Principles, experiences and challenges

What are your experiences of WPL? Do you consider WPL relevant to/ in your

program?

Buzz feed your experience with the rest of the group.

Research Projects: Sustaining health system leadership and management development

The Atlantic Philanthropies’

Partnership for Health Leadership and Management

Teaching:

OTF (Postgraduate Diploma)

DrPH-LA

A literature and program Survey Interviews with a range of institutions

responsible for leadership training programs using WPL and other interventions in the UK

Survey using EBSCO Host, Emerald & Google Scholar There is a lot of information yet very limited!

Individual interventions and WPL and WPBI Results of survey

WPL for VET, technicians, industry, and professionals – a lot out there

WPL in health – Focused on nursing and physiotherapist and ltd Med. Practitioners

WPL for Leaders and Managers –Less Info

WPL for L&M in Health – Lesser info

Grey literature search

Very useful through Google search to obtain policy & practice documents on WPL in UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA(very limited)

WPB leadership intervention Programmes

Searched using google for leadership intervention programs in health, WBL intervention programs and added NHS leadership training programs

Focus on leadership, health, and NHS programmes

Identify areas of particular interest on leadership training, support & Development programmes

Workplace learning is learning that is organised in or by the workplace, and that supports employment role and progression (Walmsley et al, 2008).

An informal learning that enable the individual employee to progress and develop, making the most of talents, and the employer to benefit from a more skilled and productive workforce (Cunningham, 2001)

It is “a flexible form of learning which enables employees to engage in the regular processes of up-dating and continuing professional development (Reeve & Gallacher, 1999: 125-6)

Common theme: The ‘learning tasks are influenced by the nature of learners’ work’

(Fuller, 2003)

Broader sets of interests are often promoted in WPL It addresses the shift in thinking about the best ways

people can keep abreast with their jobs and improve performance in a world where change is not only becoming the norm, but is accelerating on an almost daily basis.

The understanding that context is vital for learning and, aligned with this, that performance in a formal training environment is not necessarily a good indicator of performance in a different environment, such as the workplace.

To an extent context is replacing content as the key factor in organisational learning. These realisations are leading to greater focus on workplace learning –learning in the context of work.

An increasing awareness that experiences are critical to learning and performance. Our experiences are vital building-blocks for our development.

Learning how to ‘do’ something is far more important than learning ‘about’ something in terms of improving performance.

Learning and work are merging (C. Jenner, 2011)

Informal learning is central in WPL

Based on interrelationship between the individual learner and the workplace affordances (Rainbird et al. 2004)

WPL is participatory & flexible

WPL it points to the importance of the context of the learning environment (Fuller and Unwin, 202)

Hard to measure and difficult to value adequately with more formal type of learning (Coffey, 2004)

Support at the organizational level

Having structured orientation on the job

Using good teaching strategies to support structured learning

Learning from experience

Use of formative and summative assessment

For Instance -Support at the organizational level: Having dedicated person with the interest and

authority to promote learning in the workplace by creating opportunities that learners could take up as affordances to really learn.

Provision of quality resources, time, and moral support so that learning is not pushed aside when other things appear to be important.

Having a organizational level mechanism to reward learning success.

The Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF): Potential to link training to current or future job roles

Work as Learning Framework (WALF) (Felstead et al, 2009:1) this approach ‘traverse a series

of analytical layers of enquiry’ that necessarily focus on the conditions, strategies, principles and particularities of work tasks, and apply or investigate these within the wider context of work.

Union Learning Representatives (ULR): Supporting WPL for unregistered staff and less

permanent staff.▪ (Industry Training Federation 2011; Walmsley et al, 2008)

A good learning environment is an elusive element of WPL due to the complexity of practice, the limitation on practitioners to time, and to support and guide the learner

Challenge of sustaining preceptors, buddies, mentors and coaches to support learning and assimilation into the team.

Barrier to progression partly due to professional dominance, and partly due to inability to sustain funding because of secondment and job rotation

Lack of capacity in healthcare organization

Inconsistencies in funding WPLs and training regarded as cost rather than an investment

WPL learners are non-traditional students so they need support sensitive to their needs, clear progression routes, and support from line managers and mentors which can be a challenge sometimes.

WPL is seen as just doing the job rather than learning

Time and resource consuming

It requires a culture change to work in partnership with employers

There is also a challenge of timeframes and ensuring the learners have the time necessary to undertake the programme.

