bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How to get good typists in today's situation
Authors: KESTEVEN RAY
Published: February 2008

Office managers are critical of work produced by their ‘qualified’ typists. Ray Kesteven, a former Chief Examiner in Typewriting and author of many popular typewriting textbooks, is critical of gimmicky typing qualifications and instant typing courses.
The case of the elusive levy
Authors: BROADHURST VA
Published: February 2008

According to a publication of the DEP, the Industrial Training Act 1964 has three main objectives: to • ensure an adequate supply of properly trained men and women at all levels in industry • to secure an improvement in the quality and efficiency of industrial training • to share the cost more evenly between firms. At least, that was its view but during Mrs Castle's tenure as First Secretary of that Ministry, a new Bill was published which clearly indicated a shift in direction of training legislation as then proposed. That Bill, which apparently is now on ice for the time being, purported to extend the benefits of training beyond the original area and even to self‐employed persons. The workings of the ITBs themselves also indicates that wider fields are contemplated and, indeed, until the House of Lords decision in the RAC case, it seems that they were already working beyond the limits of what are normally considered industrial and commercial areas: eg in the school meals service.
Project work in the training of junior clerks
Authors: COLLIER LJ
Published: February 2008

In September 1970 about 50 technical colleges offered, for the first time, the shortened full‐time basic course for new entrants to clerical work. These were the new courses of six weeks' duration which had been designed by a group of eight Industry Training Boards to replace the longer courses, started from 1967 onwards, based on the recommendations of the Central Training Council's publication Training for Commerce and the Office (HMSO 1966). The original, longer courses had failed to attract the support of employers, asked to release new‐entrant trainees for almost the whole of one term on block release and full wages. The first of the new short courses were conducted in the colleges during the Autumn term of 1970 and are already completed. After the six‐week basic course, which emphasises the practical aspect of clerical activities, trainees are required to undertake a project of some 18 hours duration. Dunstable College of Further Education is one of the colleges offering the new basic course. In this article Dr L J Collier describes the project work which they designed for their own course.
Theory T — theory L
Authors: HALL GEORGE
Published: February 2008

managing the human resource To the probably chagrin of many Scots the name McGregor will, for lots of us, be associated, not with a Scottish clan, but with a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who, in 1960, published a book entitled THE HUMAN SIDE OF ENTERPRISE. In it he set out to substantiate a thesis he had put forward three years earlier in an article carrying the same title. His thesis was that the theoretical assumptions management holds about controlling its human resources determine the whole character of the enterprise.
Selecting a training officer
Authors: FARNSWORTH TERRY
Published: February 2008

WHEN I ENTERED INDUSTRY SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO, TRAINING was a very neglected and impoverished function which led a somewhat obscure and precarious existence at the outer fringes of either works management or personnel. The modern training professional was virtually unknown. Frequently, those in charge of training were in the evening of their working lives: many, for example, were ex‐foremen whose main concern was the training of apprentices. Management training was still in its infancy and, even in the more progressive organisations, the training of supervisors was largely confined to the basic TWI programmes and the occasional work study appreciation course.
Managing with figures
Authors: HUGHES ALEC M
Published: February 2008

A colour film in four parts produced by Unilever Organisation Division as a management case‐study. part 1 Is your information adequate? 29 minutes part 2 What are your operating objectives? 30 minutes part 3 What are your financial objectives? 19 minutes part 4 Profit or loss? 25 minutes Available for a 3‐day hire period for £90 or on indefinite loan for £450 with a hand out which provides reproductions of the charts used in the films, a glossary of management terms and a short bibliography. Enquiries to SB Modules Ltd, Granville Studios, Fulham Broadway, London SW6.
Self‐testing as a learning motivator
Authors: BELBIN EUNICE
Published: February 2008

Discovery learning, says Michael Toye, is a method of ensuring that you get the information you require when you are ready for it. If this is so, it is not difficult to see why the method proves so successful with problem groups — that is with people who, for a variety of reasons, are not at the ready when the traditional instructor might think that they were. Older trainees, for example, take longer to understand instructions or to get geared to what a lecturer is saying. They also tend to switch off from a lecture when they hear a point of particular interest, while they relate it to their own personal experience. They switch on again later, perhaps having missed some vital information. Discovery learning copes with these problems by having the information available when the learners are sufficiently alert to benefit from it.
Training can pay in the office
Authors: MIDDLETON ANN , LONGMUIR IAN
Published: February 2008

The Cotton & Allied Textiles ITB has developed an approach to office training which is based on analysis of the procedures in use within the firm. Its training courses are now being offered to companies in other industries.
Training managers to LISTEN
Authors: MAUDE BARRY
Published: February 2008

