Work-based training’s ‘profound effect’

Klaus Muecher, Higher Education Programmes manager at Eastwood Park Training, examines the benefits of work-based learning. He suggests that, in addition to equipping those undertaking such training with valuable new skills and expertise, ‘in a world of continuous quality improvement and change management’, work-based degree students can also act as ‘the subtle drivers of positive change’.

Do you recognise these traits in your top team: ‘action-orientated; intelligent; ambitious; independent, and displaying leadership qualities’? Reportedly these are among the top 15 traits of an ideal employee. In the middle, we have ‘cultural fit’, ‘up-beat-ness’, ‘confidence’, ‘a successful track record’, and ‘honesty’. The bottom five are ‘detailorientated and modest’, ‘hard-working’, and ‘having marketability and passion’. Training an employee in new technical skills or about an organisation’s service and products is essential; instilling and developing some of the other traits above is more challenging. However, there is strong evidence that through work-based education you can create a far more motivated, high-performing, and qualityconscious employee. Nancy Dixon, author of The organisational learning cycle (1999)1 asserts: ‘Learning is part of work and work involves learning; these are not separate functions but intertwined.’ 

‘Dual professionals’ created