bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
school/industry liaison
Authors: REYNOLDS KEITH
Published: February 2008

I was recently given a May 1978 copy of Industrial and Commercial Training by Stuart Sinfield who, as Education and Development Manager of A A Jones and Shipman Ltd, Leicester, was interested in my reaction to his article on ‘The Engineering Option’. This article, along with some of the points raised by Professor C H Dobinson and more particularly John Wellens' ‘Comment’ have prompted me not only to put a teacher's point of view, but also to attempt to draw together a number of ideas that may explain the paradox of practical subjects teaching in school. Nearly a year has passed since the May 1978 edition was published, but in relation to the time scale of changes in education this is not so long ago.
Total training the Training of the Eighties
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

There is a lot of talk nowadays about the broad view of training. The question arises: Just what is to be accepted as coming within the term Training? At one time the training world was divided into two camps: those who saw training as job instruction and those who were prepared to accept any means of improving human performance as coming within the meaning of the word Training. The two basic approaches can be described as the narrow view (although the term conventional training is perhaps kinder) and the broad view. Although we still have a sizeable camp holding the narrow view, the broad view can be said, by the end of the seventies, to have won the day. This present article is a formal presentation of the broad view of training. As we move into the eighties with its new challenges in the field of work and employment, one need is to clarify the contribution which the trainer can make towards smoothing the transition into tomorrow's world. In this task the narrow view of training is quite inadequate; it is the broad view which is called for. This article is intended as a discussion paper on the trainer's role in the eighties. A debate on what is meant by the term Training would be wholly sterile and academic; it is to be avoided. It is better to discuss what comes within the trainer's province. That is the approach used in this article.
Computer controlled trainers
Authors: BROTHERS ALAN C
Published: February 2008

In today's complex world, mechanised to a degree once thought impossible and draining valuable resources of the earth dry in the quest for even greater progress, one valuable resource stands above all others — manpower. Throughout history, the ability of each country to develop fully and successfully has been dependent on the effective utilisation of manpower. In today's world, the key is still manpower; while physical resources diminish, the hope of overcoming dependence on these resources by exploring new ways to use others lies in the minds of men. We can no longer depend on strength and endurance alone to ensure success; as each country of the world strives for self‐sufficiency, it becomes more and more important that a skilled workforce keyed to today's high degree of technology be available. The transfer of this technology from one mind to another is no longer as simple as in the days when trades were passed on from father to son, or from master craftsmen to their apprentices. The sophistication of today's technology calls for equally sophisticated training programs.
The repertory grid in action
Authors: HONEY PETER
Published: February 2008

Whenever you want to give someone feedback about how you perceive them or, get feedback about how they perceive you you can use the Repertory Grid Technique (Repgrid). This article will show you how to use the Repgrid to generate feedback amongst the members of a group. This could be useful on many occasions. For example I have used it to surface interpersonal issues amongst project teams of various kinds and with groups where differences of opinion were impairing their performance. In this article I shall concentrate on describing the way I use the Repgrid as a self‐insight exercise halfway through an interactive skills course. The aims of the exercise are • To give each course member feedback about how others perceive them so that they can build on strengths and overcome weaknesses during the second half of the course. • To give each course member some insight into what they notice about other people and how it fits in with the conclusions they reach about them. The idea is to jolt them into being both more observant and careful in reaching conclusions about people. The whole exercise takes about half a day, but that includes some group work as you will see, and could be adapted for use on any programme where issues to do with behaviour, feelings, attitudes and perceptions are high on the agenda.
Management development
Authors: TERRY PAT
Published: February 2008

Management Development seems to lend itself to interminable controversy, is it manager or management development? How does it differ from organisation development? What is the difference between training and development? While these questions excite discussion among trainers and personnel specialists, the results of the arguments do little to help managers understand what management development is supposed to achieve.
More leisure, more work?
Authors: BLANCHARD FRANCIS
Published: February 2008

The very first convention adopted by the ILO at its Washington Conference in 1919 concerned hours of work. It set the goal of a 48‐hour week.
Views on Making Experience Work
Authors: KAUFMAN M , WILLIAMS ROY , WEEDALL ALBERT
Published: February 2008

