WRIA develops the human, business and management skills people need through the transitions of working life — graduates, early-career staff, and new managers. It does this through work-based learning: a real workplace project, structured reflection, and a way to measure how each person develops.
WRIA is dedicated to work readiness — the capability people need to perform as they move into a new role or level.
Drawing on the Katz model of management skills, each programme targets development where it matters most for that stage of a career.
The diagram shows the skills that managers need to be effective in their careers. It can be seen that Human Skills are constant throughout the individual’s career starting from the entry level up to top management level. However, the need for Technical Skills decreases as the managers progress in their career. Conversely, the managers need more Conceptual Skills with every move into a higher management position.
Therefore, the skills required in the human and conceptual areas of management learning will differ depending on the individual’s level in the organisation, be it graduate, middle or top management. Since present and potential managers would have acquired technical skills as part of their higher or college education or previous work experience, our programmes focus only on developing the Human Skills and the Conceptual Skills (namely business and management conceptual skills).
Every WRIA programme runs a real workplace project through the work-applied learning method — knowledge, project, questioning and performance.