Chapter 6: Learning and development

Abbreviations

A list of the abbreviations used in this report is available in the Glossary

Effectiveness of learning and development in improving performance

Employees were positive about how effective they thought the learning and development they had received in the last 12 months was in helping improve performance. Nearly three-quarters of employees(73%) rated their learning and development activities as high or moderate in improving their performance and only 18% rated them as low.

A number of factors influenced how employees rated the overall effectiveness of the learning and development they had received:

classification—EL employees were more likely to rate the effectiveness of learning and development as low than APS 1–6 employees
sex—while there was no difference between male and female employees who rated the effectiveness of their learning and development as high, women were more likely to rate overall effectiveness as moderate and men more likely to rate overall effectiveness as low
agency size—employees in medium agencies were less likely to rate overall effectiveness of their learning and development as low than employees in large or small agencies
location—employees in the ACT were more likely to rate overall effectiveness of learning and development as high and less likely to rate it as low
type of work—employees who exercised regulatory authority were more likely to rate overall effectiveness as low (32%) than employees in other work
amount of time spent on training—the greater the amount of time undertaken in training the more employees were likely to rate the overall effectiveness of learning and development as high.