As part of a consulting initiative to guide a workforce development board in the design of a strategic plan, the authors created instruction integrating systems thinking and design thinking for the board and staff. The purpose of this instruction was to foster participant engagement in a holistic approach to the development of a strategic plan for…

After tracking barriers of adult education learners pursuing their GED®, the Career Learning Center of the Black Hills (CLCBH) found that high rates of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and other trauma-related experiences led to an ongoing sense of helplessness and despair among many of our adult learners, in particular Native American…

This publication focuses on national and international policy initiatives to develop a better understanding of work-based learners and the types of flexibility that may well enhance their study especially pedagogically. As part of our five-strand research project "Flexible Pedagogies: preparing for the future" it: (1) highlights the…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has become a policy priority in many countries. A growing body of research recognises that it provides a wide range of benefits, including social and economic benefits, better child well-being and learning outcomes as a foundation for lifelong learning, more equitable outcomes and reduction of poverty, and…

Achieving coherence and integration across staff professional development activities is facilitated when training, coaching and staff evaluation are guided by a clearly articulated program theory or "theory of change" that describes how skillful practice promotes desired outcomes. We focus on a theory of change for wraparound, a widely implemented…

This article recounts successful strategies for increasing student staff commitment to the organization's vision and deadlines, inviting "buy in" for projects, and enhancing staff work relationships. The discussion will outline activities that have resulted in increased employee satisfaction with work, smoother interactions between coworkers,…

This book explores the perspectives of experienced practitioners, sharing ideas about building and sustaining organizational strength through workforce development practices and systems. As the saying goes, a company's greatest resource is its people. When managers really believe that and work to develop organizational capabilities, productivity,…

Training state vocational education staff to generate and utilize labor market data was the purpose of this project. The objectives were to develop the capability to generate and integrate into a management information system labor market supply and demand data compatible with vocational education taxonomies; to train selected staff to perform the…

With an increasingly smaller base of potential employees in long-term care facilities, especially Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), and an increasingly larger population of elderly persons needing their services, Salter Healthcare Services in Massachusetts has developed plans for retaining CNAs. Although the Salter Corporation has been…

Current workforce reform, known as Remodelling the School Workforce, is part of an enduring policy process where there have been tensions between public and private sector structures and cultures. I show that the New Right and New Labour governments who have built and configured site based performance management over the past quarter of a century…

The Personnel Development Program is essential to the national economic development of Taiwan, Republic of China. The program consists of vocational training, employment services, and a labor market information service. Thirteen public vocational training institutions, along with in-plant training programs, aim to increase the number of skilled…

Over the past year, two comprehensive studies of youth workers were coordinated by the Next Generation Youth Work Coalition. Together, these two studies, conducted by the Forum for Youth Investment and the National Afterschool Association, capture the voices and perspectives of over 5,000 youth workers from across the country. Together they offer…

An Irish bank's program for entry-level college-educated workers involved short-term training and long-term development activities, structured on-the-job training, personal development planning, peer learning groups, and learning logs. Retention increased 12%; 24% of these workers were promoted to management. The program was highly cost effective.…

This paper describes and analyzes general issues and examples of good practice in work-based learning relative to higher education in the United States, and applies them to comparable situations in the United Kingdom. Higher education has re-evaluated work-based learning to respond to changing socioeconomic conditions, such as the needs to…

Describes the rationale for a code of ethics and integrity in human resource development (HRD). Outlines the Academy of Human Resource Development's standards. Reviews ethical issues faced by the HRD profession. (SK)