ON-LINE GRANTS SURVEY AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEES Regional Skills Forums: 17-20 June 2014

Outline

• • • Mandatory and Discretionary Grant on-line application Survey Skills Development Committee (SDC) findings CHIETA Skills Development Facilitator and SDC guidelines

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

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About the Survey

Designed to test customer satisfaction levels with the Mandatory Grants (MG) and Discretionary Grants (DG) and Strategic Projects on-line application – Focused on external and internal users • Also looked briefly at the functioning of the Skills Development Committees, as a basis for possible further research into this area later in the year • Survey sent electronically, using SurveyMonkey, to all people who had submitted an online application either for MG, DG or Strategic Project – 1118 people

Part 1 survey Part 2 survey * 1118 250 # sent to 72 # responses 250 % response 22% 29%

* Part 2 survey was required as, at the time of undertaking the survey (later know as Part 1) the last 2 steps of the DG process which were not live

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

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About the Survey (ctd)

Respondents

– 88% of respondents were from CHIETA levy paying companies – balance Public & Private E&T providers, NGOs, one Government Department etc – – Good spread across subsectors and provinces 53% of respondents were small (27%) or medium (26%) organisations; 40% were large organisations and 7% were micro organisations – Only 30% of respondents indicated that they were the dedicated SDF for the organisations.

– 26% gave titles that indicated that they had other HR roles, and 28% of respondents had other senior line management titles

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

MG: summary of opinions

Registering SDF Registering Org Completing Verification Doc Completing Finance Sec Completing Scarce Skills Sec Completing Excel Source Data Uploading Source Data Downloading WSP/ATR 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Very easy and efficient Fairly easy and efficient Okay Quite difficult and time consuming Very difficult and time consuming

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

MG: summary of opinions (ctd)

35 30 No who indicated was ‘very’ or ‘quite’ difficult 25 20 15 10 5 8 0 5 11 12 27 33 19 10 11

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

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MG: summary of opinions (ctd)

Completing the Excel Source Data (particularly OFO mapping) and Scarce Skills (the concept and the OFO mapping) sections gave respondents the most problems In general, there are a few technical problems with the system itself, which may need ironing out, and particularly the excel sheet could probably be made more user friendly A few respondents indicated that the problems were internal to their organisations, or that they had struggled initially but were confident it would get easier: 67% of respondents who had completed the application more than once said it had got ‘much’ easier or a ‘bit’ easier.

There are some general ‘knowledge’ gaps which the CHIETA could look at filling, particularly around scarce skills and the OFO codes: how to ‘match’ these more accurately to internal job titles

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

Views on different stages of DG process

Registering SDF Registering Org Adding/Managing Learning Projects Downloading MoA Uploading signed MoA/s: Completing and uploading learner schedule: 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100% Very easy and efficient Fairly easy and efficient Okay Quite difficult and time consuming Very difficult and time consuming

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

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Views on the DG process

Generally positive responses For those respondents who found it quite or very difficult and time consuming, most indicated that they felt that the system was not particularly user friendly, and was difficult to navigate. The areas where people struggled were with adding and managing learning projects and with completing and uploading the learner schedule. In relation to adding learning programmes, some problems were noted with generating the PIVOTAL report.

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Suggestions made included: ongoing projects should have a separate section where current information can be stored; inclusion of a text box to allow people to put comments in for later reference. With regard to completing and uploading the learner schedule, the main concern raised was relating to the number of records and level of detail that was required.

Issues raised included:

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Inconsistency between the actual application and the report generated

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Multiple MoAs was a concern In response to the question regarding how quickly they received a response from the CHIETA, either in the form of correspondence or payment, once they had completed the Discretionary Grant Application procedure, most respondents felt that the CHIETA had acted timeously in responding to them

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

45%

Comparing MG & DG views (overall)

40% 15% 10% 5% 0% 35% 30% 25% 20%

Very easy and efficient Fairly easy and efficient Okay Quite difficult and time consuming Very difficult and time consuming

MG DG

Not at all efficient

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

Views on Support Provided

Slightly efficient Somewhat efficient Very efficient Extremely efficient 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% CHIETA Support IT Aware Support

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

‘‘Workplace Committees’ In the survey the term Workplace Committee was used in relation to any committee involving employee reps that dealt with skills development matters.