Some time ago, an engineering firm which used to meet union officials only when the need arose — to sort out disputes, and so on — decided to start seeing the union men regularly, reason or no reason. Since then, the two sides have been getting together, just sitting and talking, about once a week. For the first time they have learnt to listen to each other. As problems crop up, they are discussed. Sometimes the problem dissolves as one side talks and the other side listens. Sometimes, according to a manager who has attended these sessions, a solution gradually emerges after two or three meetings. The meetings have already paid for themselves. Since these informal listening sessions began, no major disputes have flared up.
Task analysis for SI metric training
Authors: BADEN HELLARD R
Published: February 2008

Whilst there is an enormous range of industrial activity, and many hundreds of job classifications, the analysis of the working task in relation to metric training needs is a much simpler matter. Broadly, the needs for metric appreciation and depth training can be split into three areas. ▾ High level management — where the degree of technical thinking and calculation is usually relatively small. ▾ Technical and middle levels of management — which includes designers, technologists, technicians — who use their technical skills in their design or managerial function. ▾ Craftsmen and unskilled workers — where the extent of the thinking is small or confined to a very narrow technical band. The range of the doing may be either extensive or limited.
A sociology of appraisal
Authors: SALAMAN GRAEME
Published: February 2008

There has been a spate of articles recently on how to design and install successful appraisal schemes. Hardly an issue of a personnel or management journal appears without some advice on how to make appraisal succeed or suggesting reasons why such schemes fail. In such a situation one must have very clear justification for adding to the torrent of advice and analysis. My justification is simply that it seems that one particularly important and fruitful approach to this topic has been consistently overlooked.
Training BOAC secretaries
Authors: MURRAY PATRICIA E
Published: February 2008

Articles in June and July ICT have described a system of training for secretaries in BOAC giving, in some detail, the analysis of training needs, the design of courses and the system and result of in‐course evaluation. This article deals with post‐course evaluation and attempts to consider the cash value of the training.
CODE OF PRACTICE
Authors: BROADHURST ALISON
Published: February 2008

The Consultative Document, Code of Industrial Relations Practice, was put forward by the Minister, Robert Carr, as a ‘compendium of commonsense’ but, according to press reports, it has been described by Vic Feather as ‘paternalistic’. In its final form as a Code of Practice, it will be an important part of the new industrial relations edifice. Organisations and individuals have been invited to submit comments upon it to the Department of Employment not later than 18 October. Comments by national organisations on the proposals should be sent to Industrial Relations Division (IRC 2), Department of Employment, 8 St James's Square, London, SW1. Those by local organisations or individuals should be sent to the appropriate Senior Manpower Adviser of the region concerned, whose name and address may be obtained from the list on the last page of the Consultative Document.
Comparing package management training courses
Authors: HARVEY NEIL
Published: February 2008

The Plastics Division of ICI employs some 10 000 men and women in the development, manufacture and marketing of raw materials used by the plastics industry. Many changes have taken place in our markets and our ways of managing our human resources over the last few years, and the division decided to investigate the potential contributions of different methods of management training as aids to the further development of the organisation.
The Driftwood Tools Model
Authors: ELGOOD CHRIS
Published: February 2008

The thing I most want to put across in this model is the concept of quality control preventing the further processing of defective material. To some people this will seem a familiar lesson not requiring any special emphasis, but that isn't so when you are dealing with young trainees completely new to industry or else devoted in their work situations to mastering the details of some other, unrelated, function. To them the words ‘quality control’ suggest scrupulous care to stop bad work going out to the customer and a greater or lesser financial outlay to achieve this end. The underlying attitude is this: ‘good quality costs money—better quality costs more. First prevent complaints by rigorous inspection and then examine your manufacturing procedure.’ I want to show that an emphasis on the second of those points can sometimes result in better quality for less cost than expected. Like other things, quality is not related only to how much money you spend, but to where and how well you spend it. To be preoccupied with final inspection will restrict you to the wrong end of the process and may, by the priorities which it implies, allow the root cause of poor quality to be shelved or ignored. It is too easy to get customer satisfaction (highly desirable) balanced out by large stocks of worthless scrap (very much the reverse). It gets a bit like putting a grid across a river: you may get clear water below, but you get an awful lot of rubbish piling up above it.
Performance tests for industrial skills
Authors: JONES ALAN
Published: February 2008

