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

Relations with external providers of training

External training

Before asking specifically about partnerships with RTOs, we asked if employers purchased training from any of a range of outside sources. Their answers are in Table 10.

Table 10 Use of external training providers

	No		A little		Some		A great deal		N who purchased	% of all respondents who purchased
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
TAFE Colleges	86	54.1	31	19.5	30	18.9	12	7.5	73	45.9
Universities	84	52.8	27	17.0	35	22.0	13	8.2	75	47.1
Private training providers	43	26.9	40	25.0	53	33.1	24	15.0	117	73.1
Equipment & product suppliers	59	36.9	35	21.9	43	26.9	23	14.4	101	63.1
Employer, industry or professional associations	62	38.8	31	19.4	42	26.3	25	15.6	98	61.2
Other			3	2.2	5	3.7	4	3.0	12	8.9

Note: The table provides the responses to Q 2.7 Has your organisation purchased (using its own or government funds) training from any of the following external providers? Respondents were asked to include on-site and off-site training,

The table shows that most employers were using a wide range of training providers, and in fact TAFE and universities were least-used. However 28 employers answered ‘no’ to all types of providers – i.e. they did not purchase any external training. Micro-employers were most likely not to use any external training. In interpreting the table it needs to be emphasized that there is no assumption in this particular table that the training purchased is necessarily part of the formal VET system.

Analysis by employer size showed that the proportion of employers purchasing training increased steadily with employer size except that large employers (500+ employees) purchased less from TAFE and from universities than medium employers; and slightly less than medium employers from employer or professional associations. Micro employers were most likely to use private RTOs and equipment and product suppliers.

The potential benefits of external training providers (from provided choices in Question 2.8) were clustered into two main groups, albeit with little difference between the frequencies

Most commonly reported potential benefits: Opportunity for employees to have wider viewpoint, providers’ content expertise and providers’ training expertise (85% agreement). Of this group of reasons, gaining a wider viewpoint had more ‘great deal of benefit’ responses.

Commonly reported potential benefits: Availability of a range of qualifications, useful when only one or a few people require training, more resource efficient than providing in-house (82% agreement). Of this group of reasons, the availability of a range of qualifications had more ‘great deal of benefit’ responses.

The least-selected reason was ‘opportunity for employees to have time away to think’, but still 70% of all responding employers thought this was a benefit.

Respondents were asked whether they were satisfied with the training that they purchased. In order of satisfaction the proportions were:

Employer industry and professional associations 83.6%;

Universities 82.0%;

Equipment and produce suppliers 79.2%;

Private training providers 80.0%;

TAFE 66.1%.

By size, the main differences were that micro employers were more likely to be satisfied with TAFE (86% of micro employers who used TAFE) and that large employers were more likely to be satisfied with private training providers (87.1%).

We asked those who were dissatisfied to give reasons for their dissatisfaction. As some respondents had indicated multiple sources of dissatisfaction, it was not always possible to attribute their responses to a particular type of provider. Comments from respondents who indicated multiple dissatisfaction included:

Trainers have little work life experience so you only get what is in the manual

I’ve yet to see a program that justifies the cost. No real standout yet, but still looking and researching

Service

Not qualified.

Some qualitative responses were provided by respondents who had indicated a single source of dissatisfaction. The following unique responses were recorded in relation to TAFE: ‘The training provided by TAFE is often not of a high enough level’, ‘The teachers weren’t of good quality, [and] weren’t teaching the right thing’; ‘Not all the strategy could be achieved’. For private providers, there was just one unique comment: ‘Poor options’ and for employer, industry or professional associations, again just one: ‘Not as effective as expected’.

Relationships and partnership with RTOs

Earlier in this section, the use of external training providers was discussed, as was the general use of nationally recognised training. We now move on to discuss, specifically, partnerships with RTOs for the purpose of providing nationally recognised training to employees.

