Defining and investing in workforce development adds real value to learning and teaching and helps you avoid unnecessary costs of time, resources and bought-in expertise. The DEFINE stage underpins all four priorities and all ten themes in the Workforce Strategy journey.

In the DEFINE stage you consider the big picture for all the people you employ, in all roles and at all levels. It is the first stage in the cycle - but also the final one: you should revisit it after you have worked through the other stages. The DEFINE stage helps you understand the implications for your own workforce strategy: if you get it right, the other stages will be easier to manage.

What do people expect of your organisation as a learning provider? People have expectations about the organisation as a whole (‘generic’ expectations), about the subjects it offers and about the sector it operates in. All these expectations need to be addressed in workforce development – but they don’t stand still: they change and evolve. DEFINE helps you identify the expectations that are most likely to influence your organisation’s planning between now and 2012.

Quick tips

• If you want to consider workforce development in the context of your overall work as a learning provider, why not use a ‘Whole Organisation’ framework. One example is this framework.
• To consider everything that might come under the heading of workforce or staff development use a checklist.