In spite of its enthusiasm for cuts in public spending and social provision, the government has not yet wielded the axe to lop off significant sums from the MSC Youth Opportunity Programme (YOP) for the young unemployed. The reason is all too clear. There is every prospect that even more school‐leavers will soon find themselves on the scrap‐heap of rejects before ever being allowed to participate in purposeful employment. No government can contemplate such a scene without appearing to react, if only because of its possible explosive social and political consequences. Hence, this administration (like that in many other countries) continues to sanction various schemes designed to provide young unemployed with some positive form of work experience, even while they cannot find paid employment. Nearly 100,000 youngsters were involved last year.
Assertiveness‐training people in oranisations
Authors: BACK KEN , BACK KATE
Published: February 2008

In our previous article we introduced the concept of Assertiveness and identified some of the benefits that can follow from people in organisations becoming more assertive. In this article we move on to answer the question: ‘How do we go about training people to become more assertive?’ We home in on the assertiveness courses we've conducted: • identifying some of the areas that we cover • considering the main issues that typically arise within them. Towards the end of the article we make some points relating assertiveness training to some of the other forms of behaviour training with which the reader may be familiar.
Commando tactics in exporting
Authors: de LOOZE H
Published: February 2008

The UK chemical industry has a very impressive record of export achievements in recent years. It is vigorous and successful and has grown considerably faster than most British industries, especially in terms of sales in overseas markets. It achieved a positive balance of payments of about £1500 million in 1977, it employs around six per cent of all those in UK manufacturing, and with a capital spending programme which accounts for some fifteen per cent of the total of all manufacturing industry in this country, has a massive impact throughout the economy. It accounts for ten per cent of the value of total industry output and in 1978 about thirty four per cent of chemicals sales were exported. It has, then, an enormous potential to contribute still more to the development of the UK economy.
Urban birth not urban blight
Authors: LOWNDES RICHARD
Published: February 2008

I remember some ten years ago taking my children north across the Woolwich ferry, making for the highest tower block of flats we could see, and taking the lift to the top floor as this was the only way to get a good view into London's docks. Stretched out below were the oblongs of water, holding the ships etched in black and white with vivid bands of colour round their funnels, overhung with the tracery of cranes and derricks. Today there is no need for such complications: one can drive straight through Gate 19 into King George V docks, along the wide empty roads to the waterfront. I saw two ships moored on the north side, “Bunga Orchid”, carrying containers which were handled by the traditional cranes, and “El Flamingo”, carrying timber. Each was some 6,000 tons and each was importing — historically the trade was either import or export at one berth, not both, for congestion precluded the double operation. Today there is no congestion. The great sheds and lines of grey cranes are still there, and with them the small brick block offices of the shipping companies who have long gone. In one such block on the south side, a small firm, Advanced Battery Systems (Pb) Ltd, has taken up residence, having started originally in temporary accommodation at what was once the Medical Centre of the National Dock Labour Board. From the upper floor of the company's new home the skyline of tower blocks, chimneys, cranes and the occasional church spire is bright on a sharp December morning.
Management games
Authors: MURHY S
Published: February 2008

Most authors see the origins of Management Games in ancient board games such as checkers and chess, played on squared boards. Games such as these have, of course, been with us for a long time with the distant origins of chess traced back to the 6th century BC.
Management style
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

Management style is associated with McGregor and his Theory X‐Theory Y, which he introduced in 1960. Comparatively little change in ideas about preferred styles took place throughout the sixties and seventies, once McGregor had established his approach, until around 1976 or so when social scientists began to look more closely into Japan's successful formula. As a result, one group of investigators claim to have identified an A style which grows out of American culture and a J style which grows out of the Japanese. These differ fundamentally in essential details and one new approach is to seek a hybrid style, known by the investigators as the Z style, which incorporates the best of both cultures. The terms A, J and Z, though not yet in wide usage, are beginning to creep into the literature and might eventually find their way into the manager's vocabulary, but in any case, the review of these new styles makes a valuable contribution to the study of management style. As seminar material this article is important in that it relates management style to the socio‐political environment.
The qualies and responsibilities of the social skills trainer
Authors: FRASER TONY , PHILLIPS KERI
Published: February 2008

The first article in this series outlined a range of options which the social skills trainer has when deciding how to design and run his training programmes. We also emphasised that there was no need for the trainer to attach himself too rigidly to one approach and that during a single training event he could give his course members the opportunity to learn through ‘thinking’, ‘doing’ and ‘feeling’. The second article concentrated on the crucial nature of feedback in social skills training, exploring different types of feedback and looking at the different ways in which it could be given. This third and final article describes the skills which the trainer needs to acquire and develop, and looks at the responsibilities he is likely to have. The points we make apply particularly to the types of courses which are based largely on a ‘feelings’ approach and which in broad terms are concerned to examine the nature of the relationships between the course members. However, we believe that the article will be of interest to anybody who has an interest in social skills training.
Bridging the gap
Authors: CARMICHAEL CH
Published: February 2008

