Involving Employees

You can encourage your employees' participation and commitment to learning by involving them in WEP development and delivery. 

Show your employees that you value their input into the design and development of your WEP and you build in their commitment to its success.

Also, by involving the participants of the WEP in the development stages, you will likely increase the usefulness of the training program to their jobs.   Employees may have insights into their own personal training needs that management may not be aware of.

Penn State University's Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy conducts research on Adult Learning, and has published reports on Retaining Reluctant Learners in Adult Literacy Programs and on Understanding and Overcoming Resistance to Adult Literacy Education.
   URL: http://www.ed.psu.edu/isal/nfrm_pubs.html

Workplace mentoring requires a partnership commitment that involves time, energy, and resources of qualified mentors, school personnel, and learners themselves. Workplace mentoring requires planning, training, monitoring, and assessment to ensure that the individuals being mentored will achieve successful outcomes.
     URL: http://www.ericacve.org/docgen.asp?tbl=tia&ID=152

This report explores the term, informal learning, reviews the results of research conducted by the Education Development Center (EDC) Inc., and describes the planning strategies and implications for practice offered by EDC and others.
     URL: http://www.ericacve.org/docgen.asp?tbl=pab&ID=100

The Career Planning and Adult Development Network keeps adults in touch with career counselors, career coaches, job search trainers and human resource professionals through its publications, workshops and conferences.
     URL: http://www.careernetwork.org/

Stanford's International and Cross-Cultural Education Program offers teaching materials on cultural differences, cultural awareness, ethnic studies, international studies, and multicultural education. Interdisciplinary lessons and tools include cooperative group activities.
     URL: http://spice.stanford.edu/

Companies that build up internal training resources can reduce their dependency on outside consultants and this lower training costs. This article discusses combining the training and design expertise of an outside organization with internal experts prepped to teach the material.
     URL: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/23/31/26/index.php

Teaching employees who are subject-matter experts to be trainers can be a low-cost way to teach the rest of the organization. This article explores the issues of developing employees into trainers, including training needs and assessment, design, delivery, and evaluation.
     URL: http://www.workforce.com/archive/article/23/24/25.php

Collective bargaining agreements have spawned effective training programs. By working together, unions and management can create effective learning environments where adults can take their next steps toward literacy and career development.
     URL: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/17/40/223650.php

This recent report on joint labor-management educational programs uses best practice examples to show the key design elements as well as the benefits and impacts for organizations, unions and individual workers.
     Success by Design (pdf, 258 KB)

This paper discusses the union role in ensuring that American workers have the skills they need in a dynamic workplace.
     URL: http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/report3/rep23-27/rep24-01.htm

This report on the importance of learners' perspectives on the outcomes of adult basic education stresses the importance of access to and participation in training. It also provides a how–to guide for measuring performance and outcomes. (69 KB)
     URL: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/%7Encsall/research/op_bingman.pdf

A successful joint labor-management training program is rooted in cooperation. This article shares five qualities that illustrate a good labor-management partnership for employee training.
     URL: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/17/40/223926.php

This article discusses seven essential questions for employers to ask before beginning an employee training program. Answering the questions of who really needs training, what are the costs and expected outcomes beforehand will help to ensure effective and relevant training.
     URL: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/17/10/223931.php

Employees can learn informally through a learning process called taxonomies - a matrix that shows how employees learn. This chart condenses the four taxonomies of informal learning by content.
    URL: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/16/56/223792.php

A team-based approach to mentoring can help reduce employee turnover. Potential leaders are targeted by management and coached through the development of critical leadership and technical skills. Their progress is then carefully followed by senior management and HR.
     URL: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/16/68/index.php

Creating a 'culture of work' by incorporating soft skills into training can yield great returns in the workplace. This article how examines how four groups have incorporated soft skills training - such as courtesy and team work - into hard skills training curricula.
http://www.astd.org/virtual_community/research/What_Works/action/top_10.html

Incentives to train: Ensuring employer engagement is a UK research report (40 pages) looks at findings from interviews and a roundtable discussion. Participants evaluated existing provision to incentivise training for employers, identifying the major areas of concern and proposing recommendations for change.
    URL: http://www.nationalskillsforum.org.uk/Incentives_to%20Train%20(2).pdf

For problems or questions regarding this web site contact campbell@conferenceboard.ca.
Last updated: November 23, 2007.