Continuity and change: employers’ training practices and partnerships with training providers

Note: *Not included responses in 2002 survey
9. Performance of the organisation in partnering with industry or with specific employers (perceived levels of satisfaction) (RTO Survey 2015 – Q17: Callan & Ashworth Survey 2002, p.54)

	2015			2002
	TAFE			VET Providers
	N	% Sat	Mean	% Sat
Our ability to establish trust	18	100.0	4.67	87.6
Our willingness to customise training to meet industry needs	17	94.4	4.89	87.6
Our success in customising the training	17	94.4	4.44	86.3
The financial returns to us in the longer term	16	88.9	4.33	79.4
The commitment shown by our staff to make the partnerships a success	15	83.3	4.44	82.1
Our level of planning within the partnership	15	83.3	3.89	76.7
Our willingness to adopt a long-term perspective in judging the success of the partnership	14	77.8	3.89	79.4
Our flexibility in providing different delivery modes for the training	14	77.8	4.28	75.3
The quality of our communication with the industry partner	13	72.2	4.00	89.0
The financial returns to us to date	13	72.2	4.00	67.1
Our willingness to make changes to the nature of the on-the-job training that we deliver	13	72.2	4.11	N/A
Our willingness to make changes to the nature of the off-the-job training	12	66.7	4.17	84.9
Our openness to experimentation	12	66.7	4.17	83.5
Our application of financial measures to determine the success of the partnering	12	66.7	4.00	64.3
Our application of non-financial measures to determine the success of the partnering	11	61.1	3.67	65.7
Our flexibility with staffing arrangements	8	44.4	3.22	75.3
The administrative arrangements we put in place to manage the day-to-day issues arising in such partnerships	6	33.3	3.17	72.6

10. Performance of the industry partners (levels of satisfaction by RTO). (RTO Survey 2015 – Q20: Callan & Ashworth Survey 2002, p.55)

	2015			2002
	TAFE			VET
	N	% Sat	Mean	% Sat
Their ability to establish trust with us	17	94.4	5.38	73.2
Their willingness to customise the training	16	94.1	5.02	74.6
The financial returns to them to date	15	93.8	4.95	64.7
Their openness to experimentation with the training model	16	88.9	4.80	70.4
The commitment shown by their staff to make such partnerships a success	15	88.2	4.84	71.8
Their success in customising the training on the job	15	88.2	5.02	69.0
Their application of financial measures to determine the success of the partnering	15	88.2	4.67	59.1
The quality of their communication with us	14	87.5	4.84	66.2
Their application of non-financial measures to determine the success of the partnering	13	86.7	4.82	52.1
The financial returns to them in the longer term	15	88.2	5.05	74.6
Their willingness to adopt a long-term perspective in judging the success of the partnership	15	88.2	4.93	69.0
The administrative arrangements they put place to manage the day-to-day issues arising in such partnerships	14	82.4	4.67	57.7
Willingness to make changes to the nature of the on-the-job training that they deliver	13	81.3	5.07	63.3
Their flexibility in facilitating different delivery modes for the training	14	77.8	4.91	57.7
Their level of planning within the partnership	12	70.6	4.86	60.5
Their flexibility with staffing arrangements	12	70.6	4.73	56.3

11. Effectiveness of RTO staff who do partnering. (RTO Survey 2015 – Q25: Callan & Ashworth Survey 2002, p.53)

	2015			2002
	TAFE			VET Providers
	N Agree	% Agree	Mean	% Agree
Building personal relationships with the industry partner	18	100.0	5.06	95.7
Showing real interest in partners’ proposals and concerns	17	94.4	5.06	81.4
Employer liaison	17	94.4	4.56	80.0
Setting shared goals with the industry partner	16	88.9	4.39	85.7
Doing training needs analyses	16	88.9	4.56	80.0
Negotiation skills	15	83.3	4.33	71.4
Identifying and managing risk in the partnership	14	77.8	3.83	67.1
Winning the job	13	72.2	4.00	82.8
Providing information and regular feedback to the organisation about the performance of partnerships that they manage	13	72.2	3.94	75.7
Project management	12	66.7	3.78	70.0
Marketing what we can do	12	66.7	4.06	67.1
Legal and contractual arrangements	8	44.4	3.50	44.2

1^ Other employers in 2003 were accessed via a sample from the Dunn and Bradstreet commercial database, Human Resource Manager list.

2^ ‘Other’ responses (n=6) were removed from the analysis

3^ Note: A specially adapted version of the 2003 survey was sent to all enterprise RTOs. This was not done in 2015 because of other research being done on enterprise RTOs, and only two enterprise RTOs were captured in the 2015 sample. In the 2015 data they were not separated out from the other employers.

4^ Page numbers for data from Callan & Ashworth (2004) are provided in the table headers.

5^ Page numbers for data from Callan & Ashworth (2004) are provided in the table headers.

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