs & Skills in 2030’ by UKCES  which examines four possible scenarios for the UK economy and the kinds of work that will be available in the future.  This report brings out the key point that developing the skills needed will influence the way organisations and the economy are able to adapt to meet and respond to the changes we face. To find out more about this report go to http://www.ukces.org.uk/ourwork/future-of-work

I recommend that you do take a look at this and think about the impact of these possible scenarios on your own organisation.

2.    Matthew Hancock spoke of the need for employer ‘ownership’ of the skills agenda – other speakers immediately questioned whether as an employer they would want ownership of this field, but would rather have ‘influence’.  Whether the move is towards employer ownership or influence, certainly the consensus from the conference was of a need for much greater involvement of employers large and small in the whole area of skills development.

3.    Another area of consensus was the need for partnership working, bringing together employers, training providers, government & public bodies, unions and of course individual learners.

4.    One of the great pleas echoed by most of the employers who spoke is the need for a stable system that is allowed to develop and improve, rather than being changed constantly and particularly whenever there is a change of government.  One speaker contrasted the 30 major changes in to the vocational education system in the UK in the time that Germany has had 3 major changes.

5.    One of the changes welcomed by many was a move to greater regionalisation or even localisation of decision-making on skills and the possibilities that this gives for locally relevant partnership working.  It was also suggested that possibly this could lead to greater stability, as localisation may make it harder for rapid changes of policies and initiatives.

6.    A continuing challenge is how to involve businesses in skills development and particularly smaller businesses.   With all businesses, the attitudes of senior managers to investment in training and skills are key, but it can be particularly difficult for SME’s to engage in this complex and ever-changing field.   Intermediary organisations can play a key role in helping SME’s to navigate this and to work together to articulate their real skills needs.  We heard of some great examples of how this is being done including from Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, but it is difficult to see how this can work without assistance for some form of intermediary body.

7.    One of the most interesting aspects of the event (to me) was the short presentation from Francesca Froy, from OECD, who shared research on the impact of the demand from businesses for skills as well as the effect of the supply of skills.  The demand for skills from a business is hugely dependent upon the business strategy chosen and whether the business choses to compete on the basis of high skills or competes on the basis of low cost.  She identified that looking at both issues allows for consideration not only of the familiar issue of skills gaps, but also the often un-noticed issue of low skill supply and low demand for skills in local economies.   One of the examples, she shared is of the contrast within Manchester – with South Manchester having a ‘high skill demand: high skill supply’ economy and North Manchester having a ‘low skill demand: low skill supply’ economy.  For Francesca Froy’s full presentation go to

http://www.theworkfoundation.com/Assets/Docs/Events/Skills-conference/Francesca%20Froy%203rdMarch.pdf

Rachel Burnham

10/3/14

Burnham L & D Consultancy specialises in the development of L&D professionals, blended learning and evaluation

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

Four Thoughts for 2014

Four Thoughts For 2014

Rachel Burnham writes: Here are some thoughts on the current direction of L&D for 2014.  They are very much first thoughts and it would be good to hear your response to them.

1.  Critical Thinking

Isn’t it great at last to see that more critical views of some long-standing and very popular models of learning are getting an airing?   Ever since Professor Frank Coffield and colleagues produced their report back in 2005/6 into learning style theories, it has been known that many of the most popular and best known models of learning styles had been found to have questionable validity.   I am picking up a lot more links to Coffield’s research in recent months and the suggestion of a more sceptical and questioning approach to various models of learning styles.  If you haven’t yet read this report, do read it for yourself.

http://sxills.nl/lerenlerennu/bronnen/Learning%20styles%20by%20Coffield%20e.a..pdf

Wouldn’t it be great to see some other theories that are regularly referred to (and misused) such as Mehrabian’s work on communication get a more accurate and rigorous treatment within the L&D field?

2.  Choose the Right Spoon for the Right Dish – or A Spoon for Every Occasion

In a similar vein, I am noticing that within L&D we do seem to becoming a little more sophisticated in relation to choosing when and where to use different learning methods.   Within L&D, we have been rather prone to fads and fancies leading us to attempt to use the latest in learning methods for all sorts of situations, whether they were quite suited or not.  Think about e-learning, coaching and now, perhaps social learning.   In each case, these have been trumpeted as great innovations, with lots of promise and have been rather over-sold.   And in many cases, we in L&D have uncritically attempted to adopt these methodologies wholesale. 

