'There are workplace trainers and then there are workplace trainers': re-conceptualising their role as workers and trainers

Abstract

Recent attention has focused on the pervasiveness of informal learning in the workplace and the important role played by workers in fostering the learning of their work colleagues (Harris and Simons 1999). This has raised some significant questions with regard to the role of the workplace trainer and how that role might be conceptualised. In the light of the presenters' findings from a National Research and Evaluation Committee (NREC) funded research study on workplace trainers, this paper offers a critique of the current conception of the role of workplace trainer as represented in the Training Package for Assessment and Workplace Training. Then, drawing on network learning theory, distinctions are drawn between different types of workplace trainers. In particular, the paper focuses on the roles of trainers primarily located in the workplace and the roles of trainers primarily located in training providers, but who also enter organisations to train workers. A model, highlighting how workplace trainers act on and within the learning and work networks in their enterprises to facilitate learning, is presented and discussed.

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