Performance testing is a way of finding out what a person can do as distinct from what he knows about or what he claims to be able to do. It is therefore rather surprising that such an obviously useful testing method has for so long remained a rather neglected member of the testing family. Paper and pencil tests of aptitude and achievement on the other hand have been in widespread use and a considerable industry has grown up around them. It is not necessary to look very far to see why paper and pencil tests have enjoyed such popularity; they are usually an efficient and economical method of testing. The economic aspect is a particularly important one, since written tests can be given to large groups at a single sitting and marked quickly. Performance tests on the other hand are usually longer and require a lower tester/candidate ratio.
Developing the ability to handle management situations
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

In Britain, in the field of management training, a new concept is struggling for birth. It is by far the most exciting concept on the whole training horizon at this moment. It is remarkably difficult to communicate and, although it is highly persuasive in itself and exerts a powerful attraction on all who come in contact with it, it is not yet widely or formally accepted as the right way of setting about the training of managers. So far the approach has no official advocates. But it soon will have. It is not the product of any one team of management trainers: several groups are moving towards the new concept independently of each other. Their work is not exchanged and their experience, so far, is not shared. This is because the various teams are still working very hard to work out the full implications of this system and to translate the concepts into real forms of training.
Introduction to decision‐making for graduate entrants
Authors: ELGOOD CHRIS
Published: February 2008

I want in this article to show that a training officer can build a variety of different models and can achieve different purposes by their use. I want to diversify, as the marketing men might say. Driftwood Tools was a comparatively rigid structure which lay squarely in the field of industrial engineering and directed the student's attention to a single ‘right’ answer. Much of its value depends on that answer being reached: without it there is insufficient motivation to get valuable discussion of the related issues. A model does not necessarily have to be concerned with industrial engineering nor does it need a ‘right’ answer. I want to demonstrate these points with two more examples. Before doing so I want to make a distinction between a MODEL and a CASE STUDY. The two media have a lot in common but I believe that the differences are quite important and ought to be appreciated if you are going to get maximum value from your training sessions. The chief characteristic of a model is that it is intended to encourage experiment and to facilitate the comparison of alternative solutions. This means that whatever data is used to compile it has to be fairly specific and must be interrelated in a definite way. It must be possible to deduce with some accuracy how the alteration of one piece of data would affect the whole.
Training for the Future
Authors: WELLENS JOHN , Williams Lady , Stewart James G
Published: February 2008

This is the official title of the long‐awaited consultative document, published on 1st February 1972, in which the government presented its proposals for the reorganisation of those aspects of industrial training which come under its jurisdiction. The document can be obtained, free of charge, from any local employment office of the DE.
Training for METRICATION NUMBER 4
Authors: BADEN HELLARD R , CONNOLLY JV
Published: February 2008

The first three sections of this series have considered the tasks of training in a logical, and indeed, in the chronological sequence in which the matter should proceed up to the point where new metric products emerge in the design area. From this point onwards it is inevitable that activities and training requirements become less easily classifiable in any strict chronological sequence by function alone. In the first place, training probably becomes necessary in parallel with the many other functions involved. Also the characteristic of the company and its products and procedures can differ widely, precluding simple generalisations. It is therefore proposed to divide up the remaining training areas in such a way that those functions which have similar requirements are grouped together rather than by time sequences.
Managing the Training Function
Authors: GANE CHRISTOPHER
Published: February 2008

THE PLACE OF CHRISTOPHER GANE IN THE TRAINING WORLD IS pretty hard to define, though it is certainly unique. He has, for instance, played a major part in popularising the algorithm as a training tool, both at home and overseas. His consultancy company has produced some of the most outstanding training manuals yet produced anywhere in the world; his company, for instance, was responsible for certain of the EITB modules.
MbO Can it work?
Authors: STEWART VALERIE , STEWART ANDREW
Published: February 2008

The purpose of these three articles is to illustrate from experience some of the difficulties encountered by people who have organisational responsibility for an MbO programme, and to suggest some ways in which the problems of an MbO programme can be overcome. This article discusses some of the failings of MbO — failings both inherent in the concept of MbO and to do with the way it is often implemented. The following article will discuss some common pitfalls that can happen in the typical MbO programme, and give some suggestions about how they can be avoided; in the third article we shall discuss some ideas that arise from the problem of setting objectives in a service function.
CHANGE whose ally?
Authors: NIXON KEVIN J
Published: February 2008