Concern about capacity of training institutions to meet demand

The flexibility of interventions

Based on relationship development & networks

Overall program surveyed : 32 L&M Training & 23 Support Interventions mostly (NHS related)

Selected 7 with interesting intervention strategies and contact information

Response and follow-up interviews from 5 inst. Interviews took 90-45mins each via Skype/phone General Findings

Similarities and Difference in Strategies, duration, certification, curriculum design, targeted groups, modes of intervention

What we found was the common strategies

Global Advanced Leadership Programme

(GALP) and the Lancaster Advanced

Leadership Programme. (ALP)

Action Learning Set Facilitators

Development Program

(By: NHS leadership Academy).

Emerging Leaders Programme

(By: East Midlands Leadership Academy)

Entrepreneurial University Leaders Programme (EULP)

Ashbridge Leadership Programme

About the program

Training and Certification

Key strategies

Program Design and Curriculum

Who is involve in training

Targeted Participants and Enrolment

Feedback and Challenges

Lessons and Uniqueness of the programme

Purpose of WPBI for Leaders & Mgt For growth &development; Problem solving; Support &

Capacity building; Networking; Career progression; etc Timing relevant and program widely spread

Programs range between 6months to 2yrs Work with organization involved

By seeking written approval, fund and support of staff

Actual problems used for training project Maintain contact after training

Through networks, informal contacts and light consultation, e-groups and feedback

Common Interventions/ Strategies Action Learning

Reflective practice i.e. using groups of 2-4, friendly consulting, dealing with real company problems, use of action learning, exchange program, etc.

Shadowing/ company visits / Company exchange programs

Fostering Networking

Problem solving oriented

Use of faculty and external facilitators

Follow-ups via the internet from programme organizers

Flexible in planning and delivering interventions and Time frame

Combine both class contact vs. workplace; and individual vs. group devt strategies

Accommodate different clients’ needs Problem-based and reflective strategies Continuous engagement after training

Use it to inform of interventions and curriculum design

WPL as integral part of HPSR training

Team training Support of organization Alumni and practitioners will be trained as

coaches, mentors, ALS facilitators, etc.

Example is the PAHLM Project

Our Training Target Audience: Managers, practitioners, researchers, policy makers, politicians, NGOs

workers, emerging leaders, etc.

Characteristics of Our Audience: Usually very busy, tend to lack the time to study full time, excessive

workload, and in some cases lack the support of top management to pursue a course (so do it in secrete).

Purpose Qualifications only capture certain kinds of learning

Learning opportunities afforded by the workplace affect the quantity and quality of learning (Eraut et al. 1998)

WPL is a growing initiative for organisation to develop HR and adapt to changing environments (Doyles & young, 2007; Crouse et al, 2011).

Health practitioners and managers tend to engage in continuous professional development in the workplace anyway.

“Lessons learned by successful and effective managers are roughly:70% from tough jobs20% from people (mostly their boss)10% from courses and reading”

“Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it

will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”

- Albert Einstein

Well, it may mean using any of these ‘70’

approaches:

Or any of these ‘20’ approaches:

Identifying opportunities to apply new learning and skills in

real situations

Establish a culture of coaching from

manager/colleagues/others

Allocating new work within an existing role Encourage seeking advice, asking opinions, sounding out

ideas

Increasing range of responsibilities or span of control Engage in formal and informal mentoring

Identifying opportunities to reflect and learn from projects Embed informal feedback and work debriefs

Allocating assignments focused on new initiatives Encourage learning through team work

Providing the chance to work as a member of a small team Target building strong internal and external networks

Providing increased decision making authority Build a culture of learning through teams/networks

Providing stretch assignments Support professional and industry association membership

and external networking

Enhancing leadership activities, e.g.; lead a team,

committee membership, executive directorships

Encourage facilitated group discussion as a standard practice

Setting up co-ordinated swaps and secondments Use Action Learning

Arranging assignments to provide cross-divisional or cross-

regional experience

Or any of these ‘20’ approaches:

Providing opportunities to carry out day-to-day research

Providing opportunities to develop a specific expertise niche

Allocating assignments to provide new service experience (Jenning, 2011)

Improve current job performance Improve quality of service provision (and goods) Respond to new technology Develop a more flexible workforce Improve employee safety in the workplace (Smith, 2000) For managers: WPL is a crucial tool to

Achieve higher level of performance

Deliver better results

Be promoted and/ or secure their jobs

Affect work performance, job satisfaction and increase profits

(Longenecker, 2010; Nilsen, 2012)