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Investing in the current workforce by supporting their own personal learning and development is key to the success of the overall model of workforce-centred workforce planning. It is also important for ensuring a workforce that is agile and flexible to changing circumstances.
All appraisal forms should include space for staff to give their views on workforce planning issues. As human resources staff collect and analyse aggregated data, this will become an important mechanism to gain workforce insight for future planning.
What is learning and development strategy? Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) offers:
“Learning and development (L&D) strategy articulates the workforce capabilities, skills or competencies required to ensure a sustainable, successful organisation and sets out the means of developing these capabilities to underpin organisational effectiveness.
Recent Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) research has emphasised the importance of strategic human resource (HR) management aligned to the overall business strategy.
The L&D strategy should reflect and reinforce the approach within the broader HR management strategy and link with other strategies (for example, reward)”.
CIPD also offers ‘Value of learning: assessing and reporting on the value of learning to your organisation’, which gives more detail on how to assess the alignment of learning to strategic priorities. You need to log in to access this resource for free.
The Continuous Learning Framework (CLF) sets out what people in the social service workforce need to be able to do their job well now and in the future and describes what employers need to do to support them.
The Organisational Capabilities help employers to:
The Personal Capabilities focus on managing self and managing relationships, emphasising the importance of softer skills and emotional intelligence as workforce attributes.
Supervision contributes to safe and consistent standards of practice and forms part of an organisation’s system of quality assurance. The SSSC Supervision Resource aims to promote good practice in supervision across social work and social care in Scotland. The resource explains what supervision is and offers four models of supervision.
The SSSC Learning Strategy drives learning activity to support employers and workers to learn and develop in a way that works for them and that meets the needs of people using services. It sets the context for learning in social services in Scotland and identifies learning priorities for the sector.
The National Occupational Standards (NOS) in Social Services and Health Care form the basis of qualifications for the majority of social services workers, who are required to register with SSSC. The development and maintenance of common UK NOS for job roles plays a significant role in the mobility of the workforce across the UK. The NOS Navigator can also help you to:
Those entering the social service workforce and registered with SSSC are required to adhere to the SSSC Codes of Practice, including taking responsibility for their own learning and development. The Codes of Practice set out standards of practice and behaviour expected of social service workers and their employers.
Registration has an impact on workforce planning, as social service workers have to register with SSSC and must meet the requirements for registration in terms of their fitness to practise.
The role assigned by an employer to a worker determines the part (or parts) of the register that the worker must apply for. Registration requires workers to:
Registration is a major part of the drive for higher standards in social services and — with reference to the integration of health and social care and to multi-disciplinary practice in general — is bringing the social service workforce in line with other professional colleagues.
Fitness to practise is a requirement for registering, and ongoing registration, with SSSC.
A social service worker is fit to practise if they meet the standards of character, conduct and competence necessary for them to do their job safely and effectively with regard to the SSSC Codes of Practice. Implications for workforce planning include recruitment of workers who can meet, and continue to meet, registration and fitness to practise criteria.
The SSSC Learning Zone has apps and resources to help all those in social service workroles to develop their knowledge and skills. The resources are all free and individuals can work through them at their own pace. Learning from the resources can contribute towards Post Registration Training and Learning (PRTL) and employers are welcome to use the resources within their workplaces.
Social Services Knowledge Scotland (SSKS) is a website and digital library dedicated to the social services sector. It includes high-quality materials from leading UK and worldwide research and educational institutions, to help inform your research and practice.
Iriss promotes positive outcomes for the people who use Scotland's social services, by enhancing the capacity and capability of the social services workforce, to access and make use of knowledge and research for service innovation and improvement.
Iriss has developed a resource on Building your Personal Learning Network. People who can seek new information, make sense of it, and share it with their colleagues will be an asset to any work team.
The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) is Scotland’s national qualifications framework. The SCQF supports lifelong learning and can help:
Planning for the future by the Scottish Social Services Council is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://learn.sssc.uk.com.