What's your job about?
Queensland Rail connects communities throughout Queensland with passenger rail services, long-distance travel, tourism and freight operators. My current team is the Registered Training Organisation (RTO) Learning and Governance team. My team manages the professional development of our trainers and conducts quality assurance activities on classroom and digital training products.
My specific role as a Learning Partner in the team is to provide quality assurance consultation to the business for training packages. I am a second pair of eyes that looks over pieces of classroom and digital training packages the various teams in Queensland Rail develop for their workers. I ensure that the final training product meets quality standards and delivers an enriched learning experience. We have so many different types of teams within the business, such as corporate functions, South East Queensland and Regional operations, train service delivery and maintenance areas; that all have their own unique learning needs based on the type of service they deliver. Quality assurance and effective training are important to ensure our people are confident and competent in performing their roles. I also assist with various projects of uplift strategies, to better develop our processes and systems to ensure we are working optimally to achieve better learning outcomes.
What's your background?
I started my working career in retail sales, and I was in that sector for about eight years. I was, and still am, shy so working as a customer-facing professional was daunting, but motivating at the same time. I enjoyed understanding customer needs and being a subject matter expert on products to help my customers make informed decisions. The feeling you get when someone praises you for your help and becomes your repeat customer is amazing. However, after the years I grew tired of constantly thinking about reaching sales targets, and I lost my passion for the profession.
I started as part of Queensland Rail’s Graduate Program which was perfect for me because it offered me the opportunity to rotate through and try out different areas of the business. I was at the stage where I was unsure of what I was good at and what I wanted to do. For two years I rotated around numerous teams and was able to build great networking relationships and identify areas that interested me. Since completing the Graduate Program I have been involved with areas of the business that deliver training and develop learning.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
People with different backgrounds can do this job, but it’s something you have to be passionate about. Two of the biggest skills of my job are understanding adult learning principles and effective communication. It’s crucial to understand how adults absorb, apply, and adapt information as well as be able to communicate with those in the business who either develop or deliver the training to foster great working relationships. There are so many aspects to understanding adult learning as it’s so diverse, you’re constantly learning new ways in which training can be written and delivered.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
A couple of the things I love most about my job are being a part of process improvement and learning to uplift projects. I enjoy developing effective, modern ways of operating and getting to combine them with my enthusiasm for adult learning. It’s great to see your projects come to life in the business! I also get to read so many different skill training packages and learn something new simply by reviewing them- I never thought I’d know all about operating overhead equipment or cutting rail with oxygen gas cylinders!
What are the limitations of your job?
One of the biggest limitations of my job is that 99% of our qualifications fall under the Transport and Logistics vocational training package, so when the national regulator makes changes to standards, all our training resources get changed at once. So, when our training needs to be updated, it doesn’t rain, it pours with work to do!
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