Meeting the Training Needs of the Future

We need to strive to meet the training needs of the future by doing the ground work now. SARAH ANDREW, CMPA Project Manager reports.

TRAINING requires a continued and concentrated effort by the participant, employers, RTOs and industry bodies.

Participants have a responsibility to attend the training. They also have a responsibility to pass on feedback regarding the training and how it met their needs (or otherwise) to the employer and/or RTO. They also have a duty to promote training as a positive to others within the organisation – acting as a training mentor, so to speak.

Employers have a responsibility to organise training and ensure it meets the requirements of the organisation. We’ll discuss their obligations in more detail shortly.

RTOs have a responsibility to ensure the training complies with the legislative framework and that it meets the needs of its customers industry bodies have the role of conduit between all three.

We need to strive to meet the training needs of the future by doing the ground work now!

How many people here today have read their company policy on training? How many companies have such policies in place?

The CMPA’s education aims are:

• Training must relate to the participant’s current and future job requirements
• Training must expand the participant’s employment opportunities and add value to the business
• Training must comply with legislative and regulatory requirements

The policy then goes on to detail how these overall aims will be met at a practical level.

Who is responsible for training within your organisation? Is it a defined responsibility traced to a specific person? This person may be charged with duties such as establishing the training needs for the business and identifying what RTO or other training body is able to fulfill those needs.

How many have seen an allocation for training or OHS in your organisation’s profit and loss reports? It is essential that a budget for training is worked through with the responsible person and management as it provides an opportunity to allocate demand to activities.

Once training is allocated this should be followed through. Not following through on training allocations suggests that training isn’t that important – it’s just an optional extra. Not following through also challenges the RTO as the costs increase and the ability of the course to provide value to other participant decreases.

Training needs to be planned in advance.

A training need has to be created – this may consist of establishing who within the organisation wishes or needs to undertake training, and then who from outside the organisation may wish to participate. For instance it may be that the operation down the road has similar training requirements to you and by undertaking the training together you both reduce costs and increase the knowledge transfer between participants.

Training also requires planning as it needs to make a logical progression from one point to the next. It needs to take into account any gaps in knowledge – for instance a person who has sound business acumen may not have had exposure to the crushing plant and vice-versa. It needs to take into account the ability of the person – for instance a new employee may not get much out of a Quarry Manager’s course.

Th is industry is continually changing with new technology and methods always being introduced. One only needs to look at the advances in plant automation over the last ten years to see the massive changes made in the industry.

In conjunction with this, the roles and responsibilities of participants will be changing with time. A new employee could become someone’s mentor or a leading hand becomes the quarry manager.

Training needs to cater for these changes. For the RTO to be able to do this it is necessary for the employer to clearly articulate what they require from training. It is no different to buying a loader – you would tell the mobile plant supplier exactly what you are expecting of the machine.

Both parties need to understand the jargon the other uses. RTOs need to listen to the needs of employers. This may mean training is customised or seeking to provide the most beneficial training, not just the best funded.

Finally, the role of the CMPA is to facilitate.

To that end, the CMPA provides:

• Seed capital for the development of resources if they don’t already exist. An example of this is the Crushing and Screening Manuals.
• Representation at a national and state level. This involves participation in the continuous improvement of the training package.
• Guidance to members and others in the industry.
• Act as a conduit for information flow between participants, employers and RTOs.

We need to act now to address the training needs of the future.

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