- ULR Waseem Tahir
Waseem Tahir started his career as a cinema projectionist and worked in the cinema trade for six years before he was made redundant. He used this as an opportunity to develop his skills, initially working in a customer services role at Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council and moving on to coordinate several different projects during his two and a half years within the Council.
Waseem has been a Unite union member and union learning rep (ULR) at Mosscare Housing in Manchester since 2008. He combines his ULR* role with his job as Continuous Improvement Officer and has helped many staff and community members with their learning and development over the years, working with both the Unite ULF teams and unionlearn* in the North West to organize courses and events and to signpost people to individual programmes.
Waseem sits on the Mosscare Training and Consultation Forum and is closely involved in the running of Mosscare’s vocational and professional development programme which covers everything from apprenticeships to higher education.
Waseem’s role as a ULR has included facilitating several innovative sessions in partnership with unionlearn for Mosscare staff including using role playing acting as a customer service training tool, identifying learning styles for individual staff members to help improve learning and using learning at work activities to enable learners to deliver training to one another on health and well-being.
As part of his ongoing development, Waseem embarked on an Information Management Degree at Manchester Metropolitan University and graduated with First Class Honours and was awarded the NW CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals) Branch Award for achieving the top score across the Manchester Metropolitan University’s Information and Communications Undergraduate degree routes.
Waseem used the skills he learnt on the course to provide several benefits for his employer. These include:
Using his dissertation to explore the concept of the learning organisation and its practical application to the UK housing sector, using Mosscare as a case study
Using research and information analysis skills developed on the course to conduct in-depth analysis on several key surveys for the organisation
Using experience gained in developing web based applications, including blogs and wiki’s to develop and improve Mosscare’s intranet and website
Waseem was able to secure paid time off as well as financial support from Mosscare Housing towards his degree and when asked how he felt about returning to an academic environment, Waseem said:
‘I didn’t expect to do as well as I did when I first started the course, in fact in some ways I felt awkward prior to starting the course. However, five minutes into the course that awkwardness disappeared and I found that because the course was made up of people from a variety of different age groups, I fitted in really well. I do know why we all did as well as we did and it wasn’t just because we had more life or work experience. It was because as mature students, we were more aware of why we were undertaking a vocational and professional qualification and that motivation helped drive our learning and helped us to achieve the personal development goals we had set for ourselves.’
Waseem has since gained a place to study MSc Management and Information Systems: Change and Development at the University of Manchester on a part time basis starting in January 2012. He is currently developing his skills further to enable him to pursue a career in business analysis or organisational development.
