Robin Shreeve
CEO, Skills Australia
28 October 2011
High Performance Workplaces – some
issues and potential research questions for
VET ?
1
What is High Performing Workplaces?
•
High-commitment management (Arthur, 1994; Pfeffer, 1998)
•
High performance work systems (Becker & Huselid, 1998)
•
High-involvement management (Guthrie, 2001)
•
Four types of work organisations:
– Discretionary Learning Organisation
– Lean Production
– Taylorist
– Traditional
•
Discretionary Learning Organisation outperforms other
work organisations
Source: Leadership, Culture and Management Practices of High Performing Workplaces in Australia,
SKE 2011
2
Selection of staff is important for HPWs
Human capital
advantage results
from having better
employees than
your competitors
Organisational
process advantage
comes from
having more
effective ways of
working
Attracting,
engaging, and
retraining the best
employees is vital
Aligning people to
goals and values;
and collaboration,
training and
effective skills
utilisation
There is a growing body of
evidence that strategic Human
Resource Management plays an
important role in creating HPWs
Source: Leadership, Culture and Management Practices of High Performing Workplaces in Australia,
SKE 2011
3
Skills utilisation
Is about how well employers harness and develop their
workers’ abilities and talents to gain maximum value.
Skills Australia, 2011
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN BETTER USING EMPLOYEE SKILLS
Strong leadership and management support (including middle management)
Open communication
Culture and values
Good HR practices
Transparency and Accountability
Integrity and trust
Sustainable and continuous improvement
Partnership and collaboration
Respecting and cultivating difference
4
Leadership in High Performing Workplaces
Prioritise
people
management
Enable staff
to fully use
skills and
abilities at
work
Encourage
responsiveness
to change and
learning
orientation
Leaders in
HPW
Involve
people in
decision
making
process
Are
responsive to
customer and
stakeholder
needs
Source: Leadership, Culture and Management
Practices of High Performing Workplaces in Australia:
The HPW Index. SKE 2011
5
Selection and recruitment of the right
staff is important to HPW
What do we know about this in VET / TAFE?
1. Productivity Commission Report on
Vocational Education and Training
Workforce (2011)
2. NCVER report on “Careers in VET” by
Michele Simons, Roger Harris, Val Pudney
and Berwyn Clayton (2009)
3. NCVER Report on “Human Resources
Management in Australian registered
training organisations by Andrew Smith and
Geoff Hawke (2008)
6
Productivity Commission on Recruitment and Selection
• No widespread shortages – difficulties in specific locations and
occupations / industries
• Looks principally at the “attractiveness” of pay and conditions as a
means of recruiting and retaining staff in VET
• Get pay and conditions right – “and they will come”
• Recognises the fundamental issue that VET professionals are “dual
professionals” – with capabilities in education and industry
• Recommends greater autonomy to allow individual Institutions the
flexibility to vary pay and conditions to respond to regional and
specific industry variations
7
HRM in Australian RTOs
•
High-quality, well-integrated and strategically focused HRM is key to
organisational success and improved capability
•
HRM is not strategic in TAFE institutes
•
HRM is a well-established function in TAFE institutes, but operates
within tight constraints by state government HRM policies/ procedures
•
Governments need to relax their grip on HRM polices/ procedures
•
HRM in private RTOs is informal
– While they have higher degree of flexibility, private RTOs need to
develop more effective HRM polices/ practices to ensure their
successful future growth
•
With rapid growth in their businesses, private RTOs face the challenge
of formalising HRM, but at the same time they need to find ways to
avoid excessive bureaucratisation of this function
8
Smith and Hawke on Recruitment and Selection
• Describe HR management in the TAFE sector as professional –
detailed job descriptions, rules for selection panels – but not
strategic in terms of being a key business partner
• Subject to Public Sector Rules about process – including where to
advertise
• Resulting in an emphasis on uniformity, equity and procedural
fairness
• Contrast this to best practice in the private sector that use a variety
of selection and assessment techniques
9
Government of WA, Public Sector Commission Rethinking Recruitment
Tips for creating an
Employer Brand




Do your research
Review your website
Advertise wisely
Consider statements or
values that genuinely
describe culture of
organisation
Consider the ‘type’ of
candidate you want
 Where do candidates generally come from?
 Does job description accurately reflect the
skills/ characteristics needed to do the job?
 Where are candidates found?
 What motivations of candidates can we
appeal to?
 What are the current motivations/
background of current workforce?
TAFEs are subject to State Public Sector Rules
10
For TAFE teachers the most usual entry point is via a
casual contract appointment
• Productivity Commission Report found that, “.....job mobility data
indicate that, of the permanent or ongoing employees now in the
VET workforce, three-quarters joined as casual or fixed-term
employees originally” (P. xxxv)
• NCVER Report on Careers in VET found that, “Recent estimates
found that approximately three in every five TAFE teachers were
employed on a casual basis and that this varied considerably across
states/territories .The number of teachers employed on a nonpermanent basis in New South Wales was estimated to be as high
as 78% of all teachers, while it was approximately 50% in four other
jurisdictions—Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and the
Australian Capital Territory (P .12)
11
A casual career entry point as the norm - it was not always
thus.....
