Work Work Work magazine News Archive

23-Oct-2006

Skills minister hears how unions and employers work together

Collaborative working between unions and employers on skills development is the way to ensure modern workplaces are geared up for the challenges of the twenty first century. This is the message that Skills Minister David Lammy MP will hear at the first joint conference to be organised between an...


06-Oct-2006

Apprenticeships should be fit for purpose

Despite efforts from Government the take-up of Apprenticeships by large employers remains limited, according to new research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Victoria Winkler, Learning, Training and Development Adviser, says: "What is clear is that in the right...


12-Sep-2006

Skills for life issue for whole organisation

A new survey report published by unionlearn, reveals the successes of adopting an approach to learning and skills, which involves the whole organisation. This approach enables all those in the workplace to develop their skills whether this is basic literacy and numeracy or at undergraduate...


22-Aug-2006

Soft skills more important than 3Rs

A day after the CBI claimed that employers are having to train school leavers in basic skills the CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook claims that UK employers are having difficulty finding school-leavers with the quality soft skills required to interact with customers. Employers are placing much...


10-Aug-2006

Sound enhances visual training

The use of sound during visual training can enhance later performance on a purely visual task, a finding that demonstrates just how much multisensory interaction occurs in brain areas that before now were thought to be dedicated solely to vision. A report from the British Psychological Society...


01-Jun-2006

Basic education needs are responsibility of Government

Commenting on the Public Accounts Committee report "Employers' perspectives on improving skills for employment', Anthony Thompson, Head of Skills at the CBI, said: "Employers take training and development very seriously and last year alone invested £33bn helping staff adapt to the demands...


31-May-2006

UK to host World Skills 2011

The United Kingdom will host the 2011 World Skills competition at ExCel in London. London beat off strong competition from Australia and Sweden to host what was previously known as the skills Olympics. The World Skills Competition symbolises the pinnacle of excellence in vocational training....


29-May-2006

Employers perspectives on skills development

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has welcomed the Public Accounts Committee report 'Employers' Perspectives on Improving Skills for Employment'. The report recommends that skills training should not just concentrate on literacy and numeracy but on practical vocational and life skills...


12-May-2006

Skills shortages leapfrog transport as biggest issue

A shortage of skilled staff is now the biggest barrier to business in the capital, overtaking transport problems for the first time, the latest CBI/KPMG London Business Survey reveals. Sixty-one per cent of employers are facing skills shortages, a rise from 49 per cent last year, with firms in...


08-May-2006

Learn a new language to develop soft skills

The personality of people who are bilingual changes depending on which language they use, lending credence to the Czech proverb “Learn a new language and get a new soul”. That’s according to a report from the British Psychological Society about reserach conducted by Nairan...


16-Apr-2006

Be creative: Don't think about it

Not thinking about a problem for a while doesn’t just give you a fresh perspective when you come back to it. It also allows your more creative unconscious to get to work as it “…ventures out to the dark and dusty nooks and crannies of the mind”, reports the British...


31-Mar-2006

Tailor training to age of the trainee

Figures show people participate less in training programmes as they get older yet over three quarters (77%) of individuals agree that training and career advice will be critical in ensuring older workers continue working effectively past retirement age. Speakers at the Chartered Institute of...


23-Mar-2006

Inadequate training jeopardises success of change projects

The success of organisational change in major organisations is being jeopardised by a failure to put in place adequate training and development measures, according to the 2006 Learning and Development Survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). The survey also...


11-Mar-2006

Collaborative tasks aid memory

Shared experiences mean much of our communication is short-hand according to a report from the British Psycological Society. If I told you the world will never be the same again after 9/11, you would know exactly what I was talking about, even though my statement contained little explicit...


06-Mar-2006

Training Trainers

Improvements in Army training will continue with the establishment in April 2007 of a new Army Training and Recruitment Staff Leadership School (ASLS) in Pirbright, Surrey, Minister for the Armed Forces, Adam Ingram announced today. Under current arrangements leadership training is given at a...


