Successful competence development requires careful planning; is an important conclusion of the research team responsible for the Nordic study on work-place learning. The organisation´s training needs must be taken into consideration in the overall development strategy and HR policies. Education organisations and enterprises are in dialogue when the best results are achieved.

A Nordic research team has analysed successful personnel training programmes and drawn up concrete guidelines for workplaces and educational institutions. The study was commissioned by the Steering Group for Adult Learning at the Nordic Council of Ministers and was collaboration between the Danish School of Education and Linköping University. It shows that a successful competence development process requires, above all, thorough planning and close co-operation between the educational institution and the workplace.

How can we combine learning at work with new theoretical knowledge? How can the workplace ensure that staff participating in a training programme will get to use their new competence? Many such questions must be answered during the planning phase to get optimal results out of competence development. Successful training programmes are typically tailored to the needs of the workplace and based on concrete challenges at the work-place. The research team stresses that effective competence development is achieved only through holistic thinking. The challenges for the adult education institutions are the new pedagogical competences needed and the new roles of educators; as well as keeping up with the latest developments of research and entering into a closer cooperation with the field of research.

The conclusions and recommendations that the report provides are based on the analyses of the success factors of six cases from 4 countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway). The research team has also designed 5 models of good practice and described the effects of such practice.

The report is available in Swedish / Danish.

(INFOnet)