The emerging role of enterprise learning consultants

This paper was funded through the Community of Practice program, part of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) Building Researcher Capacity initiative. The vocational education and training (VET) landscape is currently undergoing rapid changes due to contestable funding, increased competition between registered training organisations (RTOs), changes in client cohort characteristics and an increased demand for workforce development and work integrated learning. The demand for VET provision for workforce development requires highly skilled VET practitioners who are customer-focused, flexible, innovative and responsive to the needs of industry stakeholders. In response to this, the Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE (MSIT) in Queensland created the new staff positions of enterprise learning consultants (ELCs), whose responsibility is to assist industry by combining their educational - in the context of the Australian Qualifications Framework and training packages - and business objectives and thereby promoting workforce development. While generic attributes such as customer-focused, flexible, innovative and responsive to the needs of industry clients are expected of all VET practitioners, the requirements for effective services through partnerships with enterprises extend beyond these. A diverse repertoire of approaches needs to be adopted by ELCs to appropriately engage enterprises and achieve their respective workforce development objectives. Their role is complex and involves creating, designing, planning, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and continuously improving all aspects of the training system for every client. As staff took up ELC positions at MSIT, their roles were being defined as they worked in these positions. Accordingly, research was needed to gain greater understanding and insight into the role, functions and competencies of ELCs in order to establish a professional development framework to skill other staff interested in these positions. The study was led by the following research questions: What are the roles, duties and key competencies of enterprise learning consultants? What areas of professional development are needed to develop new enterprise learning consultants? Because this was an exploratory study, a case study approach was used, with data collected from in-depth interviews with 10 ELCs. The findings highlight the complexities of the ever-changing environment in which ELCs are required to operate. Their roles tend to continually evolve as they attempt to meet the multiple challenges of diverse clients. This suggests that ELCs require a range of competencies to allow them to meet some of the basic tasks required by this role. The findings suggest five key areas of development that would position them to commence operating as an ELC, and then continue their learning through practice.

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