THE ROLE OF WORKPLACE TRAINERS IN INCREASING
LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE WORKPLACE:
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIAN COMPANIES
Rob F. Poell
Tilburg University Dept. of HR Studies, Netherlands
Ferd J. Van der Krogt
University of Nijmegen Education Dept., Netherlands
Ad A. Vermulst
University of Nijmegen Education Dept., Netherlands
Roger Harris
University of South Australia, CREEW, Adelaide, Australia
Michele Simons
University of South Australia, CREEW, Adelaide, Australia
Abstract
Workplace trainers help employees learn what they need to know and do in order to get their job done. Little is known about the ways in which such workplace trainers operate. This paper aims to provide an empirical basis for actions undertaken by workplace trainers. A total of 350 Australian enterprises were telephone interviewed. Actions of workplace trainers were measured using a list of 32 statements based on prior qualitative research. Three factors were found to describe core action domains: “Support”, "Structure", and "Performance". Also, three types of workplace trainer appeared: some had a passive indifferent role conception, a considerable number had a restricted role conception, and many had a broad active role conception. Only weak relationships emerged between the organisational position and context of workplace trainers, on the one hand, and action domains and role conceptions in supporting employee learning, on the other hand. The paper discusses two directions for further research.
Keywords: workplace trainers, professionalisation, learning opportunities
Over the last decade, the workplace has been rediscovered as an important learning environment. As a result, studies into employee training and learning have been broadened in at least two respects. Firstly, attention has moved from formal training situations to the learning opportunities offered by the workplace and to ways in which these can be enhanced. Secondly, the focus on roles and strategies of formal educators and trainers has been broadened to include those of other organisational actors, such as colleagues, supervisors, managers, and personnel officers. Insofar as these actors play a role in supporting and encouraging employee learning, they can be thought of as workplace trainers. A workplace trainer, then, is a person in the enterprise who helps or guides employees to learn the things they need to know and do in order to get their work done.
Three related issues are central to the present study into workplace trainers. Firstly, the kinds of activities they carry out to foster employee learning. Literature about formal educators and trainers describes their tasks and roles mainly in terms of designing and delivering training programmes (e.g., McLagan, 1989; Hytönen, 2002). The present study, on the contrary, deals with activities of workplace trainers in encouraging workplace learning. Theories on the learning potential of work (Ellström, 2001; Tjepkema, 2003) will be used to grasp the different action domains of workplace trainers. A second core issue concerns the way in which various workplace trainers conceive of their own role. On the basis of the specific activities they undertake, different role conceptions may become apparent. The third issue deals with the impact exerted by the context and position from which workplace trainers operate. The role they play may be influenced by their specific context and position, for instance, whether they are a colleague or a supervisor and whether they are in the same or in a different department from the learners.
Knowledge about the activities and roles of workplace trainers is very important for the creation and maintenance of organisational learning systems. Workplace trainers have many opportunities to improve work-related learning. Whereas the usually weak position of formal educators and trainers in the organisation makes them prone to designing off-the-job training programmes, workplace trainers are in a position to also influence informal employee learning on the job. A second possible application of knowledge about the activities and roles of workplace trainers is in developing learning programmes for workplace trainers, focusing on the specific opportunities available to them in comparison to formal educators.
Theory also can benefit from added knowledge about the activities and roles of workplace trainers. Firstly, by extending what is already known about the relationships between work and organisation, on the one hand, and learning systems and programmes, on the other hand (cf. Poell and Van der Krogt, 2002). Secondly, by increasing our understanding of the roles and strategies of various organisational actors, other than HRD practitioners and workers themselves, in influencing employee learning. Most research to date has focused attention on formal educators (cf. Hytönen, 2002). Although it is often stated that training responsibility should be devolved to line management and team level actors (cf. Tjepkema, Stewart, Sambrook, Mulder, Ter Horst and Scheerens, 2002), little is known to date about the way in which these informal workplace trainers operate. The aim of this paper is to provide an empirical basis for the actions undertaken by workplace trainers.
Theoretical Background and Research Questions
Three types of literature can help shed light on the activities and roles of workplace trainers in supporting employee learning. Firstly, literature about the learning potential of the workplace. Secondly, literature about the activities and roles of HRD practitioners in organisations. Thirdly, some limited empirical research has been conducted into the activities carried out by workplace trainers. After a brief overview of these three pieces of literature, this section will specify the research questions for the present study.
The Learning Potential of the Workplace
Activities of workplace trainers can be interpreted using ideas about the learning potential offered by the workplace. Both the work content and the relationships among colleagues and supervisors determine the learning opportunities available in the workplace (Ellström, 2001; Tjepkema, 2003). An important characteristic of the work content, in this respect, is the degree of variation and complexity in employees’ tasks. A comprehensive and varied set of tasks offers employees many learning opportunities, due mainly to a multitude of experiences and room for experiment. Relationships with colleagues and supervisors are important because they determine the nature and amount of feedback received by the employee, which constitutes a crucial condition for learning. The activities and roles of workplace trainers in this area can be thought of as increasing (aspects of) the learning potential of the workplace.
