Author(s): Colette Cassidy
Department: Dublin City University and St. Michael's House
Keywords: Training and Development: Work: voluntary sector
The present study is a case study that explores the
influence of work environment characteristics on staff participation in
training and development activities in a voluntary sector organisation
providing services to people with learning disability. Work environment characteristics will be
measured using subscales of a questionnaire developed by Noe and Wilk (1993),
which measure social support (co-worker and manager), situational constraints
and career exploration and planning. A
subscale of a questionnaire developed by Maurer and Tarulli (1994) which
measures employees’ perceptions about the extent to which their organisation
seems to value and emphasise employee learning is also used.
A three year time frame is being used because this
period represents a time during which there was considerable investment in
training in the organisation following an extensive training needs analysis
conducted in 1996. Furthermore, it
represents a reasonable time scale for employees to remember which courses they
have completed. Participation in
training and development will be measured using self-report by employees of:
(i)
Number of in-service
courses completed in the past three years (since January 1997)
(ii)
Number of externally
run seminars and conferences attended in the past three years (since January
1997)
(iii)
Number of
professional courses completed in the past three years (since January 1997)
(iv)
Current participation
in professional training course(s).
The study also explores employees’ evaluation of
the training activities they have attending in St. Michael’s House. This will be measured using a subscale from a
questionnaire developed by Noe and Wilk (1993).
The aim of the study is to determine if work
environment characteristics in St. Michael’s House influence employee
participation in training and development activities. It will also investigate how employees
evaluate previous training and development activities.