The Army recognises two types of soldier, the combatant ‘teeth arm’ soldier and the ‘services’ supporting him. Regardless of the interdependence of the two groups, precedence is given to the combatant since in the final analysis it is he who projects the right missile at the right time on to the right target to win the battle. Knowing this, he is given a recognisable sense of purpose which he willingly responds to. Similarly, in an economy, the wealth creating sector, in all logic should take precedence. This does not appear to be the case in Britain. If it were, then more young people would willingly enter commerce and industry as a career. They would recognise the value of their calling, at whatever level, and would commit themselves to continue the process of successfully developing the enterprises they joined. In turn, they would be fully supported and esteemed by the rest of the community.
ECIS special course for careers officers
Authors: George Arthur
Published: February 2008

The centre was one of several used recently for visits by small groups of the 36 members of the course during a week which was devoted to engineering. The Engineering Industry Training Board's office in Newcastle, acting on behalf of the Engineering Careers Information Service, was responsible for organising the programme with Des Hall, the course leader, and Janet Smith, a senior lecturer from the Polytechnic, lending advice and help.
A New Initiative in Action Learning
Authors: Revans RW
Published: February 2008

Under the title Long‐Term Trends in Productivity Professor Revans, high priest of Action Learning, has issued the following statement through his publishers. We have given the piece a different title and reproduced it in full. It refers to a project for bringing the techniques of Action Learning to bear on a study of global economics and prosperity. Our own interest in the paper stems from our belief that the managerial interest should have more influence on the formation of national policy on how the economy is to be run and, in particular, on wealth creation.
Training the marketing decision makers
Authors: ALDRIDGE KEVIN
Published: February 2008

Since the 1964 Industrial Training Act the level and quality of industrial training has improved considerably. Basic training systems are now very sound, especially in those companies who are exempt from training levy. Few people would question the importance of systematic training for all industrial jobs from the machine operator to the managing director. Good training will invariably be designed to contribute to the improvement of job performance. The achievements of the past 15 years are now leading to some interesting and in many cases more effective approaches to training especially in the areas of management development. Traditional training methods are rightly being questioned and alternative approaches developed. This article describes one such alternative which is particularly valuable for training the marketing decision maker.
Employee involvement in the brewery industry
Authors: BAILEY JOHN
Published: February 2008

In this article the author describes how a large national brewery as part of an overall strategy of increasing employee involvement restructured the jobs and organisation of a Distribution Department which led, not only to improvements in customer service and productivity, but also in job satisfaction and industrial relations.
Staff training for appraisal interviewing
Authors: WINFIELD IAN
Published: February 2008

The first wave of interest in appraisal interviewing took place in the late 60's and 70's. That particular wave culminated in such classic studies and texts as Anstey et al 1976, Randell et al 1974, and many others. After something of a lull in interest there now appears once again to be a revival in staff training for appraisal. The reasons behind this re‐emergence of interest must of course lie in our current experience of de‐industrialisation, labour‐shedding and rationalisation. Today's Training Manager, either starting a company appraisal scheme afresh or intending to rekindle interest in an existing one, will quickly find that attitudes towards appraisal interviewing have changed. They differ drastically from those of five or ten years ago. Gone is the naive faith in appraisals as a panacea to cure all ills; gone is the immediate seduction of a behaviourally‐based performance objectives approach; tarnished is the shibboleth of better two‐way communication. Nowadays, by and large, the unspoken feeling so often is one of suspicion: rating systems are viewed as distasteful; public recording of performance is seen as potentially threatening, and all documentation related to appraisal systems is scrutinized and criticised by all and sundry within organisations. Yet schemes have to be implemented afresh, personnel have to be convinced of the usefulness of schemes and the Training Manager must ensure that all his staff know the mechanics of his company scheme.
Self insight assessment centre
Authors: STEEL VIC , HOWARD BRIAN
Published: February 2008

These are the sort of comments which a programme leader in a Self Insight Assessment Centre comes to accept, but they are always exciting because it means that the main objective of the programme is being met. That is the identification of strengths and development needs against job related criteria in job related situations.
Desk‐top computers and word processors
Authors: BENSTER BRIAN
Published: February 2008