The Roles of HRD Practitioners
A second source of inspiration for an understanding of the activities of workplace trainers is literature about the roles of HRD practitioners. The seminal work of McLagan in the United States (McLagan and Bedrick, 1983; McLagan, 1989; 1996) was replicated in European organisations throughout the 1990s. Valkeavaara (1998) concluded that the roles of organisational change agent, instructor, HRD manager, and programme designer appeared to best define the activities of European HRD practitioners. Empirical evidence about ‘new’ roles of HRD practitioners in facilitating self-directed individual and team learning, remains inconclusive as yet. Nijhof (2002) recently replicated an earlier large-scale quantitative study among Dutch HRD professionals and found their main tasks had remained very similar over ten years: training delivery, training co-ordination, organisation development, and training management. Competence management, knowledge management, quality control, and training purchase were deemed important but far from prevalent in organisational reality.
Smaller-scale qualitative studies among HRD professionals in Finland (Hytönen, 2002) and the United Kingdom (Poell and Chivers, 1999) yielded similar results. Tjepkema, Stewart, Sambrook, Mulder, Ter Horst, and Scheerens (2002) concluded that across Europe traditional HRD strategies still play an important role, although they also found some ‘good practice’ in so-called learning-oriented organisations. Recent research in healthcare (Poell and Van der Krogt, in preparation) suggests that HRD practitioners use few explicit strategies to tailor their training programmes to the learners and their work environment, even though many examples of well intended trainer actions were found.
As far as the activities and roles of workplace trainers are concerned, it is possible these are partly or entirely different from the activities and roles of HRD practitioners. Perhaps workplace trainers actually take on some of the tasks deemed important (but not often undertaken) by HRD practitioners, or perhaps their ways of supporting employee learning answer to their own logic, unrelated to formal HRD tasks. It can, however, be assumed that they use even fewer explicit strategies to organise workplace training than HRD practitioners do.
The Activities Carried out by Workplace Trainers
Harris, Simons, and Bone (2000) conducted an empirical study into the roles of workplace trainers. They observed, shadowed, and questioned informal trainers in 18 workplaces across Australia. Thirty-two questionnaire items evolved out of this open process of naturalistic inquiry into workplace trainer actions, which were tentatively placed under five separate headings: 1. Fostering an environment conducive to learning, 2. Working and learning with co-workers, 3. Structuring and shaping the work processes to accommodate learning, 4. Promoting independence and self-direction in workers, and 5. Linking external learning experiences with work and learning in the workplace (see Harris, Simons, and Bone, 2000, for a detailed description of these workplace trainer action domains).
Research Questions
In order to shed light on the roles of workplace trainers, the present study uses data from Harris, Simons, and Bone (2000) for secondary analysis. The analysis concentrates on scrutinising the five action domains that evolved out of the initial qualitative research, the role conceptions of different types of workplace trainer, and the relation of both to the context and position of the workplace trainers. Thus, the following research questions will be investigated:
1a. Are the five action domains of workplace trainers found in organisational practice?
1b.To what extent are the action domains of workplace trainers related to their context and their position?
2a. What types of workplace trainer can be distinguished based on their action domains?
2b.To what extent are the role conceptions of workplace trainers related to their context and their position?
Method
Participants
Telephone interviews were planned to include a cross-section of industries across three states in Australia: South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. Three industries were chosen: building and construction (to represent an industry with a more traditional approach to training), information technology (because it is a relatively new and growing industry with rapid changes) and real estate (because there is no well-established industry pre-service training). Enterprises were selected having at least one person who had some experience with training employees on the job. This person was the target respondent. A total of 350 enterprises were interviewed. There were162 (46%) micro enterprises (< 6 employees), 108 (31%) small enterprises (6-20 employees) and 80 (23%) medium/large enterprises (> 20 employees. The enterprises are equally represented from the three States. The building and construction sector was represented by 116 respondents (33%), information technology by 126 respondents (36%) and real estate by 108 respondents (31%).
Measures
The interviewer asked for information about organisational context variables (type of organisation, company size) and about the position of the workplace trainer (number of years working in the enterprise, is the trainer also the owner of the enterprise, the role of the trainer, has the trainer completed trainer courses). The central part of the interview was about the trainer actions of the workplace trainer. It is a list of 32 statements (items) about trainer actions that can be undertaken as workplace trainer. The respondent was asked to rate each item on a scale with the next response categories: 1=hardly at all, 2=not very often, 3=sometimes, 4=often, 5=very often.
Procedure
Prior to the telephone interview an extensive qualitative research was carried out to get insight into possible workplace trainer actions. A sample of 18 enterprises was chosen, six enterprises in each of the three chosen industrial sectors (building and construction, information technology and real estate). The selection was spread across the three States so that six companies - one large, two medium and three small - were observed in each State. For each enterprise trainer actions and interactions with employees were observed, audio taped and listed using observation schedules, semi-structured interviews and/or in-depth interviews. After transcription of the interviews, training episodes and researchers' observations, the data were analysed with help of a software package for analysing qualitative data. At the end a list of 32 statements were identified as trainer actions. For a detailed description, see Harris, Simons and Bone (2000).
