Staff training in our council does not all come under the same department. eg IT provide IT training, Corporate training provides soft skills and Workforce development provides training to Family Social Service staff. We hope to collate our efforts under the same area in our new Intranet but a question has arisen regarding what to call the 'training' area.
The submitted title that currently is displayed is Learning & Development however the point has been submitted that 'Learning' is a term used by Training staff and would not necessarily be understood by non training staff who would in all probability be lloking for the term 'Training'.
The case for the use of 'Learning & Development' is that the term Training implies a classroom style activity, is therefore old fashioned and scares of delegates from attending courses. They want to get away from the idea that all Learning and Development doe snot have to be linked to 'Training' courses.
I've noticed that in the HRZone the term training is pretty dominant over the learning term and that we also have a TrainingZone!
Would really appreciate your thoughts on this slightly low level dispute but irritating none the less
Regards Franck
Franck Lynch
9 Responses
training or learning
Interesting question.
as you rightly say they are very different. It is important not to confuse your customers.
Can you call it training, learning & development?
Please do not chose the name just to differenciate.
If you are looking to change culture over time thenyou can use this as a vehicle towards the change.
does the name have to be fixed? can you change it as the culture of the organisation changes?
You also state that training is associated with courses. In a previous life I spent a lot of effort educating staff to recognise training as a diverse set of activitied which ‘courses’ were only one intervention.
I wish you success with this project
Mike Morrison
RapidBI – Rapid Business Improvement
Bear in mind
Hi Franck
All these names to choose from!!
Call it what everyone will recognise, but if you are looking for a cultural shift, bear in mind that
Learning is what people do and training is what is done to people
Hope this helps
Best wishes
Rich Lucas
http://www.supremacytraining.com
Questions
Hi
Here’s more food for thought, but the choice, as the saying goes, is yours!
http://www.structuredtraining.com/news_and_articles/training_versus_learning.html
http://www.structuredtraining.com/news_and_articles/where_is_your_organisation_on_the_training_journey.htm
Training or L&D
Franck
You might like to take a look at an earlier discussion on this topic. It is at: https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=147159
Graham
Where are you headed ?
Mike is right – if your vision is to broaden peoples’ understanding of what ‘training’ is, then signpost where you’re going. My perception is that people are using ‘training’ more nowadays to describe any learning activity, but for me, ‘learning’ places the ownership more with the learner.
Training vs learning
Perhaps not very helpful to Franck but I am reminded of an observation by a colleague of mine who was trying to distinguish between education and training. He said: suppose your teenage daughter came home from school saying that she had a sex education class that afternoon. Your reaction would be very different if she came home saying that she just attended a sex training class….!
Nick
Don’t forget the importance of informal learning
Franck – what a great opportunity you have for a total re-think of the role of your department and how you want it to operate. For some stimulating ideas, listen to what Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning at Reuters has to say at http://www.kineo.co.uk/audio-downloads/charles-jennings-interview.html on the subject “from training for skills to learning for performance”. Also, go to Google and type in “Jay Cross informal learning the other 80%” to start you thinking about the importance of supporting informal learning. Hope you find this helpful. By the way, I support “Training, Learning and Performance Development” as the title for the new set up, if you are sure that5 you can live up to this commitment.
Best wishes
Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL)
Provision is made for the accreditation of prior experiential learning within training, if that training is through the NVQ system. Could those of you reading this tell me, do you use APEL? Would you regard APEL as a suitable marriage of the concepts of education and training? How do you view APEL – as cumbersome and not cost-effective, or as an employee-friendly way to make skills visible and identify gaps where “old-fashioned” training is actually needed? I’d appreciate answers, and thanks in advance to anyone who feels able to supply them! Bonnie Dudley Edwards
NVQs and APEL
When NVQs were first introduced over 20 years ago, there were two key features which made the concept attractive to me – APL and the modular approach to gaining a qualification, both of which fitted well with the goal of life long learning. Unfortunately, both of these features have fallen by the wayside, because APL is ata odds with the way that FE and other training providers work and earn their income, and individual NVQ modules don’t count in achieving government targets. So if you have control over the process of NVQ assessment and accredition, by all means make the most possible use of APEL, but support this with “new fashioned learning”, not “old fashioned training”. It’s then up to the training and learning providers and assessors to protect the learner as much as possible from “cumbersome administration”, so that gaining qualifications is a satisfying and worthwhile experience. Hope these thoughts are helpful.