Some three years ago, the Microprocessor (Silicon Chip) made the news and it has scarcely been out of it since. Actually, the chip appeared round about ten years ago but the commercial use has only come to the forefront recently. Initially, the impact was felt in electronics design and research institutions and this quickly progressed into industrial applications. This was the subject of an article in the October 1978 issue of I.C.T.
Vision screening for training and job performance
Authors: ONGAR PAUL E
Published: February 2008

Ninety per cent of the information used in performing one's daily work — whatever its nature — reaches the brain via the eyes. These eyes therefore must be working efficiently before the worker himself can do so.
The bridge from school to work
Authors: HOLLAND GEOFFREY
Published: February 2008

It is a common place that this country is passing through a difficult structural transition. Changes of far‐reaching significance which have been going on for many years are coming to a head. The field of employment is no exception. The combined effect of the changes is to outdate some traditional concepts and categorisations, not least ‘education’, the supposed preserve of the schools, and ‘training’, the supposed responsibility of employers.
An industrial reaction to the review of training policy
Authors: EVERARD KB
Published: February 2008

On 27 November 1980 BACIE set up a conference to discuss the MSC report entitled OUTLOOK ON TRAINING which is intended to guide the government in making its decisions on what changes to make in the statutory system of industrial training and vocational preparation in the UK. The timing was, by accident, impeccable because on the eve of the conference the Minister had announced in the House the government's response to the review. Mr Prior was to have addressed the conference himself but pressure of business necessitated his replacement by Lord Gowrie, one of his junior ministers. The other speakers were Sir Richard O'Brien, chairman of the MSC, Len Murray of the TUC, Sir Norman Lindop, Director of Hatfield Polytechnic, Shirley Williams and Dr K B Everard, Education and Training Manager of ICI Ltd. We reproduce below Dr Everard's version of his speech, in which he gave an industrial view of the report, its proposals and such items of official government policy on vocational preparation as have been divulged to date. We have entitled the piece
Operation Phoenix
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

THE PROBLEM OF WHERE TO START THE MULTI‐DIMENSIONAL NATURE OF THE SUBJECT OPERATION PHOENIX is about living and working in a technological society. It bears this title because it started off, about five years ago, as a study of what Britain has to do to achieve national regeneration. My method of working included two main activities: first, monitoring the mass of information published world‐wide on the subject of living and working in a technological society; and, secondly, isolating certain trends and streams of thought by this process and then exposing them to criticism and analysis in a series of seminars, both in‐plant and public, so as to get some reaction to these ideas. My purpose was not only to make discoveries but also to communicate them at the same time as a means of further refining them.
The basic dilemma of management training
Authors: WRIGHT DONALD
Published: February 2008

A large amount of training time, with associated costs, is spent upon training managers in both human relations and technical skills. Whilst the effort expended on the technical skills aspect could be justified in terms of short or medium term results it is often questionable whether managers having undergone human relations training do, in fact, change their method of operations subsequent to a course.
Operation Phoenix 2
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

I have made the point that the unidimensional approach leads to all manner of distortions, incorrect courses of action and innumerable blind alleys. It is a useful exercise to identify some of these major errors in unidimensional thinking in the immediate past. One of the biggest, for example, was encouraging the immigration of people from developing countries on the single criterion that they would provide a source of labour from which to fill menial and unattractive jobs at the lower end of the scale which were spurned by our own population. Here was to be the means by which lazy and unimaginative employers could refuse to face the challenge of change by picking up an entirely new supply of docile near‐slaves. This, of course, was the age of undreamed of prosperity in which we harboured visions of perpetual growth in the conventional economy. It was a situation based on the traditional view of economics. But it took no account whatever of social and human factors. There was the ready assumption that this underprivileged group would be prepared, for ever, to accept the status of second‐class citizens; their children, too. It didn't happen that way: the second generation saw themselves as equal in every way to the indigenous population and insisted on their rights as full citizens. And it happened within two decades — as quickly as that — leaving in its wake a problem of such dimensions that one inner city area of London achieved within that time a state in which one third of its total population were of immigrant origin.
The grass roots alternative
Authors: MARSHALL VIVIEN
Published: February 2008