Date of entry into TAFE teaching
Percentage whose entry appointment
was permanent on-going
1964-1974
68%
1975-1985
50%
1986-1996
27%
1997-2006
23%
Source – Careers in VET, NCVER (2009) Table 10, p 29
12
Is there a link with funding - VET Government Real
Recurrent Expenditure – All Governments
Source: ROGS Edition 2011
13
Well known advantages and disadvantages of casual
engagements
Positives
Negatives
• Flexibility to respond to
changing industry demands
• Uncertainty of employment for
individual
• Trainers with contemporary
industry experience
• Poorer rewards for individual
• Suit some individual’s lifestyle
choices
• Less ability to participate in
staff development and program
management
• Greater output in terms of AHC
for same $ (efficiency)
• Greater workload for remaining
permanent staff
14
What is important for VET students?
 Teachers with contemporary industry experience
 Flexibility in the provision of training methods
 More focus on practical skills
 Better access to training in regional/ rural areas
 Better alignment of skills taught & relevance to job
 Higher quality and standard of training
 More tailored/ specific training that is relevant to job
 VET training is too expensive
Source: Employers’ use and views of the VET system, NCVER 2009
15
Some issues that may need investigation?
1. Is the public sector recruitment process too passive or reactive in recruiting
potential VET teaching staff from industry? Responding in a very stylised
way to an advertisement in a newspaper or on web-site (however well
targeted) is not a common way of recruiting in some industries .
2. If a casual engagement is now the standard entry point – is VET missing out
on good industry staff as not everyone can afford the time to acquire some
casual teaching experience as well as do their main job?
3. Does several years service as a casual teacher mean that teaching staff are
already “socialised” into conventional ways of doing things in TAFE before
they achieve permanent status and does this make cultural change in the
sector more difficult?
16
HPW’s have an emphasis on quality and continuous
improvement
• New National Regulator – Australian Skills Quality
Authority
• New National Skills Standards Council
• Australian Quality Training Framework
17
VET quality concerns
Quality across the VET sector was a major focus of the
Skills for Prosperity report
• Key recommendations included:
– Building robust national VET regulation
– Implementation of mandatory external validation of
assessment
– High-quality and rigorous delivery of the Training and
Education Training Package
– Growing a professional and skilled VET workforce
– Information transparency and increased outcomes
focus
18
VET quality concerns
Quality in the VET sector has also been an
issue in recent research reports, e.g.
• The Productivity Commission Inquiry
Report Caring for older Australians
– Concerns were raised about the
variability in quality of accredited
training in the aged care sector
– The Commission recommends an
independent and comprehensive
review of aged care courses
19
VET quality concerns
•
The Strategic Review of the Student Visa
Program 2011 report raised concerns about
Australia’s international reputation as a
quality provider of education
– Report stated that “in recent years some
low quality providers entered the sector
particularly, but not exclusively, in some
parts of the private VET sector”
– Australian ‘brand’ depends on quality
– Compromises in quality can also tarnish
Australia’s reputation for quality beyond
the education sector
20
The AQTF Audit process
Audits may also occur at other times, such
as monitoring or strategic audits, or when an
RTO wants to extend its scope of registration
The FOCUS of an AUDIT is ON the OUTCOMES
ACHIEVED by the Registered Training Organisation
21
Preparing for an AQTF Audit
• Dates are negotiated
• Agenda sent beforehand giving details of:
– Type of audit
– Membership of the audit team
– Indication of what ‘evidence’ auditors will want to see
• Evidence may include:
– Results of data collection from stakeholders and use in
continuous improvement
– Training and assessment strategies and materials
– Resources relating to each qualification on scope of registration
– Student and staff records
22
English system of regulation and inspection
Organisation
Regulates or quality assures
OFSTED (Office for Standards in
Education)
Regulates and inspects publicly funded
provision in Further Education and Skills
Sectors
Skills Funding Agency
Funds public provision in Funding and
Skills Sectors. Sets contract guidelines
and Minimum Levels of Performance
(MLPs)
Ofqual (Office of Qualifications and
Examinations regulation)
Regulates examining and awarding
bodies in School, Further Education and
Skills Sectors
UK Commission on Employment and
Skills (UKCES)
Licenses Sector Skills Councils who are
responsible for Occupational Standards
Awarding and examining bodies in
Externally verify examinations and
Further Education and Skills Sector (such assessments conducted by providers
as City and Guilds or Edcecel)
23
OFSTED – Common Inspection
Framework
Looks at 5 key questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Overall effectiveness
Capacity to improve
Outcomes for learners
Quality of provision
Leadership and management
Four point grading scale
(Outstanding, Good, Satisfactory, Inadequate)
24
OFSTED Process
• Periodic inspections and annual
monitoring visits
• Great emphasis on provider annual
Self Assessment Report (SAR)
• Two key metrics
- Qualification success rates
- Lesson observation profile
25
Provider Self Assessment Reports
• Bottom-up from Section to Faculty to
whole Institution
• Address key questions of Common
Inspection Framework
• Judgments have to be data driven
• Penalties for over-estimating grades
26
27
28
29
Inspectors comments on achievement in a Grade 4 provider
30
Inspectors comments on achievement in a Grade 1 Provider
31
Inspectors comments on teaching and learning in a Grade 4 College
32
Comments on teaching and learning in a Grade 1 provider
33
Training importance and satisfaction
34
Employers’ views of VET system
35
Satisfaction and training relevance
36
Thank you
37