My mother – in- law has a great love of cutlery and over the course of her life has gathered a huge collection.  Under her tutelage I have discovered that there are far more types of cutlery than I ever realised.  For example, in relation to spoons, I knew of course of ‘desert spoons’, ‘soup spoons’, ‘table spoons’ and ‘serving spoons’ but I was less clear on the distinction between ‘tea’ and ‘coffee spoons’, nor was I aware of the full array of egg, grapefruit, ice cream, cake, oyster and other specialist spoons that are available (though I may be confusing oyster spoons, with oyster forks – my memory is a little fuzzy on the details!).  My mother-in-law is emphatic about the need to use the right cutlery for the right dish.

Perhaps like this cutlery enthusiast, we need to be better at picking the right learning method for the right situation, rather than expecting to use the same tool for every occasion.

3.  More useful, but less dutiful evaluation

More effective evaluation of L&D is a subject close to my heart.  We all know that we need to get better at evaluating L&D.  Last year I did a small piece of research into practice in evaluation and one of the issues that came out of this, was about the mindset that we bring to evaluation.   I think that we often see evaluation as a duty and feel rather guilty and possibly a little embarrassed at how little or how badly we do this. 

I think we need to change our mindset in relation to evaluation and focus on evaluation as something that is useful.  

We know that it can be hard to find the time or resources to put into evaluation.  If we focus on evaluation that is useful, we may find it easier to do this.

Evaluation can be a practical tool to encourage learners to learn more effectively eg by encouraging reflection and application.  It can provide us both with ideas to improve programmes, but also develop our insight into what works for L&D in our particular organisation.  So, the evaluation process can add real value to L&D.  So, let’s keep evaluation simple, practical and make full use of it!

4.  Peformance, performance, performance

In 2014, I think we in L&D need to focus less on learning and much more on performance in the workplace.  In some ways this sounds a little crazy and counter-intuitive – after all we are all about learning in L&D.   But sometimes we focus on learning and in our commitment to applying the latest thinking about how people learn and our enthusiasm for the latest learning methods, and all our other concerns, we forget that we are not in the business of education for its own sake but in order to improve performance by individuals, teams and organisations. 

So, let’s make it a priority to start with performance in mind, and build this in all that we do.

Rachel Burnham

20 February 2014

Burnham L & D Consultancy specialises in the development of L&D professionals, blended learning and evaluation

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

Acknowledgements

I would like to particularly thank my friend, John Morris, for the encouragement to get writing again.

Awards and Unsung Heroes

Awards and Unsung Heroes

Rachel Burnham writes: All the publicity and discussion around the People Management Award Ceremony last week, has had me pondering who my L&D role models have been over my career.  My list of unsung heroes is quite a mix: an L&D consultant, two particular colleagues, the MD for a consultancy I used to be an associate with, a learner who always asked the most difficult questions and my Dad, who is a retired Church minister. 

Let me share with you some of the things I have learnt from them.

I began to do some training quite early on in my career when I worked for a small housing charity.   The first training session I delivered with my colleague was particularly challenging and I wouldn’t say it was a great success – but what turned it from a near-disaster into a very important part of my development was that we worked with an external consultant to review what  had happened and how we could learn from it – and that was so powerful!  I still draw upon the learning from that review day: working with a co-trainer; managing your energy levels when delivering; to more particular challenges such as how to work with line managers when training their team.  So, my first unsung hero is nominated for her facilitation skills – particularly careful listening and questioning skills to help us to learn from this real experience.

Other key people in my development have been colleagues.  From one I learnt how to become more relaxed in my delivery style and to balance my desire for structure with a more fun approach.   From another colleague, who is always trying out new IT possibilities, I am continually challenged to move out of the familiar and have a go.  From her I have learnt that I don’t have to be an IT whizz to make use of new technology to enable and enhance learning.

Over the years, I have worked as an associate L&D consultant with various organisations and consultancies.   The MD of one of these organisations, was the most polite person I have ever met to everyone he met.   In contrast I realised that I could seem quite rude and abrupt with people I met casually and I have set out to adopt more of his approach – though I am not sure that I will ever quite achieve his level of consistent & genuine charm!  

