The present study is a case study that explores the influence of work environment characteristics on staff participation in training and development activities in a voluntary sector organisation providing services to people with learning disability.   Work environment characteristics will be measured using subscales of a questionnaire developed by Noe and Wilk (1993), which measure social support (co-worker and manager), situational constraints and career exploration and planning.   A subscale of a questionnaire developed by Maurer and Tarulli (1994) which measures employees’ perceptions about the extent to which their organisation seems to value and emphasise employee learning is also used.

A three year time frame is being used because this period represents a time during which there was considerable investment in training in the organisation following an extensive training needs analysis conducted in 1996.   Furthermore, it represents a reasonable time scale for employees to remember which courses they have completed.   Participation in training and development will be measured using self-report by employees of:

(i)                 Number of in-service courses completed in the past three years (since January 1997)

(ii)               Number of externally run seminars and conferences attended in the past three years (since January 1997)

(iii)             Number of professional courses completed in the past three years (since January 1997)

(iv)              Current participation in professional training course(s).

The study also explores employees’ evaluation of the training activities they have attending in St. Michael’s House. This will be measured using a subscale from a questionnaire developed by Noe and Wilk (1993).  

The aim of the study is to determine if work environment characteristics in St. Michael’s House influence employee participation in training and development activities. It will also investigate how employees evaluate previous training and development activities.