The re‐appraisal facing the training world at this time will sort out the positive thinkers from the negative. Many will see the inevitable dialogue as simply disruptive; on the other hand, those who have already anticipated the changing role of the training function will welcome the opportunity to examine progress since the '64 Act and plan for the future. The seventies have already been described as the decade of organisation development; development, that is, of the combined human and physical resources of the firm into a cohesive whole. Change within the individual is the largest single factor in achieving change within the organisation. Those who once decided to work in training must now decide whether they intend to grasp the opportunity to play the larger, more exciting role of creating change within the firm. This requires us to define what the changing role will be and the new skills which must be mastered.
IR a one day course
Authors: WALSH BILL
Published: February 2008

By now training in the 1971 Industrial Relations Act is in full swing. The number of courses, seminars, films, film strips and study groups is becoming quite formidable. And perhaps rightly because the Act seeks to bring about some fundamental changes, not really in the law, but in that much more nebulous sphere of human relations at work. However, one cannot overlook that some fairly wide ranging new concepts are introduced in the legal field and therefore the first training requirement is one of imparting information — of, in effect — injecting a series of new ideas into the minds of people in industry and in trade unions.
Training for METRICATION NUMBER 5
Authors: BADEN HELLARD R , CONNOLLY JV
Published: February 2008

In the last issue figure 11 analysed training needs. The company analysis showed that there was little technical training required for craftsmen and even less for general production workers on the shop floor. In terms of the SI system and the technical implications, calculations and metric thinking this is so. Indeed, some consider that the bulk of the working population will need no metric training at all to enable them to work as effectively after metric change as they do now.
Developing NEGOTIATING skills
Authors: RACKHAM NEIL
Published: February 2008

The current interest in Industrial Relations has created a demand for training in the skills of negotiation; the training world has responded to this demand with an astonishing spectrum of activity. Old human relations case studies have been lovingly dusted and refurbished, role‐playing has come back into its own and HMSO has made a creditable little fortune for the tax‐payer from its timely booklets at 15p each. All sorts of people, including some of my legal acquaintances who this time last year had never even heard of industry, let alone industrial relations, have been sucked in to meet the demand. This article testifies to my own involvement, although initially without real conviction. Working in the industrial relations field with the late Bill Allen had convinced me that nothing short of major cultural change could significantly improve the negotiating climate in Britain. But this sounds like stealthy autobiography and I shall spare you the tediousness of my history and thinking in this area. Instead, let me indulge in that most deplorable characteristic of British industrial relations practice and do some bashing of the other side. The current crop of industrial relations and negotiating skills training courses gives plenty of scope for such bashing. Of the many practices which merit criticism, two stand out as being irresistibly obnoxious.
Management development & the small firm
Authors: CONNELLAN LIAM , DEEKS JOHN
Published: February 2008

International interest in the development of small firms has expanded rapidly in recent years. Many countries now see the small business sector as a significant element in the permanent structure of business. Symptomatic of this interest was the International Seminar on Small Business Management Development held from 29 to 31 October 1971 at the Irish Management Institute in Dublin. Participants at the seminar were executives from organisations responsible for conducting small business management development programmes in a number of European countries. Only a few years ago it was hardly conceivable that an international conference, solely concerned with approaches for developing the small business manager, could attract support. Most respectable training institutions had not the wish, the energy or the know‐how to assist small firms. The problems involved in training the owners and managers of small firms were different from those in training large company managers and, consequently, many training institutions opted out. But by the autumn of 1971 there was sufficient interest in the problems of small firm management development to attract training specialists from 14 European countries to come together for the first time.
Learning‐by‐doing at DISC
Authors: LOFT CHRIS , WATERS JAKE , COOPER JOHN
Published: February 2008

The DISC course was certainly a new experience. My experience endorsed many of my pet principles: people must control events and therefore the first objective is to influence the people: put oneself in the other's position; keep it simple; respect devoutly the dignity of the individual — he is the most important person in the world, to himself.
What's in a style?
Authors: NEWSHAM DB , FISHER JM
Published: February 2008

Training officers and instructors in industry would be among the first to admit that style matters. Indeed, they use a large share of their resources to ensure that trainees acquire a good one. It is no longer sufficient for a worker to be able to turn out a satisfactory work‐piece; he must learn to do so by handling his materials and tools in a precise way so as to maximise production and quality with the minimum wear and tear on materials and on his own energy. It should follow that the style of his instructor is equally important. Yet little attention ever appears to have been given to it. However well designed a training programme may be, its effectiveness may depend largely upon the way in which it is put across to the trainees. This is bound to vary in spite of good selection of candidates for instructor vacancies and the standardisation of their training. Individual differences in personality and concept of their job will influence their behaviour towards trainees as the content of a training programme is imparted.
Mbo
Authors: STEWART VALERIE , STEWART ANDREW
Published: February 2008