Before making up its mind on what changes to make in the statutory system of industrial training the Government, playing according to the rules, asked the Manpower Services Commission for its advice. In turn the MSC established a Review Body which eventually produced its report OUTLOOK ON TRAINING. Seen by some as an attempt to extend the MSC's own influence and by others as the mixture as before, the report has been regarded, outside the MSC itself, with universal disfavour and as totally irrelevant to the country's needs and so someone in industry had to do what the Review Body failed to do, namely look at other more pertinent and less costly remedies. This initiative was taken by EEMTEB (the Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Training and Education Board), through a small ad hoc working party with representatives of the motor manufacturers and the Society of British Aerospace Companies, which explored in some depth the pros and cons of the Industrial Training Board (ITB) and levy system and alternative solutions. The working party's recommendations are outlined below. Copies of the full Discussion Document on the National Training System are available from Vivien Marshall, Secretary to EEMTEB, Leicester House, 8 Leicester Street, London WC2H 7BN, who would also welcome comments. Other sectors were involved in the discussions to ensure that the proposals were valid not only in the engineering industry, but nationally.
Youth Unemployment in the USA
Authors: SWAIN GRAHAM
Published: February 2008

The youth unemployment problems of the USA are depressingly similar to those of the UK, and indeed the whole of the western world. There are 9.5 million people aged 16–21 years. About 4 million of these young people will experience some difficulty in making the transition from school to work; many of them face a serious risk of not completing it successfully. Four groups bear a disproportionate share of these problems: young women, highschool drop‐outs (ie early leavers); ethnic minorities and the poor. The USA had to decide if and how it can meet the aspirations of millions of young people against the backcloth of both irreversible structural changes in the labour market and a major world recession. The decisions become awesome if the States is to contain the problems of the individual kids already on the streets: drugs, runaways, prostitution, homelessness, mugging and other serious crime — let alone avoid the much‐feared mass violence on the streets of the major cities of which the Miami riots in the summer of 1980 were a prelude.
The concept of superemployability
Authors: BELBIN MEREDITH
Published: February 2008

‘It's John Wellens on the phone,’ said our switchboard, interrupting a non‐interruptable meeting. ‘He wants to check the word superemployability on our Conference advertisement. What does it mean?’
Skills assessment
Authors: SHEPHERD GEOFF
Published: February 2008

‘In some traditional craft apprenticeships there is a need to remove age restrictions and to place much greater weight on the attainment of recognised standards of performance. Tests of trainee performance after particular phases of training are already applied in certain schemes but we need to build on such developments and make them more general.’ So said the Secretary of State for Employment Jim Prior in the House of Commons recently. And his views are being echoed throughout Industry with more and more people agreeing that there is a need to train to measurable standards of skill. In fact the RTITB Skills Assessment programmes are specifically designed with this in mind and have been steadily developed since they were launched in 1975, following two years of closely controlled pilot tests.
Business as a way of life
Authors: LESSEM RONNIE
Published: February 2008

What part has work to play in a total life style? Conventional economists, now as in the past, tend to answer this question by saying that the purpose of work is to provide the worker with his livelihood in strictly economic terms. Today this view is being questioned and as jobs in paid employment become increasingly scarce the questionning increases too. And so a movement is gaining strength which seeks a new interpretation of the part to be played by work in an integrated life pattern. In the world at large this movement is huge and extremely varied, though relatively unrecognised. We asked Ronnie Lessem of the City University Business School and its Enterprise Development Unit, Urbed, to take readers for a brief excursion into this region of tomorrow's world.
What is happening to one voluntary initiative
Authors: THURSTON JOHN
Published: February 2008

The Working Mathematics Group, a voluntary body which works on a shoestring budget mostly raised its own efforts, has a proud record of achievement. Yet it looks like moving into a crisis condition towards the end of this year for lack of financial support. While this is happening the MSC is proposing to invade the field of preparing open learning materials by some sort of bureaucratic system to be paid for out of public funds. In this journal, in our Phoenix Series, we argue that what is required is the reverse of this situation: we need to harness local effort, and voluntary effort, especially when it happens also to be expert effort, in the service of the community — a feature which WMG illustrates to perfection — and move away from organising everything from the centre by highly‐paid career bureaucrats in the manner of the MSC and the Ministries. Now read the inside story from the point of view of the WMG. One lesson is that the disbursement of funds from the public purse to the various agents working to restore the country's prosperity is not really co‐ordinated by any part of the system: one Ministry seems not to know what the others are doing in areas of mutual interest and responsibility. Another lesson is that surely voluntary bodies, with their economical way of working, their ability to address themselves to real problems and their capacity to draw on a corps of dedicated workers giving their services free, should be protected from being driven out of business by the civil service empire builders. (Editor)
Shaping behaviour updating the DIS technique
Authors: HONEY PETER
Published: February 2008

