The impact of flexible delivery on human resource practices: Survey of TAFE managers

Key messsages

• With flexible delivery, teachers' work has changed significantly. Extended hours, diverse locations and a broader range of activities and clients have become the norm. In addition, more and more technical and administrative staff are performing integral roles in flexible delivery teams, and these roles are not restricted to their traditional support functions. These changes in the nature of work for technical and further education (TAFE) staff generally pose challenges to human resource management policy.

• While managers acknowledged the extent of the change and the considerable efforts that their staff are expending to make flexible delivery work, current industrial agreements and existing human resource policy and practices have not kept pace with new ways of working, and nor do they adequately acknowledge the critical input of teaching and non-teaching staff.

• TAFE institutes have initiated some changes in human resource practices. However, much of the focus has been on professional development in line with national initiatives in the area. Minimal changes have been made to all other human resource practices although there has been experimentation. This study looks at human resource issues comprehensively, including job design, workforce planning, workload management, recruitment and selection, performance management, occupational health and safety, employee relations, and pay and conditions.

• Constraints in current human resource practices in relation to workload management, workforce planning and workplace development have hampered the effective implementation of flexible approaches to teaching.

• At the operational level, some managers work around these constraints by negotiating the content and conditions under which individuals and/or teams involved in flexible delivery will achieve required training outcomes.

• It is possible that locally negotiated arrangements such as these work for some of those involved in flexible delivery, but not others. Inconsistently applied, they have the potential to be inequitable, thus increasing tensions within and between various classifications of TAFE staff.

• There is a heavy reliance upon the goodwill of many teachers and administrative staff who are committed to learners and to the achievement of high-quality educational outcomes. Whether this goodwill can continue to be relied upon is a major concern for managers, especially those responsible for educational delivery.

• Industrial agreements and human resource policy and practice must change to reflect more adequately the true nature of the work being carried out by those engaged in flexible delivery.

• Sensible solutions to the barriers hindering effective implementation of flexible delivery can only be developed if the stakeholders (teachers, managers, unions) respect each other's views and collaborate to develop workable and equitable mechanisms to support effective flexible delivery.

• There is a plethora of effective solutions at the operational level that now need to be examined seriously by key stakeholders to inform systemic human resource policy development. Neither the retention of the status quo nor an ad hoc approach will serve TAFE well in the future.

The introduction of flexible delivery in vocational education and training (VET) in Australia has raised many issues for managers and practitioners alike. The advent of flexible delivery, along with other major initiatives in the national training system, has occurred within a climate of broader workplace change. So rapid has been the pace of change in the sector generally, that it is not surprising that human resource management policy and practice have not been able to accommodate adequately the diverse needs of the new workplace environment. For managers, teachers, administrative and other support staff, some of the constraints imposed by existing human resource management practices and industrial awards have been particularly acute.

Given these circumstances, this research sought to examine middle and senior management perspectives on the human resource management implications of flexible delivery within their organisations. At the same time, the study investigated changes in human resource practices resulting from the move to flexible delivery.

Because the literature and anecdotal evidence indicated that it was in large public providers that the ramifications of flexible delivery had been most keenly felt, the research specifically focused on technical and further education (TAFE) institutes. Unlike their private provider counterparts, these organisations face particular industrial and human resource management challenges when initiating substantial change which their significant pool of permanent staff will be required to implement.

Fifteen TAFE institutes agreed to participate in the research, with all but one of the mainland states and territories being represented in the sample. Given the strong focus upon human resource practice, the TAFE Industrial Relations Network was also invited to participate in the study. In addition, a framework of nine human resource elements were used in the analysis process. These elements include professional development, job design, workforce planning, recruitment and selection, performance management, pay and conditions, workload management, and occupational health and safety.

Seventy TAFE managers were interviewed, and of these, 51 also completed a questionnaire. Managers included chief executive officers; corporate, human resource management and educational delivery senior managers; and middle managers responsible for flexible delivery programs. Seven members of the TAFE Industrial Relations Network were interviewed.

Summary of findings and implications

Managers participating in this study understood flexible delivery as including online delivery, distance learning, workplace training and assessment, and a blend of online and face-to-face delivery. They acknowledged the value of flexible delivery in meeting the needs and expectations of learners, industry and the wider community. The capacity to deliver training in a range of modes, at times and locations suited to the specific requirements of clients, was seen to be a great advantage for TAFE institutes. In addition, flexible delivery had opened up opportunities for institutes to enter new markets, to make training more accessible and to solve some of the problems associated with small class sizes in areas of limited demand.