Our two previous articles highlighted some of the problems and difficulties that can be expected with the typical MbO programme. We offered some hints about overcoming some of these problems, but other problems we postponed for discussion in this, the third article. Summarising the problems we postponed for discussion, we stated: ▾ Setting objectives for some functions is more trouble than it's worth, if the senior management's objectives are different in kind from the junior management's — as in a customer service function. ▾ The chain of managerial commitment is as strong as its weakest link. If that link is in the middle, as it usually is, then junior managers, who are the ones most likely to have been trained in the use of MbO and are most likely to be committed to it, cannot realistically set objectives for their people. ▾ MbO programmes tend to emphasise the efforts and improvements that can be made within a person's job boundaries only, ignoring the major sources of inefficiency, which are the conflicts between job boundaries. ▾ Managers can assume that objectives have to be specified in quantifiable, numerical terms. If this is not possible then all kinds of problems arise and people do not get set meaningful objectives.
OPERATION VULCAN 6
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

In Vulcan 5 I wrote about the early days of analytical training with particular reference to events in Britain where it was first applied on any appreciable scale. I made the point that the idea of analysing the job and its component tasks, prior to devising a training programme, simple and essential though this may seem to today's trainer, was revolutionary in the early 1940s. These were the days when training was just beginning to be recognised as something quite distinct from education. The only form of analysis which was applied to work tasks at that time was work study and so it was inevitable that the early attempts at analysis of work tasks for training purposes should make use of existing method study techniques. Those trainers who specialised in this experimental form of training analysis had, mostly, themselves been method study practitioners for at least some part of their previous working lives.
Training for METRICATION NUMBER 7
Authors: BADEN HELLARD R , CONNOLLY JV
Published: February 2008

summary and conclusions The fundamental effects of change on the training function ANY FAR‐REACHING CHANGE PROGRAMME SUCH AS THE electrification of railways, port containerisation, driving on the opposite side of the road, decimalisation, or metrication that will affect the complete organisation, whether this be a manufacturing or service unit or a national or social group, has certain common fundamental elements.
OPERATION VULCAN
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

From analysis to training materials The movement of the sixties We have examined the analytical movement in training from its beginnings in the 1940s and noted that it was based on the work study approach of breaking down the task into its elements. Within this system, training is based on these elements and we have also noted that this normally calls for the use of special training devices which, in turn, requires an off‐the‐job training situation, because the training equipment differs considerably from the production equipment.
OPERATION VULCAN 8
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

Analysing jobs and skills as a preliminary to devising a training programme came to Britain in the 1940s but it was not until after the passage of the Industrial Training Act of 1964 that the various forms of analysis were adopted on a wide scale and from then on became standard practice among training officers. On looking back one wonders how on earth the training officers of those days matched their programmes with the needs of the trainee without it. But somehow they did.
A planning programming budgeting system
Authors: CHAMBERLAIN FRED
Published: February 2008

It is particularly important, in present financial circumstances, that the funds available for education and training should be used as efficiently as possible and that companies' arrangements for the control of expenditure should be directed to that end. This article explores the question whether a PPB approach can provide a means of bringing policy issues to the centre of budget decision‐making. It also considers the likelihood of a PPB approach being helpful in setting education and training objectives and in measuring how far objectives are achieved economically.
VALUE ADDED TAX
Authors: WALSH BILL
Published: February 2008

Next month Mr Walsh follows up this basic information by proposing a training plan for VAT.
How to get the best out of external courses
Authors: STEWART ANDREW , STEWART VALERIE
Published: February 2008

Before the recent economic squeeze, no trainer could open his mail or a training journal without encountering advertisements for various kinds of training courses. It may be predicted that, as the squeeze lifts, we shall see more courses coming back on to the market, and the trainer will be in the difficult position of having to recommend courses for people in his organisation, with in many cases little information to go on. The purpose of this article is to give the trainer or manager hints about questions he can ask the course organisers in the attempt to make sure that the right person gets the right kind of external course.
Recruiting the next generation of scientists
Authors: HUGHES ALEC M
Published: February 2008

In our August issue we reviewed AERIAL SYNTHESIS, one of a series of films sponsored by the Department of Education and Science to interest school children in science as a possible career. In this issue we look at the other six films in the series, intended mainly for the thirteen‐ to fifteen‐year olds; films designed not to identify specific careers, but to show something of the breadth and fascination of scientific research as seen through the work of government research establishments.
TRAINING
Authors: COOK ALAN
Published: February 2008