All behavioural training makes the assumption that the way people behave in face‐to‐face interactions of various kinds is important because the overt, manifest behaviour of A has a discernable effect on the reactions of B. What has not been so clear is precisely what effect. For the last five years I've been conducting a simple piece of research aimed at finding out and, at long last, I've gathered enough data and found enough answers to publish the results.
Grass roots in southampton
Authors: MATHEWS DAVID
Published: February 2008

Selection of young people for apprenticeship in the Southampton area is about to experience a major change in the course of a pilot scheme for organising ability‐testing on a common basis. If the scheme is a success, it will be an example of industry‐school cooperation achieving discernible benefits. The initiative has been entirely Southampton's, only some support and expertise being provided from outside the area. Over the last two years, discussion among employers, ITBs and schools has led to the trial, about to take place, of a system in which candidates for apprenticeship take only one set of tests. The scores from the tests will be made available to employers to which the candidate has applied. Such employers will have to be qualified test users. A further part of the scheme is a new form for obtaining references from candidates' schools.
Operation Phoenix 9
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

RATIONALISM VERSUS ERISTICS: At this stage in the development of my theme I need to introduce readers to a term which is unfamiliar to most of them. That word is ERISTICS; it fills a need which grows as one studies this subject more deeply.
Operation Phoenix 10
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

CHANGING WORK PATTERNS: We proceed now to look in more detail at the evidence starting with the length of the working week.
Acquiring a craft: grass roots action in the USA
Authors: COPPING PETER
Published: February 2008

The MSC's Consultative Document A NEW TRAINING INITIATIVE foreshadows the development of new education and training programmes for young people, particularly the 25 per cent minority who have no school‐leaving qualification. From the document it is possible to discern the main outlines of a policy for applying the large sums devoted to special programmes for the unemployed to more permanent schemes of training. These would centre on the Unified Vocational Preparation courses, a test bed for foundation training for young people in employment who are not apprentices and trainees, and extended WEEP projects of up to a year. Already the Chemical and Allied Products ITB, the Ceramic, Glass and Mineral Products ITB and the Rubber and Plastics ITB have taken the initiative in starting up multi‐occupation, multi‐industry WEEP provisions. Inevitably these schemes are directed at the 16–19 year old but it could be argued that these schemes are too late. There have been some moves like that of the EITB's proposal to extend vocational preparation back into the last years at school and this pattern is common in the schemes in France and Germany which A NEW TRAINING INITIATIVE gives as examples. But it could be that US experience is more helpful.
Venture forth
Authors: WILLMER MAP
Published: February 2008

Redundancy, although viewed by many as a social evil, is also seen by some people as a lime of opportunity. It is after all the first time a large proportion of the population has received such substantial amounts of money. In some cases this is spent on expensive imported goods and luxury holidays: in others it is the chance to fulfil some life‐long dream of running their own business — a village store, a pub in the country, a boarding house at the seaside. Thus, when there is a call for volunteers to be made redundant, those with a strong inner urge to be their own boss are quick to apply. Amongst these applicants of course are many of the firm's best workers and sadly as John Wellens noted in the October edition of Industrial and Commercial Training: “In a way, it has its pathetic side, because many of those who feel the urge the strongest are the very people who actually need the security of permanent and assured employment in a safe job with a guaranteed wage.” In other words the volunteers will include many whom the company cannot afford to lose and who are not suited to going into business on their own. There is therefore a clear need for personnel officers to be able not only to identify such workers but also to have the means to persuade them that they should remain as employees. Unless special care is taken such persuasion attempts can lead to discontent. Ideally the learning process should be one of self‐realisation in which workers can find out for themselves whether or not they have the necessary qualities to go it alone. It was to give people such an experience, to help them learn what it is like to be their own boss before they put their own resources on the line, that the business simulation VENTURE FORTH was developed. It is a computer experience designed to give participants insights into their entrepreneurial attitudes and capabilities and explores such questions as: • have you the right temperament to be your own boss? • can you strike a good bargain or are you taken for a sucker? • can you cope with the taxman? • can you forecast consumers' needs? • can you cope with the unexpected? • can you establish commercial credibility? • can you gather reliable commercial intelligence, appreciate its full significance and make sound commercial judgements? In order that company trainers can have a brief insight into this new type of learning experience, we present, in the following section some extracts from this training pack.
Operation Phoenix 13
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

