Description
To what extent do local governments use vocational education and training as a staff retention strategy? Human resources personnel from a selection of councils around Australia believed that a lack of career development or training opportunities might cause an employee to leave their organisation. The had some reservations about the quality and value of VET, but planned to continue to use it for staff development as it is the most widely available option. This paper is by a novice researcher from the Community of Practice program, which is part of NCVER's Building Researcher Capacity initiatives.Summary
About the research
Building the research capacity of the vocational education and training (VET) sector is a key concern for the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). To assist with this objective, NCVER supports a community of practice scholarship program, whereby VET practitioners without research experience are given the opportunity to undertake their own research to address a workplace problem. Scholarship recipients are supported by a mentor, and NCVER publishes their research results.
Kath Curry participated in the 2009 community of practice. Kath is currently Associate Director of Quality and Capability in the Faculty of Technical and Trades Innovation at Victoria University. The research for this paper was undertaken while Kath worked as National Workforce Development Advisor at Government Skills Australia. The paper investigates the extent to which local government councils offer vocational education and training as a strategy to retain their employees.
The study comprised interviews with key human resource personnel in 14 councils around Australia, as well as an analysis of council records on staff training and turnover.
Key messages
- Many councils had limited records of staff training and turnover rates and did not have systems in place to evaluate the benefits derived from investing in training.
- Reasons 'to stay' and reasons 'to quit' are different. The human resource personnel interviewed believed that career development or training opportunities were not why employees stayed with an organisation, but that a lack of such opportunities might cause them to leave.
- The uptake of the local government training package was reportedly low due to the limited availability of registered training organisations prepared to deliver according to the package, as well as low levels of publically subsidised offering.
- Interviewees were somewhat sceptical about the quality and value of VET to their councils, but said they would continue to use the VET system for staff training as it was the most widely used option currently available.
Tom Karmel
Managing Director, NCVER