Few people would contest the statement that ‘training is an investment’. It is an investment in the future, one which it is essential for industry to undertake in order to meet the continually growing demand for skilled personnel to handle the ever increasing pace of change. Rightly, then, training as an investment is emphasised on basic training officer courses, it is the subject of many a Government exhortation and prominent businessmen go out of their way to emphasise their belief in it. It is widely publicised by the Industrial Training Boards. The slogan ‘train and gain’ was not coined by an Industrial Training Board simply to advertise the fact that they had been throwing money around as though it were going out of fashion, it was also intended to emphasise the long term gains to be made by investing in training. Looking even further back to the discussions which preceded the passing of the Industrial Training Act, one of the objectives much stressed when the levy and grant system was established was to spread the costs of this investment evenly across industry. The firms who undertook training were to be subsidised by those who benefited from it but did not undertake it. Talking and listening to training practitioners it seems axiomatic that training is an investment and equally axiomatic that, due to the inexplicable failure of management to recognise this, it is one which is in danger of being seriously neglected. To doubt what is so evidently the case is something which, in the training field, amounts to nothing less than heresy.
Higher education
Authors: GORE THOMAS
Published: February 2008

In May 1970 I argued in this journal that cost effectiveness should dominate the planning of higher education in the seventies, and in November 1971 outlined steps for its rationalisation. The DES Statistics of Education Volume 5, Finance and Awards for 1970, puts in focus the stark situation of education costs for England and Wales. The total cost was £1,980 millions, an increase of £217 millions over the previous year. The 1971 Blue Book (CMND 4829) shows an overall educational expenditure of £2,953 millions for 1970–71 and highlights the share which higher education received. Over the ten year period 1960–1970 the largest increases were on tuition costs of teacher training, university grants and further education, in that order. In 1969–70 further and adult education received £246.3 millions, teacher training £53.8 millions and the universities £225.6 millions. The size of this sector of education has been projected in the DES Planning Paper No 2 which suggested that twice as many boys and girls will secure two or more ‘A’ levels in 1981 compared with 1968. The number in full‐time higher education in 1969–70 (Universities, Colleges of Education and Further Education) was estimated at 443 000 and projections suggested this will rise to 847 000 in 1981–82. Total costs of full‐time higher education at 1966–67 prices were estimated to rise to £957 millions. It is in the cold light of these essential statistics that developments in planning higher education for the next five years and how cost effectiveness can be implemented are now considered.
Effective communication
Authors: BOTTOMLEY TED
Published: February 2008

I picked up a local newspaper and read that the Town Clerk was protesting about the imminent closure of the town's railway station. Because of the socio‐economic nature of the area, he said there was a need for a mixed infrastructure. I looked across the room and thought ‘Grandma isn't going to get very far with that’.
Developing a programme of testing for trainee craftsmen in the shipbuilding industry
Authors: LONGBOTTOM BRIAN , CLEGG COLIN , CLARKE PETER , TURNER MIKE , FLETCHER DEREK , HUNTER ROBERT
Published: February 2008

The Shipbuilding Industry Training Board and the Skills Testing Service of the City and Guilds of London Institute, in cooperation with a number of leading shipyards, have developed phased test programmes for eight of the principal craft trades in the shipbuilding and shiprepairing industry. These tests are intended for trainee craftsmen who have completed their first year's training off‐the‐job in a training centre and are undergoing planned experience training in their yards to the standard recommended by the Shipbuilding Industry Training Board. The tests cover the trades of electrician, fitter, joiner, pipeworker, sheet‐metal worker, caulker/burner/driller/riveter, plater/shipwright and welder. A test programme covers all the main tasks or key skills normally performed by skilled men in the trade. Each job test is assessed according to success or failure in covering its essential features. Tests are taken by trainees in the course of production in the yard and are assessed by production staff. The preparation of each set of tests began with a study in a shipyard to find out what work a trainee would be expected to cover during his planned experience training. The test jobs drawn up as a result of this study were carefully scrutinised by production supervisors from other shipbuilding and shiprepair yards. A number of firms were invited to conduct a pilot project using the tests for a number of trainees in their second, third and fourth years of training. The tests were amended in the light of reports received on these projects and grouped to cover the key skills involved. An assessment was then made of either the number of jobs or the particular jobs, the satisfactory completion of which was considered to be essential to qualify for the Board's Certificate of Craftsmanship. This project, which was begun in November 1969 and completed in March 1972, and involved some eighteen firms in the industry, is described in the following account provided by some of the people involved.
The 10 year plan for education
Authors: GORE TOM
Published: February 2008

