Work-based degrees: driving improvement

According to American business magazine, Forbes (2013) the ‘most intelligent’ organisations hire on future success, not on what candidates know today. The first five, among the top 15 traits of the ‘ideal employee’ are suggested to be: action-orientation, intelligence, ambition, autonomy, and display of leadership. In the middle, we have cultural fit, up-beat-ness, confidence, a track record of success, and honesty. The bottom five are being detail-orientated, modesty, hard work, marketability, and passion. Forbes Magazine concludes: “You can train an employee on your product or service, but you can’t train someone to have integrity, resiliency, selfconfidence and work ethic.”

You may not be able to train the above professional standards into people. However, there is strong evidence that through workbased education, you can create a far more motivated, well performing, and qualityconscious employee. Nancy Dixon, author of ‘The Organisational learning cycle’ (1999) asserts: “Learning is part of work and work involves learning; these are not separate functions but intertwined.” It seems that training employees on products and services is simply not enough anymore

Author of ‘The 5th discipline: the art and practice of the learning organisation’ Peter Senge made this point in the 1990s: “Articulating a clear vision, incentives for employees, and lots of training isn’t enough in the light of intensifying competition, advancing technology, and shifts in customer needs and expectations.” Instead, Senge continued, “companies should become learning organisations.”