IAG in the workplace

• Siobhan Neary, The Guidance Council

IAG is often delivered as an ancillary service within an organisation whose core business is not guidance, for example careers education and guidance within a school, or a human resources function within a commercial sector organisation. In such a setting, what factors might support and/or hinder IAG work and its impact? For example, how is IAG viewed by others in the organisation not directly associated with its delivery and is there any evidence that such views influence the planning, delivery and impact of IAG services?

Over the last two years I have been trying to find out if IAG exists in the workplace and what it looks like. Most employers (we hope) provide some from of training and learning for staff – if only to familiarise them with new processes or machinery. Many employers will offer appraisal, not always seen as positive but, an opportunity hopefully to discuss training needs or career development. We can assume therefore that some information and advice may be provided to support individuals in accessing training and learning even if it is only on what is available on an internal basis.

The Guidance Council has for some years been working with employers on delivering quality IAG in the workplace. In the National Quality Standards for Learning and Work a set of standards (the D standards) were under trail with employers as were ‘Good practice guide lines for individual development in organisations’. These were superseded by the matrix quality standard for information, advice and guidance services. In 2002- 2003 I was involved in piloting the matrix quality standard with employers. This was a unique opportunity to work with companies and define what IAG really looked like for their employees.

The main difficulty we had to overcome with employers and this was the same for all, was that IAG is jargon, which only means something to those in the sector. Much of the initial discussions with companies concerned a translation of what they provided to their employees into what we ‘matrix advisers’ would term IAG.

What we found with all the companies and this included some small and medium sized enterprises, was that there was a great commitment to IAG. Although we have to bear in mind that these companies were pretty forward thinking anyway. But that information, advice and guidance was interpreted differently within each company dependent on the levels of support provided to staff. There was no standardisation as to whom it was delivered by, unless they had a learning centre/company university, in which case there was dedicated staff. For all the others a range of individuals could deliver it, both face to face and through electronic mediums.

A report subsequent to this published by the Guidance Council identifies what IAG was defined as within Large companies and SME’s.

Information Advice and Guidance Partnerships (IAGPs) have also to varying degrees been working with employers through a range of initiatives including the DfES Guidance Pilots, LSC funded Quality Development Funds (QDF) and most recently the Treasury funded Employer Training Pilots (ETPs). But how successful have these been? Again this varies. IAG is a core part of the ETP entitlement yet many IAGPs report they have very little take up. This may be for a number of reasons; limitation of options available to employees, lack of understanding of what IAG is by intermediaries such as the business support agencies, sufficient promotion of IAG by the projects themselves. These projects provide a major opportunity to embed IAG visibly within training and development, yet at the moment it appears more tokenistic then real, (my personal view).

On the other hand the TUC have made a huge impact in providing IAG in the workplace to support access to learning. In the TUC annual survey of Union Learning Reps, (ULRs) for 2003, they have found that 81.7% of ULR’s have provided information and advice on learning and work to members. This area is one of the most popular areas for ULR training with nearly 1/3 of respondents to the survey wanting to do more IAG training, over _ wanted to do the NVQ in advice and guidance.

So what about non unionised workplaces? Reports about training and SME’s tend to show that SMEs are not adverse on the whole to training and learning, but they are adverse to what they see as irrelevant qualifications. I am not aware of much research around IAG and SMEs but what I have seen is that SMEs are unhappy with the time and effort it takes to find out about learning opportunities and funding for learning. They welcome support, (but not necessarily the business support agencies), but want a joined up approach. * I have this report, I am trying to get agreement to make it available.

Learndirect are currently marketing a ‘Training Adviser’ service to employers to support them in identifying training needs and identifying appropriate courses.

• recognise the benefits of IAG
• to provide access to it
• promote a partnership approach ( employer, state, individual) to individual career management
• promote the benefits of impartiality

What we need to do is to redefine IAG into something that means something to everyone. We need to move away from IAG being something we DO to people and to move towards a model of individual ownership where people can manage their own ‘career’ what ever it may be. We do recognise that difficulties of the word ‘career’, but see it within the context of life generally and not just defined within the context of paid work.

The CIPD have recently released a research paper, Managing employee careers, issues, trends and prospects, 2003. This identifies that “line managers and HR staff also need to be trained to deliver career support to employees. Gaining the buy-in and commitment of senior management is vital to ensuring that career management is given the due attention, resources and importance it needs in order to be delivered effectively to employees”

So we are doing quite a lot from the bottom up to support access to IAG and career management/development – whatever we choose to call it. We now need to start from the top down.

The Guidance Council campaigning agenda call for careers education, information, advice and guidance to become an integral and distinct part of all learning and working.