Planning five years ahead is a hazardous exercise in education. The White Paper — A Framework for Expansion — CMND 5174, takes a decade as the perspective. But it hedges much of its planning by saying there is room for flexibility and many points still remain for decision (Para 8). As the paper points out, resources are limited but the appropriate direction of their use is broadly drawn. How economically and effectively they are used is the vital issue.
Programmed learning in the small firm
Authors: BARRATT AM , LUCAS CB
Published: February 2008

A problem which seems to occur in almost any discussion about industrial training, is the one of dealing fairly and effectively with the small firms. Almost every industry and every Training Board has this problem and perhaps none more so than the Furniture and Timber Industry Training Board which has something in the order of 90 per cent of its member firms with under 100 employees. The board has been involved with several training developments, with the objective of tailoring effective training to the realistic needs of the smaller firm. This article describes one such development that could contribute greatly to training in the smaller firm in the future.
Training for change in industrial relations
Authors: PURCELL JOHN
Published: February 2008

The Commission on Industrial Relations' (CIR) report on industrial relations training was published on 13 December together with a short practical guide for unions and employers. The CIR had been asked in 1970 by the Secretary of State for Employment to inquire and report on the facilities for training in industrial relations available to those in management, unions and employers' associations, and to employees generally. John Purcell is a senior industrial relations officer at the Commission and has been a senior member of the team carrying out the inquiry. In this article Mr Purcell concentrates on one of the themes of the report: planning training for change in industrial relations.
The Employment & Training Bill
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

The Government's plans for the future organisation of employment and training are described in a White Paper published on the 2 March as Cmnd No 5250 at 13½p under the title Employment and Training: Government Proposals. The White Paper actually accompanied the Employment and Training Bill which was presented to Parliament on the same day. It sets out the Government's intention to establish an independent Manpower Services Commission (MSG) to take over responsibility for running the public employment and training services and coordinating industrial training as a whole, and describes how, subject to Parliamentary approval, the Government envisages that the new arrangements will operate in practice. Just as the Industrial Training Act 1964 is about the Industry Training Boards, the Employment and Training Bill 1973 is about the Manpower Services Commission and the changes which are necessary within the various parts of the national system to make it work. This means creating one new institution, transferring responsibility for various aspects from one organisation to another and clarifying the relationships between the proposed component parts. This is what the Bill is about.
Measuring group behaviour
Authors: BENNETT ROGER
Published: February 2008

In the summer of 1971 I found myself on a London‐bound train wondering why on earth I had said goodbye to my wife in order to spend a week on a DES course in group teaching methods at the Polytechnic of Central London. Didn't I have a research project to attend to? And what about those lecture notes? Could I really afford this week of eating too much food and talking to people I would probably never meet again! On arrival my mind was firmly made up — I could not afford the time, but it was too late to do anything about it. The reception at PCL eased my conscience a little but my first impressions of some of the course members dampened my spirits yet further. Surely I can't put up with a week of their company! And when I looked at the programme my feelings were reinforced. Who on earth was this fellow Rackham, down to talk about measuring behaviour on the first day? I hoped he would be some uninspiring unknown who would further reinforce my rapidly solidifying attitudes against the course. But Monday was a very different day. From the moment Neil Rackham was introduced I experienced an awful guilty feeling, for I realised that what he was going to talk about was so relevant to my own work. More importantly, what he actually did talk about was relevant, too. All those points about factual scoring, tally marks, ratio analysis of behavioural items, observed frequencies — why, was I not trying to do the same thing with my DMS students? Were not my colleagues and I doing group type activities on residential courses, and were we not always meeting to discuss ways of observing group behaviour and feeding back the information?
Into Europe via international marketing
Authors: HAYWARD GEORGE
Published: February 2008

The entry of the United Kingdom into the Common Market affords unrivalled opportunities for the marketing man to extend his areas of activity. However, marketing on an international scale is not something to be rushed into without considerable thought and informed preparation. Marketing may be said to be a concept rather than a function, and a concept which should be realised and understood by all managers; not just those with the term ‘marketing’ or ‘selling’ included in their title! It is not sufficient to change the title of Sales Manager to Marketing Manager: firm action must be taken to introduce the concept of marketing throughout the organisation.
Participation without patronising
Authors: KING TAYLOR LYNDA
Published: February 2008

