The different types of skills to be mobilized may bring about the development of not only structured training but also informal learning and, consequently, support for self- directed learning. There are skills and experiences that are not, and perhaps cannot be, part of structured education and training. Examples abound of skills that are not coded and not transferred solely through structured training, of knowledge that is not institutionalized and yet of strategic value in daily productive activities: experimenting with a new budgeting system or a type of equipment; knowledge accumulated by experience on the company's specific market in order to engage in better daily planning of deliveries; anticipating the possibility of a mechanical breakdown; knowledge of the local vocabulary of a given trade or company in order to be able to name specific equipment or products .

Hence, the work-related learning demand evolves in light of shortcomings in the ALT offered and of the development of new approaches to obtaining qualifications.

Work-related adult learning and training is becoming a complex process of activities, consisting of successive stages that are increasingly integrated and geared to effecting real transfer of learning into action. Our report on the development of ALT in Quebec emphasizes the importance of often-concealed "upstream" and "downstream" stages, namely those of expression of learning demand and comprehension of needs, and of evaluation.