The nature of the committee was then probed

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CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

‘Workplace Committees’

• • • 196 respondents answered the question as to whether they had a workplace committee: 57% indicated that they did NOT have a committee When asked why, the most likely response was that the organisation had less than 50 employees, as seen to the right 88 out of the 120 respondents who indicated that they had a Committee said that the Committee had signed off on the application – 73% 5% 1% 16% 8% 70% We have less than 50 employees We don’t have trade unions in our company It is not our company’s policy to consult labour representatives on skills development The trade unions have refused to participate in a Workplace Committee

20%

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

Type of Committee

10% 27% 43% SDC EEC Combined SDC/EE Committee Other • • 43% of respondents indicated that they have a dedicated SDC, while 27% indicated that they discussed skills development matters at their EEC.

In terms of ‘other’, 3 respondents indicated that skills development was discussed at Safety Committee meetings

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

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Length of time Committee has been functioning

Workplace Committees are fairly well established, with only 15% having been functioning for a year or less, and 34% having been functioning for more than 5 years 34% 26% A year or less 15% 25% Between one and two years Between three and five years More than five years

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Improvements in Skills Planning using the Committee?

• It’s much better It’s slightly better It’s about the same It’s slightly worse It’s a lot worse • Respondents who’s Committee had been functioning for a year or more were asked whether they thought that skills planning had improved: 63 said it had got ‘slightly’ or ‘much’ better Three respondents who said it had got ‘slightly’ or ‘a lot’ worse’ attributed this to experienced members having left the Committee

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

How closely does the Committee work

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with the SDF?

64% of respondents indicated that the Committee and the SDF work ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ closely.

One respondent who said that they did not work together very closely indicated that this was because the Committee was still new, while another indicated that there were problems within the Union which precluded closer working relationships. Two indicated that ‘management’ still determines training requirements.

23% 10% Very closely Quite closely 3% 24% 40% Somewhat closely Not very closely We never engage

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

What is the nature of the discussions

8% 40% 7%

at the Committee?

6% • 45% said discussions were ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ constructive • 39% Extremely constructive Very constructive Somewhat constructive Slightly constructive Not at all constructive Three people who said discussions were not constructive indicated that this was due to a lack of understanding of the role of the Committee (only 31 respondents indicated that the Committee had received training), while another three indicated that there were tensions between what the unions wanted and what the organisation needed: – “Unions don't want training

that is PIVOTAL as they don't see value for themselves or

people.”

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

How often does the Committee meet?

1% • • Respondents were asked how often the Committee met during the last (2013) WSP/ATR submission process – 35% indicated that it had met twice, and 25% once, at the end of the process.

Only one respondent indicated that it had met six or more times during the process.

21% 35% 18% 25% Once, at the beginning of the process Once, at the end of the process Twice during the whole process Three to five times during the process Six or more times during the process

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

Way forward

• • • CHIETA thanks those who participated in the survey We will give consideration to all views raised in relation to continuous improvement of our processes A SDC survey focusing on input from organised labour/employee representatives will be conducted

CHIETA, The Catalyst for Enhanced Skills, Economic Growth and Employability

CHIETA SDF and SDC guidelines

• • Purpose it to guide employers and employees within the chemical sector regarding Skills Development Facilitators and Skills Development Committees and to guide the CHIETA 2014-2015 Strategic Project on Skills Development Committee Support

See Handout

We value your input

• • • To flag issues requiring CHIETA attention and/or suggestions for improvements to: On-line Mandatory Grants submissions On-line Discretionary Grants and/ Strategic Project submissions Functioning of SDCs including the CHIETA Guidelines please email: [email protected]