For professionals and scientists, changes in the organization of work in the direction of multidisciplinary teams created to perform time-limited mandates is leading to a new learning demand not only for the acquisition of scientific and technical competencies, but also for soft skills such as the ability to work in a team, resolve problems, plan duties, etc. This knowledge and this know-how rarely form part of the initial education programs of these professionals or scientists (Sirois, 1995, p.129 ff.). These new forms of organizing work in laboratories and other professional units, which take the form of research or working groups organized around a specific project, are also transforming the learning demand.
While the learning demand in a company is a construct made up predominantly of the organization's requirements with respect to the transformation and conditions of production, but also the aspirations, perceptions and constraints of the organization's individuals, and while the expression of outside demand, namely production requirements defined by the company and outside regulating forces, is a key element in the observed processes of diagnosing needs and planning ALT activities, the same cannot be said of the consideration given to of the needs and expectations of the various groups of personnel (Bélanger et al., 2004). The first observation is that participation by managers and professionals in the expression and definition of the learning demand that affects them tends to be much better articulated than that of operators. Even in this respect, the situation varies from one company to another. Some companies, aware of the positive impact of staff participation in ALT, even when ALT is mandatory, institute mechanisms for participation such as committees and consultation processes on technological change that allow employees to discuss the ALT dimensions or requirements of these changes.
In three of the five unionized companies studied by Bélanger et al. (2004), mechanisms were negotiated that allow employees, acting through their union, to make known and, where necessary, negotiate their needs and expected conditions for education and training. In one organization in the food sector, the presence of a union had facilitated the expression of learning demand. In a biopharmaceutical company, this concern has even taken up an entire chapter in the collective agreement, covering the question of training for trainers, participation in committees that define needs and the conditions governing time off. The transformation undergone recently by an establishment in the same sector has even led the union to sound the alarm concerning employees' learning needs, so that the employees have an easier time meeting the requirements of their transformed tasks. However, in two of the five unionized workplaces involved in that study, the union is not involved in any way in defining the learning needs of personnel. Similarly, Charest (2007a) notes that in Quebec in 1998 "more than one-half of collective agreements covering 50 and more private-sector employees still do not contain a general clause on the subject of ALT" (p. 240; transl.).
While the mechanisms for expressing demand for staff training are usually weak, if not entirely absent, the fact remains that forepersons, managers, trainers or mentors in some companies tend to play an informal mediation role. Thus, as was observed in one organization, the crisis caused by a major but poorly introduced technological change first created passive resistance and then, following a collective reaction, led management to review the speed with which the new technology was initially introduced and the ALT plan and method proposed by the outside consultant.