This article is about THE INFLUENCE OF THE JAPANESE MANAGEMENT REVOLUTION ON MANAGEMENT IN THE WEST. Over the past five years there has arisen a growing interest in the dramatic advance of the Japanese economy and a vast literature has grown up in this topic. This article is an attempt to extract from this literature the ideas and concepts which are relevant to managers and management trainers in the West and then to discover what lessons there are to be learnt. What I have done is to take this huge random mass of information and used it as case material in the preparation of some coherent theory and then presented it in some teachable and communicable form. The sources I have used, extending as they do over a five year period of research, are far too numerous to mention every one by name and I take this opportunity to acknowledge my debt to them.
Operation Phoenix 14
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE BEHAVIOURAL SCIENTISTS TO MODERN MANAGEMENT THEORY AND THUS TO TOMORROW'S WORLD. In instalments 12 and 13, in my search for reliable pointers to the nature of tomorrow's world, I have been looking into the business of management. I have painted a picture of a fairly smooth and uniform development of management between 1750 and 1955, the period I am referring to as yesterday's world. Then I identified a period between 1955 and 1975 which I have called the years of turbulence during which a veritable avalanche of ideas about management/work/quality of life and man‐at‐work‐in‐society poured over the scene. I later made the point that this avalanche was Western in its origin and its application and that while it made its noisy progress across the Western stage something different — something much more silent and far more effective — was taking place in Japan, based on an entirely different set of principles. I then went on to identify the basic tenets of this new management style which has originated in Japan over the past twenty‐five years or so.
Vocationally‐motivated school courses
Authors: BURTON W.J.
Published: February 2008

Doing a job a second time is much easier than breaking new ground! The establishment of a course oriented towards the distributive trades at Philip Morant school, Colchester has been made comparitively easy by our previous experience in setting up the IP 49 EITB course two years ago. We have also been greatly assisted by Mr. R. Saunders, Careers Information Officer of DITB, whose experience in helping other schools has been invaluable. In those cases, sixth form courses were involved, but their basic philosophy was similar to our own. He made available to us loans of material produced by the DITB and this we are adapting for our own use. We are also most grateful to a small group of representatives from local and national firms whose involvement from the start has given us much encouragement.
Operation Phoenix 15
Authors: Wellens John
Published: February 2008

WHAT IS MEANT BY A MODERN MANAGEMENT STYLE? HOW SOME OF THE IDEAS WENT SOUR. We are now in a position to develop a better understanding of how change comes about in organisations and society — a study that has been monstrously neglected. Not all change works in the same way: change sequences can fall into several patterns. In some cases people simply start doing new things or doing old things in a new way, sometimes by accident, often because old restraints vanish; once the innvoators do it and get away with it or demonstrate the advantages others follow — very often they have no choice but to follow, if they are to stay in the race.
High technology and its implications in the USA
Authors: MOSS JONES JOHN
Published: February 2008

The United States is, without doubt, the most powerful nation in the world in terms of its economy. Some measure of this is exemplified by the fact that the Gross National Product (GNP) of California, treated as that of a country, would be seventh highest in the world. The City of Los Angeles alone, treated as a country, has a GNP twelfth largest on a world scale.
The cavis system
Authors: COPELAND PETER
Published: February 2008

Last month saw the launch of CAVIS, a new teaching system that mixes video cassette pictures with videotex words and diagrams to provide a stand‐alone training system. Using a keypad the student responds to the television display and is tutored interactively. Video sequences can be branched to and student progress is monitored automatically. Specially prepared video material or existing training programmes on VHS videocassette can immediately be made interactive and configured to suit local training requirements. Other training materials on film and slide can be transferred on to the system. CAVIS is a system that applies microelectronic and computer technology to the needs of training. How successfully does it do this and what advantages does it have over the teaching machines of the 1960's and more recently CAL and videodisc?
Health & safety notes
Authors: WALSH BILL
Published: February 2008

These are information briefs which will assist training officers, safety officers and managers with equivalent responsibilities to • identify the information needs of managers, supervisors and employees, • make training more cost effective.
The st luke's project
Authors: SADLER A.J.
Published: February 2008