Of all the respondents, slightly less than half (45.1%) had an arrangement of some sort with an external RTO to provide nationally recognised training. Employers were invited to detail all of their types of arrangement (formal and informal) with TAFE and non-TAFE RTOs. 29 employers (19%) had formal partnerships with TAFE, and 22 (14.4%) with other RTOs. Slightly smaller numbers had informal but on-going partnerships. 31 employers (20.3%) had ad hoc arrangements with RTOs as necessary. Three stated that they were enterprise RTOs but two of these also had arrangements with other RTOs. The most important single relationships with external RTOs were, in descending order: Ad hoc arrangements, Formal (TAFE,) Formal (non-TAFE). By size, where numbers permitted analysis, this order did not vary.

132 employers reported on the nature of training delivery in these arrangements. They were asked to select one choice from a provided list of modes of training. Responses to the provided options were as follows:²

Mostly at the RTO’s premises: 34.9%

About half and half: 31.7

Mostly on-site by the RTO: 17.5%

Mostly on-site delivered by ‘our’ (the employer’s) trainers and moderated by the RTO: 15.9%

In other words, around two-thirds of the employers sent employees to training at the RTO for some or all of their training, and around one-third of the employers received most or all of the training for their workers at their own premises. In differences by size of employer, large, medium and small employers were somewhat more likely to have training at their own premises, and micro employers were much more likely to have RTO-based training.

Employers were on the whole satisfied, but not especially happy with, with the training that was received from the RTOs that they utilised. Thinking about the training provider with whom they did the largest portion of their training business, all items scored over a 69% satisfaction rate (‘satisfied’ signifying 4, 5, or 6 out of a six-point scale). But the mean responses (out of 6) for satisfaction with various items relating to training delivery were not particularly high:

Skill of the trainer delivering the qualification/skill set: 4.19

Quality of feedback provided to the learner: 4.17

Quality of resources provided: 4.16

Currency of resources provided: 4.10

Efficient use of learning technologies: 4.10

Qualification/skill set was assessed at the appropriate level: 4.09

Volume of learning received: 4.02.

By employer size, the data show that satisfaction increased steadily with the size of the employer on all items, with a few minor variations.

Satisfaction with partnership

Employers were asked to think about the one training provider with whom they did most of their business and to answer a number of questions about their satisfaction with that provider. The items have been divided below into those relating to the process of the partnership and those relating to the operation of the training. As with the previous section they were asked to report satisfaction on a scale of 1 (‘highly dissatisfied’) to 6 (‘highly satisfied’) and the mean scores are provided below.

Table 11 provider performance

Partnership ‘Process’ items: Mean scores

‘Partnership ‘Operational’ items: Mean scores

Quality of RTO’s communication with us: 4.18 Commitment shown by RTO’s staff to make the partnership a success: 4.17 RTO’s level of planning within the partnership: 4.13 The administrative arrangements the RTO puts in place to manage the day-today issues arising in the partnership: 4.12 RTO’s ability to establish trust: 4.11 The RTO’s willingness to adopt a long-term perspective in judging the success of the partnership: 4.08

RTO’s willingness to customise training to meet our needs: 4.13 RTO’s flexibility in providing different delivery modes for the training: 4.11 RTO’s flexibility with staffing arrangements: 4.08 RTO’s success in customising the training: 4.04 RTO’s willingness to make changes to the nature of the on-the-job training that they deliver: 4.03 RTO’s openness to experimentation: 3.94 RTO’s willingness to make changes to the nature of the off-the-job training: 3.94

As with the previous section, overall satisfaction was quite high, with overall satisfaction (4, 5, or 6 out of 6) at 67% or above for nearly all items. The only items scoring lower than this were: The RTO’s openness to experimentation (60.5% satisfaction) and the RTO’s willingness to make changes to the nature of the off-the-job training (63.3%).

Interestingly, larger employers were much more likely to report satisfaction with their training providers than smaller employers, with differences of 20 percentage points or more between large (500+ employees) and micro employers for some items: quality of communication with the employers, commitment of RTO’s staff to making the partnership a success, willingness to customise training, success in customising training, flexibility in modes of delivery, and the RTO’s level of planning with the partnership.