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I NVESTING IN WORKER LEARNING : THE ROLE OF A MANAGER AS A LEARNING FACILITATOR AVETRA Conference Canberra, ACT Rosalind Carter, University of Technology, Sydney 1 Slide 2 C ONTEXT 2 College Operations Manager Administration Technical Support Facilities Community Projects Libraries and Counselling Slide 3 C URRENT CONTEXT - RESPONSIBILITIES Provide opportunities for multi-skilling and improved customer service Lead, manage, motivate and develop the capability of staff 3 Slide 4 T HEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Situated learning HRD and CPD Organisational learning 4 Slide 5 METHOD Case study Semi-structured interviews Documents Interpretive perspective 5 Slide 6 F INDINGS Manager strategies (...what I do is)certainly to be very clear about the goals that the team should be working on, the time framesyou have to recognise the different groups you will be dealing with and the combination of personalities and skills within each of those groups how do they interrelate with other staff and then also with students and customers and how much impact and skills and experiences and personalities have on the work that has to be done and the business itself. Whenever I go into a situation as a supervisor or manager I spend quite a bit of time getting to understand and see the personalities in the different teams and identifying where their strengths are and looking at the capabilities of the staff. Belinda 6 Slide 7 its about creating an environment where those communities can form and I think its about knowing the people. Chris ...my focus this year has been to getting those edges back together againfocusing on what it is that we are here to support and do and find how we might do that. I think over all my focus is to embed the college in the district. Chris 7 Slide 8 M ANAGER SKILLS I think its the skill of learning itselfits learning how to learn and learning how to apply the training that you had in a different environment and different age and how to adapt and extrapolate and build bridges from what they all know into this unknown (new work environment) and bring everyone across those bridges together. Chris ...I think its about knowing your staff... 8 Slide 9 D IFFICULTIES '... when I look at all our support staff, the ever increasing changes in staff and everything, there are so many things that come out and I just look at it for this college and think I cant do it.... Olivia '...part of it is that I dont get any mentoring either....it isnt modelled from further up the tree'. Chris managers dont necessarily need much training; they can learn most things by themselves. Mark 9 Slide 10 W HY IS IT DIFFICULT Process is not easily definable often ad-hoc and reactive, largely unsystematic and unstructured Outcomes are difficult to identify a relatively unrecognised as a concept, a process and an action 10 Slide 11 W AYS FORWARD Confirmed an emerging importance in literature Context is critical high priority to manage the social context Understanding the level of acknowledgement of the role and the reasons why. Improve support for the role Reconceptualise the role 11
