careers


handful of heads of service in a shared services centre (SSC) providing different kinds of transactional and professional services to 80,000 customers, he admits that the SSC thing may sound a weird role for someone from the heartlands of learning and development. However, he says that it’s precisely because he’s taken on board “the whole Lean and Six Sigma thing” that he has managed to learn so much about providing products and services efficiently and effectively.


A job like mine D


r Tim Gibson works in a large central government department as head of learning and continuous improvement services. One of a


Gibson is one of those people who are genuinely interested in implementation as well as strategy, not to mention organisational culture. As a regular contributor to e.learning age over many years, he holds the singular distinction of having had a column of code published in one of his articles. When I remind him of that he worries that it might make him sound like a geek, especially when he has fessed up in print before now that he is a dab hand at electrics, drawing a distinction between open and closed circuit learning management. He’s certainly welcome round my house any time.


Then he muses whether his hands-on, constructivist approach was because he was given Meccano as a boy and then immediately worries that may sound a little… what, sexist? Old? Sad? But he doesn’t pause for long before the next set of thoughts and ideas come, perfectly formed and delivered with the merest hint of a north-east accent. The last couple of years have been spent


helping clients more toward the 70/20/10 learning


He is clearly excited by what he hopes and expects will be the next big thing in government – the ‘digital by default’ strategy


28 Gibson: out for a “learningful” time at work


paradigm (70% on the job, 20% informal and 10% formal learning). Gibson isn’t joking when he says that many of his customers feel like they’ve had decades of 0/0/100 and so are finding the change something of a challenge. He says that watching different parts of the business make the transition in different ways and at different times has been fascinating and cheerfully admits there have been successes and “unsuccesses” in the way that he and his 100-strong team have helped things along. He is clearly excited by what he hopes and expects will be the next big thing in government – the ‘digital by default’ strategy. This should mean that citizens will be offered far more opportunities to interact with government online without disadvantaging those who choose not to. Everything will have to be supremely usable and beautifully worked out and, internally, departments will need to put their own digital houses in order, saving lots of money for the taxpayer as well as making government more open and accessible. Gibson can’t wait to play his own small part in all of this. Ultimately he believes that business success


is predicated on helping employees have a truly “learningful” time at work. That’s a tall order, he


e.learning age october 2013


The low-down l Strategic thinker who can describe and deliver the biggest of big pictures.


l Also likes to get his hands dirty. l Strong believer in the need to continually change, improve, learn and challenge.


l Writes code, does electrics and probably a dab hand at plumbing if you ask nicely.


l The Dr? Oh yes, something about writing theory, text-linguistics and computers. Didn’t understand it, but he did tell me it all finished around the time when he was a beta-tester for a 0.x version of the Netscape browser and when Bill Gates still thought the Microsoft Network would be bigger than the internet. Clearly a little while ago now.


This month Tim Gibson tells Peter Williams how he is carving out a career in the L&D industry


Ultimately he believes that business success is predicated on helping employees have a truly


“learningful” time at work


says, but when you get it right, wow, does it feel good. When you can go home at night thinking that somebody got something out of the day that perhaps they wouldn’t have otherwise, that’s a fantastic feeling and a rare privilege.


Peter Williams is editor of e.learning age


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