Assistant Director, Learning Innovation

About The Job

The Institute for Adult Learning (IAL), an autonomous institute of the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), is at the forefront of building capabilities and offering continuing professional development for an effective, innovative and responsive Training and Adult Education (TAE) sector.

The position will report to the Director, Centre for Workplace and Learning Innovation. In this position, the appointee will catalyse innovation through strategy development, leadership demonstration, and implementation of the centre’s efforts to leverage innovation to raise the quality and efficacy of training, learning, and people development. He/she will ensure intervention/ initiatives’ relevance and efficacy in addressing people-business and people-performance challenges through regular review and improvements.

The appointee will lead and implement the innovation lifecycle — from early-stage ideation through to sector-wide adoption — ensuring that promising innovations are nurtured, validated, and scaled to meet the needs of adult educators, L&D professionals, enterprises, and training providers. He/she will also oversee the grants portfolio and adoption platforms, working closely with other teams to ensure innovations are grounded in practice needs and reach practitioners effectively.

What You Will Be Doing

Key Responsibilities

• Conceptualise and implement interventions and initiatives aimed at idea generation and lead in translating innovative ideas and proven prototypes and learning technologies into practices and real applications. Such initiatives are aimed at meeting the needs of adult educators, L&D professionals, enterprises, and training organisations. They include:
  • Analyse emerging learning and development tools, products, and offerings, as well as the latest industry applications of learning technology;
  • Lead conceptualisation and implementation of projects to demonstrate IAL’s leadership in learning innovation and innovation practice
  • Identify and develop resources to facilitate the adoption of innovative and technology-enabled learning and training practices;
  • Curation and dissemination of effective learn tech tools;
  • Dialogue to bridge gap between research and practice in adult learning; and
  • Organise showcases to introduce latest tools and innovations to the TAE community and diverse sectors
  • Hackathon to generate learning innovation ideas, taking them from concept to wire framing level;
  • Sandbox to trial adaptations of proven innovations; and
  • Innovation grants aimed at nurturing and facilitating innovations from concept through to sector-wide adoption.

• Initiate and develop collaborative approaches to engage with a diverse range of sector stakeholders, including enterprises, learning consultants, Training Providers, L&D practitioners, Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and educational technologists, to strengthen the ecosystem's capacity for innovative practices and adoption of proven innovations.
• Provide advisory and consultancy to TAE organisations, learning solution providers, and enterprises seeking to leverage innovation and technology-enhanced learning to improve their courses and programmes
• Review and enhance the value proposition of and integrate Innovation and Development initiatives with Workplace Learning initiatives to strengthen the centre’s interventions and realise intended outcomes  
• Develop and implement an effective administrative and management framework to support the delivery of initiatives and ensure they meet intended objectives
• Conceptualise and manage an evaluation framework to ascertain the centre’s contribution and impact on the innovation culture of the wider community as well as the centre’s programmes, initiatives and activities
• Manage the Team in defining common goals, direction and accountability among staff and develop staff through ongoing coaching, mentoring and career discussions
• Any other duties assigned, including cross-divisional projects.

Job Requirements

• Minimum 8 years of experience in related fields of adult and workplace learning and/or education technology, preferably in programme conceptualization, evaluation and improvement, and operational management of innovation and consultancy related activities and initiatives
• Strong analytical skills and proven ability to set and achieve strategic objectives through performance management as well as evaluate and achieve partnerships to promote workplace learning innovation efforts
• Strong systems thinking and problem-solving skills, with the ability to connect the dots to develop a deeper appreciation of current and emerging key issues and exercising good judgement to provide sound recommendations.
• Proven track record in establishing partnerships to deliver on corporate objectives and key performance indicators, analysing emerging industry developments to inform the centre’s strategies
• Proven stakeholder management capabilities, with strong networking and interpersonal skills
  Strong strategic, analytical thinking and sense-making capabilities to drive agreed initiatives
• Open to change with proven ability in innovation and creativity
• Resilient and adaptable working in a fast-paced environment that requires multi-tasking
• Ability to communicate, negotiate and network effectively through excellent interpersonal, written, verbal and presentation skills

The successful appointee will be based in IAL Campus located at Lifelong Learning Institute next to Paya Lebar MRT station.