There was consensus amongst managers that the shift to more flexible teaching approaches had generated change in a number of ways, most significantly in the nature of teachers' work and the manner in which TAFE staff generally were being required to support flexible delivery. Managers noted a change to team-based approaches, new ways of communicating with colleagues and supervisors, and staff working in different locations over a greater range of days and hours. At the same time, there was general agreement about the increased administrative workload associated with flexible delivery.

Given these significant changes, how has human resource practice shifted in response? Managers identified that professional development was the aspect that had most changed, largely in response to national and state imperatives to build the capacity of the sector to engage more extensively in flexible delivery. No other aspects of human resource practice were seen to have been significantly amended to accommodate the introduction of flexible delivery. In fact, lack of change in human resource practice was perceived in some instances to be hampering effective implementation.

When asked to identify those areas of human resource management where change was required for more effective flexible delivery, participants indicated that aspects of workload management, job design, workforce planning, professional development, strategic management and the development of an appropriate organisational culture were the areas most in need of revision.

Workload management

Given the nature of flexible delivery, teachers were undertaking a range of activities in timeframes and in contexts which no longer clearly matched those described in existing industrial agreements. Workplace visits and assessment; extensive travel; working from home; responding to students seven days a week in an online environment; and the burgeoning administrative tasks which accompanied all of these activities have contributed to ever-increasing workloads.

Increasingly, teachers were expected to manage their workloads according to mutually agreed outcomes rather than according to a set number of annual hours (which currently encompasses a ratio between teaching and preparation hours).

Under these circumstances, existing definitions of what constitutes teachers' work and the agreed formulas for measuring teachers' time were seen as outdated and almost irrelevant by managers responsible for educational delivery who required diverse tasks to be undertaken by their staff.

One solution to the inflexibilities of existing industrial agreements generally being applied within the institutes was the use of locally negotiated workloads. These involved managers and staff, either individually or in teams, agreeing on what, how and when work was to be achieved. However, not all staff were in a position to enter into such arrangements and there was potential for locally negotiated agreements to be inequitable and to generate tension between categories of staff. Moreover, negotiated workloads were considered to make supervision of teachers more complex and difficult to manage.

Managers admitted that they relied on the goodwill of their staff who were committed to the achievement of high-quality educational outcomes, and they were concerned that the efforts of these staff could not be rewarded for work beyond that covered by industrial agreements.

Future industrial awards would need to adopt a much broader definition of what constitutes teachers' work and develop more sophisticated means of measuring that work.

Job design and workforce planning

Current approaches to job design and generic job description frameworks based on traditional modes of delivery were identified as constraining the capacity of TAFE institutes to successfully service flexible delivery. The new ways of working demanded adaptable people with a capacity to manage change and to make full use of information and communication technologies in their teaching. Existing job design and descriptions were inadequate to capture the technical expertise and teaching skills essential for those delivering in flexible learning environments. At the same time, managers suggested that the design and description of jobs for non-teaching support staff had to accommodate specific skills for working in flexible delivery teams.

The monitoring of skill sets and skill gaps was considered crucial to ensure that, in both the short and long term, new staff recruited to the workforce possessed the expertise to augment the existing flexible delivery skill base within institutes. As a component of succession planning, such a process also provided managers with the opportunity to adjust staff profiles as training needs changed, and as teachers left the workforce. While these comments were made with flexible delivery in mind, managers emphasised that these processes needed to be applied across the entire TAFE workforce.

Professional development, strategic management and developing an appropriate organisational culture

Despite the successes of national and state-based professional development initiatives, some context-specific training needs of individual teachers had remained unaddressed. Areas such as time management, managing change, instructional design and the use of a range of technologies were identified as crucial in flexible delivery, as were specific teaching and enhanced technical skills.

In order to bring about necessary changes in organisational culture, comprehensive professional development was needed to build the capacity of operational managers to effectively oversee flexible delivery teams and associated management processes. Early induction into flexible delivery was needed for new staff to ensure that they engaged with institute systems and delivery approaches. Indeed, managers stressed the importance of all staff who were involved in flexible delivery being able to access ongoing professional development activities to build and extend their skills.

Managers also indicated that a whole-of-organisation approach to flexible delivery, including its human resource management implications, was desirable. In this way TAFE institutes would be in a position to plan strategically in order to maximise the opportunities that flexible delivery offered. To achieve such an approach, clear directions must be set by senior and middle managers. Leadership was also nominated as the critical driver of the cultural change deemed necessary to accommodate the innovative human resource practices required by flexible delivery.

Finally, educational managers, human resource managers and unions must engage in full and frank consultation to generate workable solutions to the current barriers in human resource practice which are seen to be hindering effective implementation of flexible delivery. Neither the retention of the status quo nor an ad hoc approach to achieving solutions will serve TAFE, its clients or its staff well in the future.