My next nomination for unsung hero in L&D, was someone who had a bit of a reputation for being a ‘difficult delegate’ in one of the organisations I worked in.   He often came up with really challenging questions in sessions and sometimes trainers felt quite put on the spot by him.   However, I had one of those ‘light bulb’ moments that we all look forward to and realised that he had absolutely no intent to be ‘difficult’, he genuinely wanted to know and had a particularly enquiring mind.  Once I realised that, I changed my approach to difficult questions from all learners, not just him.   I realised that he and other learners putting posers could actually help me to deliver a session that was much more lively and relevant to that particular group of learners.   Questions can often helping you to tailor the session.

My final nomination in this blog, is my father, who is a church minister, now retired.  In the course of my childhood, he was probably the person who I heard most often speak in public, when he delivered the weekly sermon from the pulpit of our church.   (By the way, if he ever mentioned one of us children in these talks, he was required to pay us at, I think, 50 pence a mention – we were tough negotiators!  Of course, this now means that that I owe him for this blog and with the rate of inflation as it is, this amount should be considerably increased!)  My father is a brilliant preacher, because he speaks with passion – not the fire and brimstone kind, but with conviction.   And that is what I aim to bring to any delivery that I do too.  Sometimes, L&D professionals (and ministers) present with so little heart in it, with so little sense of their own belief in what they are delivering that the impact of their material is undermined.  So, I have learnt to let my passions and enthusiasms shine through when delivering.  

So, those are some of my key role models in becoming the L&D professional that I am.    If you would like to share your inspirations and role models, please do add these to the comments section for this blog.   I look forward to hearing from you.

Rachel Burnham

25 September 2013

Burnham L & D Consultancy specialises in the development of L&D professionals, blended learning and evaluation

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

You say 'attendee', I say 'participant'

You say ‘attendee’, I say ‘participant’

Rachel Burnham writes: I recently read an interesting article all about how you could make use of exciting new technology to make your L&D sessions more interactive.  It was full of examples of how this could be done.

What struck me the most though, was the way the author referred to the learners in these sessions.   The term used was ‘attendees’.   And that got me thinking about the language we use to refer to learners and what this says about our mindset as L&D practitioners.

There are lots of different terms that we can use to refer to learners: participants, delegates, audience and so on.   Each term comes with a slightly different connotation.  Each suggests a differing level of involvement and responsibility for what happens.   Each suggests a different relationship with the learning and with those organising the learning.  Each might even suggest different ideas of what success for this L&D activity looks like. 

You can put these terms onto a sliding scale.

Attendee        Audience        Participant        Collaborator/                                                                     Fellow Learner

Consider what each of these terms means to you.   With ‘attendee’ I’m immediately focused on physical presence, issues of attendance and crudely ‘bums on seats’.  There is no emphasis on the learner doing anything but turning up!  

With ‘audience’ it’s a little different – I’m immediately thinking about listening, being an appreciative or good audience and responding to the ‘lecturer’ or ‘presenter’ and their humour, stories and information.  I suspect that for many of us the picture includes an effective presentation, with ‘Powerpoint’ or lets be radical perhaps even ‘Prezi’.  The role of the learner is still fairly passive and based on receiving from someone who’s considered to be ‘an expert’ or at least an expert speaker.  And in this situation, the role of the L&D professional can sometimes feel more akin to being an entertainer, than a facilitator of learning.

Moving along, ‘participant’ feels a lot more comfortable to me.   This is probably the term I use most readily.  It brings to mind learners actively engaged in the learning process, discussing, sharing ideas, asking questions, moving around the room, doing lots of activities in many different formats.  And identifying their own learning from these activities.

I found it a lot more challenging to identify a term for the fourth point on this scale.  Two came to mind – ‘Collaborator’ and ‘Fellow Learner’ both of which pick up on the shared responsibility and ownership of the learning process and content.   At this end of the scale, it is harder to pick out who has the expertise and this may be much more fluid within a single L&D activity.   The learning here may be much more exploratory and open ended than with the previous points on the scale. As a facilitator of learning this feels both exciting and can also feel a little scary!

If we genuinely want to make our L&D sessions and in fact all our L&D activities, as effective as possible in terms of impacting on performance in the workplace, then we need to make them more interactive and learner-centred. So a good starting point is to change is the way we think and speak of learners.  This is our key technology, though perhaps not the easiest to change!

I thought I would share some of my thoughts around this subject with you.  They are very much first thoughts and I’d be very interested in your responses to these points.  Please do add your comments to this blog.

Rachel Burnham

1 August 2013

Burnham L & D Consultancy specialises in the development of L&D professionals, blended learning and evaluation

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD