Staff competences are not merely individual skills fixed at some point in time; ideally, they expand in organizational processes of reflection and learning. This is particularly important in situations involving issues of diversity and social inclusion.

Competence development may consist in traditional classroom teaching, but on-the-job reflection and situated learning are important too. For learning to be embedded in the workplace and be truly social, professionals as well as assistants must engage in the exploration and identification of their best work-related practices and share them through storytelling, mutual appreciation and strengths finding. Such processes in the staff group need to be facilitated closely by a trained facilitator, be it the manager or someone else. Competence development and organizational learning requires that someone takes charge of such learning processes: designs them, initiates and executes them with the staff and makes sure they are followed by action.

In this workshop, an initial, brief restatement of the morning's lecture by Jan Peeters will be followed by work in groups of three, where participants will recall and tell each other stories of staff development and facilitated learning in work situations (in Danish or English). Later, we will hear some of these stories and best practices in the whole group, and Jan Peeters and Ib Ravn will draw comparisons to international research and experiences from VIDA as well as offer wider theoretical perspectives. 

Workshop seats (50) will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, and registration for a workshop will take place in the morning of the conference, during registration and coffee.