According to the meteorological office the last day of my stint in dockland was the hottest day of this year. I certainly feel that if one does have to slave on such fine days one should do so outdoors and preferably near the water. That at Millwall Dock proved to be as clean as any of the water found in London's East End, and if I couldn't be outdoors, at least I could place myself at a long conference table which had running parallel to it one massive sun‐window enabling me to look out to see two of the huge multi‐purpose ships of the Fred. Olsen Lines discharging their cargoes. I happened to be sitting in the Divisional Manager's office of Fred. Olsen Limited, waiting to join a meeting of the works committee. Gordon Morris, the Divisional Manager, is as stream‐lined and modern as the terminal he looks after. The terminal is the most modern in the Port of London and prides itself on first‐class productivity and efficiency, which, says Gordon Morris, is due to the high standard of industrial relations which exists at the terminal. My reason for joining the works committee meeting was to find out if this was true!
OPERATION VULCAN
Authors: WELLENS JOHN
Published: February 2008

So far, in this Vulcan series, I have described how the analytical movement brought about a clearer appreciation of the nature of physical skills. There are several distinct concepts. First comes the separation of job knowledge from the skills. Job knowledge consists mainly of comprehension — an understanding of certain basic principles, theories, properties of the materials being processed, knowledge of how to calculate cutting speeds and rates of feed and so on. Skill is the mastery of the performance which operates on the actual workpiece or process. Job knowledge, being a form of comprehension, implies that the mental activity is conscious. Skill, while at the early developmental stage consciously‐controlled, is not truly a skill until most of the activity is adapted to take place within the subconscious level. The early stages of skill training communicate performance consciously but the function of repetitive exercises is to turn this conscious activity into a subconscious activity. The second principle is that skill performance is a sensori‐motor activity: that the performer is processing sensory information coming in from the task and that he uses the sensory input to control the motor or doing activity in continuous feed‐back. The contribution of the skills analyst has been to explore more fully the nature of the sensory feed‐back and to place this new knowledge at the disposal of the trainer, who previously had tended to concentrate almost exclusively on the actual doing part of performance. The third principle has to do with that sixth sense known as the kinaesthetic sense or the feel of the job when it is being properly performed. A fourth principle concerns the over‐riding importance of job analysis: the concept that training cannot be correctly designed without the task itself being analysed first. A fundamental point of job analysis is that it can be carried out at different levels of penetration and that one skill the trainer himself has to acquire is the ability to make the correct choice of that form of analysis which will optimise his results but minimise his use of effort and other resources.
Building trades training another mirage?
Authors: PERRY HERBERT A
Published: February 2008

In recent weeks the building industry has once again been sending out agonised cries for help to solve its problem of shortage of skilled labour. This agony comes about two years after the industry emasculated the Construction Industry Training Board, especially the section concerned with operative training. Now, according to a recent article in The Guardian, desperate employers in the middle of a boom have asked the CITB to appoint a specialist to study the training and supply of new craftsmen. ‘David Algate, aged 39, a former surveyor and Tory city councillor in Plymouth started his new job this week.’ Ironically Mr Algate is a survivor of a CITB team of ‘specialists’ who developed and attempted to institute new patterns of training craft apprentices in 1968/69 and his qualifications and experience are somewhat more substantial than having once been a Tory city councillor.
The crossroads of change
Authors: KING TAYLOR LYNDA
Published: February 2008

Birthdays, like New Years, are celebrations which often result in promised re‐thinks and resolutions concerning our future. Nationalist rule in South Africa celebrated its 25 years of life last month and when the birthday celebrations were over there must have been many in that land who hoped that after the party would come some resolutions which promised hope as opposed to fear. The element of fear within South African environments is perhaps the strongest and most dominant that I have encountered in any country. Fear corrodes the very foundations of society and change: it is natural to resist change just as it is natural to cry when one is hurt, shout ‘ouch’ when pricked with a pin. Fear exists under the veneers of Afrikaner self‐righteousness; it exists despite the materialism of the English society in that country: there is a fear of permissiveness, of immorality, unorthodoxy and, most of all, a fear of new ideas and the change which accompanies them. There is a fear for the future and a fear that accompanies non‐comprehension. When 60 000 are involved in illegal black strikes, as they were earlier this year, and people the world over are forced to become aware of this wave of black strikes as a signal that, despite the efficient authoritarian régime, these black workers can and do organise themselves, it is a warning to us all that their compliancy could be ending sooner than anyone considered.
Unfair dismissal
Authors: BROADHURST ALISON
Published: February 2008

In a previous article the author discussed the curious way in which The Redundancy Payments Act is working. This month she examines some of the many facets of the operation of the new unfair dismissal procedure under the Industrial Relations Act, including some which become evident when both statutes are being invoked by an applicant. What is unavoidable is the conclusion that even if the details may be changed in some ways the unfair dismissal procedure is here to stay.