03-Mar-2006

The power of brain storming

So you need some fresh, innovative ideas. What do you do? Get a group of your best thinkers together to bounce ideas of each other…? No, wrong answer. Time and again research, according to the British Psychological Society has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than...


03-Mar-2006

Learning Stars

The millions of individuals currently involved in learning and skills in England can today publicly recognise those who inspire and encourage them to succeed, as nominations for the 2006 STAR Awards open. The STAR Awards celebrates the work of the truly outstanding individuals and support teams...


22-Feb-2006

Green Light for learning

The Northern TUC has announce that, following a fourth successful year of Learning for All Fund projects, we have secured funding from One NorthEast and the Learning and Skills Council to continue the Fund for 2006/07. With the green light firmly on go, the next LfAF bidding round has been set...


20-Feb-2006

1.5million learners gain qualifications

Over 1.5 million people have gained crucial basic skills qualifications through the Government's Skills for Life strategy, hitting a key target set back in 2001, Skills Minister Phil Hope announced today. Skills for Life provides free literacy, language and numeracy tuition for adults in England...


26-Jan-2006

Don't waste talents of local workforce

Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alan Johnson has spoken about the social and economic benefits of tapping into the skills and talents of the region's refugee workforce. Addressing more than a hundred employers, and delegates from the public and voluntary sectors at a conference hosted...


23-Jan-2006

Doing affects the way you see

Training to perform certain movements, even blindfolded, affects our subsequent ability to perceive those same movements when performed by others. That’s according to a report published by the British Psychological Society about research conducted by Antonino Casile and Martin Giese at the...


11-Jan-2006

Basic skills research findings

New research published by the Department for Work and Pensions interim findings from the evaluation of the basic skills national enhancements and the mandatory training pilots. The National Enhancements to the basic skills process started in April 2004. They include use of the fast-track...


05-Jan-2006

Construction centre helps build skills

Lords Housing Minister Baroness Andrews officially opened the Milton Keynes College Construction Centre at Kiln Farm. The college was established to address a shortage of construction skills in the Milton Keynes area, and will play an important part in the delivery of new housing and...


04-Jan-2006

Time of day affects learning

The British Psychological Society says that if you are learning a skill such as playing the piano, you have to master the fact-based aspect (the sequence of notes) and also the movement-related aspect (moving your fingers in the correct way on the keys). Both aspects improve during practice, but...


03-Jan-2006

London aims to host 2011 World Skills competition

In a move which parallels London's successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics, UK Skills has today announced that it has a green light to submit a bid in March to host the 2011 WorldSkills Competition. The Government has confirmed its support by pledging £11 million - half the £22...


17-Dec-2005

Staff training creates better business results!

A report by the National Audit Office, entitled 'Employers' perspectives on improving skills for employment' has produced findings that the vast majority of UK businesses cannot ignore. Key headlines and recommendations in the report include:   An overall recommendation that UK businesses...


14-Dec-2005

The Leitch review of skills in the UK

Lord Leitch, publishing his interim report, said: "Skills present a formidable challenge and a brilliant opportunity. They matter fundamentally for the economic and social health of the UK. Despite recent improvement, there is consensus that we need to be much more ambitious and a clear message...


02-Dec-2005

New team members spark creativity

Apparently, substituting a team-member for a newcomer can help increase group creativity. That's according to Hoon-Seok Choi at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea and Leigh Thompson at Northwestern University, USA. They compared the creativity of 33 three-person groups across two tasks....


02-Dec-2005

New help for those who lack mental capacity

Health minister Rosie Winterton has announced the seven organisations that have been chosen to pilot the new Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA) role. From January 2006, pilot IMCA advocates will provide a service to people without capacity, who have no families or friends to support...


20-Nov-2005

Financial education is key to retirement planning

Europe must ensure that people have access to financial education and information so they can make confident choices about their retirement said Stephen Timms, Minister for Pension Reform at an EU Presidency meeting in Brussels. With at least three million people in the UK not saving enough it...