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Purpose – This paper aims to examine the employment and training of mature-aged workers, so that suggestions for improving training for mature-aged workers may be offered. Design/methodology/approach – Six expert interviews were carried out by telephone, and three case studies involving company site visits were completed. Each company case study involved interviews with managers, trainers and mature-aged workers. The study was confined to the manufacturing industry. Findings – Mature-aged workers bring many advantages to workplaces and some employers show a definite preference for them over younger workers; but in some cases training needs to take account of lack of confidence and literacy and health issues. However, there is great diversity among mature-aged workers. Research limitations/implications – The research is confined to shop-floor workers in manufacturing, and does not address training of mature-aged managers and professionals. The research is small-scale but provides new insights, and importantly the voices of the workers themselves. Practical implications – The paper identifies managerial and training practices that can immediately be implemented. Originality/value – The paper identifies some issues that can be taken up at a policy level as well as within companies. For example, the preference for qualification-based training at a national level is not necessarily consistent with what mature-aged workers prefer.

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Until a decade ago there was not much in common between the training which took place in enterprises, sometimes known as Human Resource Development (HRD) and the training that took place with TAFE and other providers of vocational education and training (VET). Over the last decade various measures introduced as part of training reform have changed this relationship and this paper, tracing the changes that have taken place, argues that there is now an area of overlap between VET and HRD, where accredited VET programs are delivered in the workplace, and that this area of convergence appears to be growing. Three enterprise case studies are used in the paper to illustrate the nature of the area of overlap, and to suggest some features which contribute to enterprises' likelihood to engage in accredited training. Show less

This article presents the findings from a study of the impact of the introduction of new management practices on the organisation of training in Australian enterprises. The study investigated the impact of five common new management practices: teamworking, total quality management, lean production, business process re-engineering and the learning organisation, as well as a number of other organisational factors. The incidences of these practices were modelled against eight measures of the organisation of training in enterprises. The results confirm that organisational change, as represented by the five new management practices, has had a significant impact on the organisation of training. However, the most significant impact on the way training is organised appears to be on the extent to which training and human resource policy are integrated with business strategy.

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This paper provides a critique of some common assumptions about enterprise training in Australia. Drawn from a set of case studies of enterprise training, assumptions about the specific nature of enterprise training, how managers view training, the participation of small and large enterprises in training and the relationship between industrial relations and training are discussed. Some of these assumptions are challenged and the complexity of others is highlighted in the paper. The author again examined this issue in a paper delivered at the 5th Annual International Conference on Post-compulsory Education and Training (TD/TNC 52.41). Show less

In this report the author suggests that while there has been growing concern about skill shortages in a number of sectors in the Australian labour market in the past couple of years, such concerns are not particularly new since skill shortages are a recurring feature of the Australian labour market. In developing appropriate industry or sector-based responses to skill shortages it is necessary first to determine to what extent skill shortages exist in terms of the types of skills in short supply and the areas where they are in short supply and what the underlying causes of these existing shortages are. Evidence about patterns and trends in trades employment and training in the engineering trades is reviewed in order to gauge the nature and extent of any skills shortages. The report suggests that some skills shortages are emerging in Australia’s engineering trades. Show less

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is under-researched in the sociology of work and employment. This deficit is most pronounced for white-collar occupations. Despite growing awareness of the significance of psychosocial conditions - notably stress - and musculoskeletal disorders, white-collar work is considered by conventional OHS discourse to be 'safe'. This study's locus is clerical processing in the UK public sector, specifically Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, in the context of efficiency savings programmes. The key initiative was lean working, which involved redesigned workflow, task fragmentation, standardization and individual targets. Utilizing a holistic model of white-collar OHS and in-depth quantitative and qualitative data, the evidence of widespread self-reported ill-health symptoms is compelling. Statistical tests of association demonstrate that the transformed work organization that accompanied lean working contributed most to employees', particularly women's, ill-health complaints.

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In Australia, as elsewhere, much research in the field of vocational education and training has focused on the supply side of the training market. Research has been driven by the perceived need to reform the public provision of training to create a more highly skilled national workforce upon which enterprises can draw to improve their competitiveness. Little, however, is known about the demand side. In particular, the processes of training within the enterprise, while often maligned publicly as being low in quantity and quality, have remained relatively unexplored. This paper reports the results from a two year study of the determinants of training in a range of Australian private sector enterprises. Forty-two case studies of enterprises from five industry sectors were undertaken and a national survey of 1,760 enterprises. The resulting data set is a unique record of the training arrangements that exist within contemporary Australian enterprises. Show less

People are the assets on which competitive advantage is built, whether in the public or private sector, whether in the corporate world or in the world of education. In the words of the latest theory on human resource management, people are an 'inimitable' asset. The one thing that competitor organisations cannot imitate is people and their skills. So human resource management and the practices associated with it have become accepted by managers in all forms of organisations as one of the most important strategic levers to ensure continuing success. This is true in vocational education and training (VET) as much as in any other sector. In recent years workforce development has become a key feature of the management of registered training organisations (RTOs) in the VET sector. This paper will report on the results of a recent project examining the current state of human resource management practice in RTOs in Australia. The project takes a strategic approach, and the research examines the links between human resource management and the strategy of the organisation. The results of the project enable us to better understand the development of human resource management in RTOs and make sound recommendations about how RTOs can benefit from better management of people.

Published abstract.

Available papers from the 10th Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) Conference are indexed from TD/TNC 89.401 to TD/TNC 89.447. Show less

This presentation reports briefly on a project carried out by the Group for Research in Employment and Training (GREAT) at Charles Sturt University in collaboration with the Research Centre for VET at the University of Technology, Sudney (UTS). This project conducted an in-depth investigation of how and why Australian enterprises train their employees, using a national survey and 42 case studies which the author suggests provided a clear picture of the elements of a successful training culture. Show less

This paper reviews Australia’s performance in the provision of training over the last decade with a focus on industry training, suggesting that there is a persistent belief in Australian policy circles that by international standards Australia is a poor performer. A review of current research points to a number of key factors that are associated with the provision of industry training in Australian enterprises. These factors are: workplace change; generic skills; training and business strategy; and new training structures. Australian industry’s future training needs are briefly looked at.

The volume from which this paper was indexed is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 68.13; individual papers are indexed from TD/TNC 69.21 to TD/TNC 69.35. Show less