Skills for Justice Members celebrate Learning at Work Week and commit to the ongoing development of their people

We are delighted to be an official national activity partner of Learning at Work Week, the biggest festival of workplace learning in the UK.

This year’s theme is ‘Made for Learning’, which focuses on our human capacity to learn. It is based on raising awareness around how we can be great lifelong learners and the importance of connection and community for developing empowered people and dynamic organisations, built on three pillars of learning.

Human = Learning

Human = Curiosity

Human = Connecting

During Learning at Work Week (LAW) we will look at each of these pillars in more detail and share the LAW activities of Skills for Justice Members, based on each theme.

In the second part of our Members Insights Series, we are looking at the next pillar of learning; Human = Curiosity.

If you have missed the previous article, you can read it here:

Skills for Justice Members Insights Series: Learning at Work Week - Part 1

Being curious is an important element to keep moving, keep developing, learn new skills and improve ourselves. Our new Associate here at Skills for Justice, Mike Cunningham said: “I think the best people, the best leaders and the most effective practitioners are people who remain constantly curious and want to stay fresh. The important role of organisations like Skills for Justice is how we can keep individuals and organisations on the front and ahead of their game.”

Part of staying ahead of your game and the success of any strategic and powerful workforce plan relies on understanding the potential upcoming skills needs, and the training and development activities required to meet them. Our Labour Market Intelligence (LMI) Insights can help, by providing a summary of labour force characteristics within a particular industry. HR and Learning & Development teams can use this data for the design of training and succession plans, as well as mentoring or coaching programmes.

As the UK moves into the next phase of COVID-19, we must emphasise the need for employers across the sector to utilise evidence-based intelligence, harnessed from insights and delivered through leading reports such as the 'COVID-19 Insights: Impact on staff and priorities for recovery’, as a helpful tool for reflection. The pandemic has provided all of us with the opportunity to think about how to provide services in the most effective way possible for our people and their output. Learning the workforce-related lessons from what we have had to deal with, and what has been achieved so far will allow us to realise our ongoing organisational and leadership development ambitions, and identify what key workforce planning support is needed, both now and in the near future.

Skills for Justice Members HM Inspectorate of Probation are actively conducting ongoing research and are supporting the national Learning at Work Week campaign, with activities for both practitioners and staff. The Inspectorate has a remit to promote effective practice to probation and youth justice practitioners. Over the course of the LAW week, they will be promoting their Effective Practice Guides, which aim to help practitioners to strengthen their work with people on probation and children known to youth justice services. The Inspectorate will also be recapping some of their recent Research & Analysis Bulletins, which include hot topics such as probation caseloads, tailoring services to meet individuals' needs and supporting resistance. The Inspectorate has also organised and promoted dozens of L&D opportunities so staff can build their knowledge of criminal justice issues and develop their personal skills.

For over 20 years our research team here at Skills for Justice has helped shape the delivery of workforce initiatives and people strategies, supporting employers to make evidence-based decisions and target effective resources in their efforts to improve the workplace.

A membership with Skills for Justice will give you access to our research team who can help you with data analysis, learning needs analyses, scenario planning, formative and summative evaluations and data visualisation and produce labour market intelligence reports and infographics.

Feeling curious and want to find out more about our dynamic research services?