Results
Action Domains of Workplace Trainers
In a first step it was attempted to find confirmation for the five action domains by means of confirmatory factor analysis on the 32 trainer actions. The five factor solution was not supported, however. In a second step exploratory factor analysis was used to detect the underlying structure of the trainer actions. The 32 trainer actions were used as input for principal factor analyses followed by oblique rotation. A three factor solution was suggested (eigenvalues > 1). This implies that the structure underlying the 32 trainer actions can best be captured in three rather than five action domains. Items loading low on the principal factor (< .30) or loading on two factors or loading low on all three factors were removed one by one during successive factor analyses. The final factor solution (pattern matrix) and the reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha) of the three factors are given in Table 1.
The first factor (item 1-9) describes actions undertaken to support learners in learning (labelled as "Support"), the second factor (item 10-15) contains actions to structure the work for learning (labelled as "Structure") and the third factor (item 16-20) focuses on the work performance itself (labelled as "Performance"). The action domains of workplace trainers can be summarised into three factors or dimensions: support, structure and performance. The reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha) of the three factors are substantial (.79, .72 and .78 respectively). The reduction of 32 items to 20 means that 12 items cannot be classified, mostly due to insufficient intercorrelations of the latter. The factor "Structure" shows considerable overlap with the original domain ‘Structuring and shaping the work processes to accommodate learning’, whereas the factors "Support" and "Performance" are based on items out of the remaining four intended domains.
Relation of Action Domains to the Context and Position of Workplace Trainers
It was tested whether action domains of workplace trainers are related to the organisational context variables: a) type of organisation, and b) company size; and to their own position: c) experience, d) position in the enterprise, e) motivation to act as workplace trainer, and f) having completed a training course.
Organisational Context of the Workplace Trainer. a) Are there differences in action domains between the three different types of organisation? This question was answered using MANOVA. First it was tested whether there are overall significant differences among the groups in relation to the three dependent variables (support, structure and performance).
Table 1.
Factor Analysis Results and Reliabilities for the Trainer Action Items
F1 / F2 / F31 / Challenging the employee to explore new or alternate ways of doing things / .58 / -.05 / .20
2 / Learning about new ideas, products, processes from the employee / .55 / -.12 / .08
3 / Taking opportunities that arise during the day (such as at lunchtime, when driving from job to job) to talk with the employee about their job / .55 / .06 / -.15
4 / Making connections between seemingly unconnected events so that the employee can use their learning in new or different situations / .54 / .08 / -.01
5 / Listening to the employee about any concerns or difficulties they might be having in the workplace / .45 / -.03 / .19
6 / Encouraging the employee to evaluate their own work performance / .44 / .15 / .10
7 / Helping the employee to work out problems that occur in the workplace / .38 / .06 / .14
8 / Giving feedback and encouragement to the employee about their work performance / .34 / .12 / .18
9 / Making time to talk to the employee about their work / .30 / .08 / .09
10 / Coming to an agreement with the employee about the types of activities they will do in order to help them learn their job / -.13 / .62 / .05
11 / Working out learning goals with the employee / .11 / .49 / .03
12 / Planning the structure of work so that the employee is able to join in and work at a level that is best for them / -.07 / .48 / .21
13 / Reorganising what might be done at work so that it fits more closely with the employee's off-job training / .23 / .46 / -.10
14 / Talking with an employee to work out what they do and do not know about aspects of their job / -.03 / .45 / .06
15 / Talking to the employee about the difference between how things are done in your workplace and what they might be learning in any off-site training / .21 / .43 / -.02
16 / Monitoring the work flow and the quality of the employee's work / -.09 / .13 / .65
17 / Making judgements about how fast or slow the pace of work needs to be so that the employee can keep up / .05 / .07 / .60
18 / Organising work so that the employee is able to tackle a variety of work tasks / .20 / -.05 / .58
19 / Making judgements about how to balance the needs of the employee to learn the job and the need to get the job done / .09 / .08 / .53
20 / Managing the flow of work so that it helps the employee to learn what has to be done / .13 / .03 / .51
Explained total variance: 32.6%
Cronbach's alpha / .79 / .72 / .78
Wilks' Lambda was significant (F(6,662)=3.47, p=.002). With successive ANOVAs it was tested which of the three dependent variables showed significant differences between the three types of organisation. The variable support did not show significant differences between the three types (F(2,333)=.63, n.s.). The other two variables showed significant differences: structure (F(2,333)=5.15, p=.006) and performance (F(2,333)=5.09, p=.007). For each of these two variables Bonferroni post hoc tests were carried out to detect which organisation type differed significant from each other. The results are given in Table 2, showing that the sector information technology is significantly lower than the two other sectors on structuring the work for learning. The sector building and construction is significantly higher than the two other sectors on focusing on work performance.