1 Why do Australian companies train their workers? An analysis of the 2005 SEUV data.

Despite the ongoing research carried out into employer training in Australia and overseas (Cully, 2006) and the availability of statistical evidence on training investments by Australian employers (ABS, 2003, NCVER, 2006), the operation of training activities within organisations remains something of a ‘black box ’ for research and policy makers. This is particularly the case for understanding the reasons why employers provide training and their choices about the type of training they provide. Recent work by the Australian Industry Group (Allen Consulting Group, 2006) and the Business Council of Australia (2006) has underlined the increasingly strategic nature of training in modern Australian organisations. These reports highlight the fact that organisations are beginning to realise that their future access to the skills they have identified as necessary for future growth cannot be guaranteed by the outputs of the national vocational education and training (VET) system and they need to increase their own training efforts in-house to ensure the supply of skills. Research overseas has highlighted the prominence of training in the development of new approaches to human resource management and high performance work systems (Butler et al, 2004). Here training is important because it enables employers to implement new systems of work organisation that will radically improve business performance. Cappelli (2004) has argued that training plays a key role in building the close human relationships required for high performance work systems often referred to as “social capital”. This paper presents an analysis of the 2005 Survey of Employer Use and Views of the VET system to uncover the reasons why 2 employers provide training in different circumstances and how different organisational characteristics will predispose employers towards discrete training choices