This paper reports on one part of a two-part study examining industry views on the
management and maintenance of industry currency of VET practitioners. While they play a
critical role in up-skilling the broader Australian workforce, research suggests that currency
gaps exist amongst the VET workforce (Toze & Tierney 2010). In light of this, currency has
become a concern for industry, training providers and practitioners alike (Precision
Consulting 2008). Rather than taking a strictly VET view of the issue, this qualitative study
gathered insights into the way nine knowledge-leading organisations in the fields of science,
health, engineering and human resources dealt with the updating of their professional
workforce. Findings indicate that effective updating was not only dependent upon a healthy
organisational climate that sent the message that keeping current was an expected activity, it
needed to be strategically planned, collaboratively undertaken, monitored and regularly
reviewed. Additionally, by building greater flexibility in the way daily work was done, space
was made for ‘just-in-time’, project-based learning specifically directed at the development
of new knowledge and skills as demands for these emerged. For VET, similar strategies and
innovative thinking about how best practitioner updating might occur would seem to be an
imperative.