The actors involved in Work-related Adult Learning and Training (ALT) are numerous and interconnected. A schematic representation of the network of actors involved in such ALT, including government bodies, will give readers a summary understanding of the many ramifications and responsibilities of this active network. Our report accordingly focuses first on the network in order to clarify the galaxy of actors involved in ALT in firms in Quebec. Figure 1.1 situates the organizations referred to in the statistics and the legislative framework that will be featured in the remainder of this report.
There are two groups of providers of company training: in-house ALT providers and outside providers.
The position of in-house ALT providers is only now emerging in Quebec. In large firms, two types of actors must be distinguished. In medium-sized enterprises, the head office plays an important role since it has an ALT department providing support for the activity. Some even go so far as to establish a corporate university. At the local level, these large firms maintain in-house ALT services in each of their branches. The nature of the knowledge and skills in question is closely reflected in the ALT structure favoured by the organization. The new complex reality that now structures work-related adult learning and training into "soft" skills and technical skills should be highlighted.
There is a gap between the provision of ALT for managers and that for technicians or operators, and this gap has been poorly studied to date. There is a tendency in firms to centralize ALT organization and decision-making around soft skills and to decentralize it with respect to technical skills. Some continuing ALT departments within firms have full- time trainers on their staff. Besides these accredited in-house trainers, a new key player has appeared in recent years in firm-based ALT: trainers who are also employees. To be sure, coaching and mentoring are not new on the company training scene. Clearly, the emergence of ALT in the form of mentoring (Houde, 1995 Footnote 8) is not a new idea; what are new are its dissemination and the systematic form it has taken. Between the relatively brief and spontaneous involvement of a coach to provide accelerated ALT for newly-hired employees and an approach to mentoring based on prior training of the employee-trainer and on the planning of the mentor-mentoree relationship , there lies a broad spectrum. This type of in-house ALT, based on an interpersonal relationship of support, exchange and learning focusing on specific objectives, tends to predominate.