The ACTION you take in the workforce development cycle is likely to affect the lives of your staff in both the short term and the long term – although the precise effects will vary from person to person. This stage relates directly to Themes 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 in the Workforce Strategy.

ACTION in the Workforce Development cycle
ACTION can have big implications for individuals and teams. Some staff may take a couple of years to achieve a professional qualification. Others may find that even a couple of hours’ training challenge and change their attitudes and knowledge. What happens in the ACTION stage depends a great deal on how engaged your staff are. They need to commit their time and energy to starting, and following through, courses of action. To make this aspect of staff development easier, the links to tools and resources in this part of the cycle aim to help you choose from existing qualifications and other training and may also be useful for your colleagues in teacher education and other staff-training roles.

Starting to put plans into action
Staff who lead, manage, teach or support learning can choose from a number of options for workforce development, including:

• Qualifications: courses provided by your organisation or by an external centre
• Non-accredited activity: training and other activity that does not lead to a formal qualification
• Mentoring and coaching: delivered in-house, online or as part of an external programme
• Secondments and shadowing: arranged in-house, locally or regionally

Quick tip
Current (2009–10) national programmes to support workforce development are listed on the LSIS website.

When you have put your plans into action, go to the REVIEW stage in the cycle.