A further contribution to the grass roots saga. A Victorian neo‐gothic church — overlarge for its small if loyal congregation, with inadequate heating and no toilet facilities — and an equally aged redundant primary school; these, relics of another age, were the physical ingredients for our Project. The plan for the school was an Education Centre and this was launched in September 1980. The development scheme for the church was a more complicated operation, involving major capital works. By February 1981 generous backing had been received from: • a most important local trust, the Richmond Parish Lands Charity, who undertook to fund up to 60% of the capital required for the community, as opposed to the ecclesiastical, aspects of the scheme; • the Local Authority, with a commitment to cover the cost of installing kitchens suitable for a Day Centre for the Elderly. By February 1982 the Education Centre was flourishing, but the church development had reached a crisis point; the fundraising appeal had not generated sufficient funds and inflation was stretching costs. Some urgent new thinking generated a working paper, which is reproduced below in full. The outcome of these efforts is as yet uncertain. We have set off down the road; it remains to be seen where it will lead. The feasibility study on the future development of St. Luke's Church was published in October 1979. St. Luke's School was closed in July 1980. Since then much has been achieved. For the Church development scheme, a Faculty has been granted, and outline planning permission given; the Day Centre for the Elderly Trust has been set up; about 70% of the capital funding immediately required has been raised. Out of the old school, the St. Luke's House Education Centre has been born and is alive and kicking. But a final, major push is required. The purpose of this paper is to set out, in draft form, a blueprint for action to achieve this final step.
Endeavour Training in Scotland
Authors: MAUGHAN PHILIP
Published: February 2008

So went a recent conversation with a 16‐year‐old trainee from a Glasgow‐based Youth Opportunities Programme project — the Manpower Services Commission training scheme for unemployed teenagers, who are now using our facilities, among others, for residential experience. The activity was an abseil and the problem was to encourage her to become involved.
Quality Circles let's try to make it work
Authors: O'NEILL HUGH
Published: February 2008

It is often said of Britain that we are good at two things — having good ideas, and then in failing to use them! Although the idea of Quality Circles was not originally British (it is said to have been American and not Japanese), we have in this country made some interesting developments upon the original concept. But are we really using those developments? Probably not. After an initial surge of interest, mainly within those forward‐looking companies who are always interested in new ideas, the rate of growth now appears to be declining. A recent NEDO‐sponsored (free) meeting on the topic was attended by only half the numbers expected. A one day appreciation session promoted by a major Polytechnic was cancelled through lack of support. Perhaps we should examine both these aspects, that of development and of lack of interest and see if there are any links.
Editorial comment on the news
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

Stop the Merry‐Go‐Round; I Want to Get Off By now readers of this journal will be familiar with the notion that when the Government has controversial proposals to put forward in the employment field it releases them about half an hour before Parliament goes into recess. It's a clever move despite the fact that it is getting a bit predictable and monotonous. And it has happened once more: this tactic reached a new high in the few days before the Summer Recess with such goodies as The Open Tech Task Group Report, the Job‐Splitting Scheme, the Community Work Scheme, together with more snippets of useful information about the mammoth Youth Training Scheme. In our business an avalanche of paper of such dimensions is usually referred to as an ‘information overload’; to the layman it will usually be described as creating ‘mental indigestion’. Either way it is beginning to create a new problem to employers, even to specialists in the field of employment and state intervention in it. The situation is being made too complex for it to be handled efficiently by those people who are called upon to make the necessary company decisions to implement all the obligations being placed upon industry and business. These are already‐busy people under pressure from all manner of features of an economy under severe strain.
A custom‐built training system based on video training aids
Authors: HASLAM ERIC
Published: February 2008

With several years of experience of personnel and industrial training work, mostly in the United Kingdom with a major paper company, the prospect of joining a major New Zealand company in the same industry proved very exciting. The common features were pulp and papermaking and their specialist training requirements. However, having been conditioned to a European approach to industrial training at both corporate and unit levels, it was with some trepidation that I viewed the prospect of moving some 12,000 miles from the familiar surroundings of my U.K. company headquarters. I need not have feared.
Current Themes in VOCATIONAL EDUCATION and TRAINING POLICIES: Part 2
Authors: THOROGOOD RAY
Published: February 2008

Part I treated the context of vocational education and training and discussed the major causes influencing national Governments to change their role in vocational education and training. This article discusses the consequences of this changing role, particularly as it concerns the devolution of responsibility for vocational education and training to local authorities — and the ways in which these local authorities are reacting to this increased responsibility. The issue of devolving funding is, however, generally unresolved by most Governments.