**4. Discussion**

This study examined the perceptions of HWC participants, including UIC TA providers, labor expert TA providers, and TA recipients of UIC researchers' TA role throughout the HWC process. The findings centered on HWC participants' perceptions of the appropriateness and utility of UIC's role as TA in the HWC, challenges encountered in this TA provider–recipient model, and potential next steps for UIC's involvement with TA recipients beyond the HWC sessions. The findings provide insight into the role of a university, such as UIC, in convening a learning and action planning initiative such as the HWC, and highlight the impacts of UIC TA providers' engagement with other participants throughout the HWC process. UIC's experience in convening and facilitating the HWC sheds light on factors that contributed to participants' perceptions of the success of the university-facilitated TA provider–recipient model for learning and action development, which may be useful to other universities or similarly positioned organizations interested in engaging diverse stakeholders with the aim of facilitating PSE change. Data from this study suggest that this unique model helped to prepare representatives of various organizations to develop PSE change initiatives to address the complexities of precarious work.

This study provides important insight into how universities, such as UIC, can position themselves to support non-academic organizations across sectors and levels to facilitate evidence-informed development and the implementation of actions to address complex problems such as precarious work. The data from this study highlight the utility of having a community-engaged university bring together organizations that have existing relationships with the university, but do not necessarily have existing relationships with one another. The data also highlight the benefits and challenges of having university researchers play a TA role in a process such as the HWC, and suggest ways in which university researchers might be involved beyond initial capacity building activities to support the implementation of PSE change.

Findings that highlight the value that HWC participants placed on UIC's role as a research-focused and community-engaged institution offer support to UIC's decision to organize the HWC and convene its various participants in six in-person sessions. These findings align with much of the community–university partnership literature, which details community engagement with university researchers as a means for knowledge translation and the development of shared action agendas [4]. This supports UIC's role in putting together an initiative that has the potential to help close a knowledge-to-action gap, although this initiative differs from many of the examples in the literature. Unlike other community–university partnerships, the HWC relied on the expertise of outside TA providers, in this case labor experts, to share knowledge with the groups who are well positioned to implement interventions to address a complex problem, in this case the multi-faceted drivers of precarious work. UIC researchers' roles as facilitators differs from the more traditional knowledge-sharing role described in much of this literature.

Due to longstanding relationships with individuals involved in occupational health research and public health practice groups at UIC, labor expert TA providers and TA recipients described a level of trust and reciprocity that were vital to their decisions to participate in the HWC. These findings indicate that UIC was uniquely positioned to convene and facilitate the HWC, suggesting that the HWC participants may not have otherwise willingly participated in such an initiative. It is unlikely that without the HWC, participants would have interacted with one another at all, further highlighting the importance of UIC's role in supporting important steps toward PSE change. Without strong, pre-existing relationships between UIC researchers and members of the various organizations that were represented in the HWC, these representatives may not have decided to commit the time and resources to participate the inaugural HWC initiative. The time and effort that UIC researchers put into developing and maintaining their relationships with the labor- and health-focused organizations that ultimately agreed to participate in the HWC, either as TA providers or TA recipients, cannot be overlooked as an important step in facilitating diverse engagement and commitment to participate in a pilot initiative such as the HWC.

In addition to UIC's role as a convener of the HWC, data from the focus group and interviews reveal several perceptions of the function of UIC TA in the HWC sessions. These functions, from providing guidance, facilitation, encouragement, and accountability to TA recipients, display the range of intensity of TA provided by UIC researchers in the HWC model. This intensity differed from that described in the TA literature, with UIC TA providers serving in a capacity that might be likened to that of a coach or accountability manager instead of a role in which the TA provider takes on responsibility for some of the work. The HWC model seemed nevertheless effective for TA recipients, many of whom attributed their progress in digesting HWC content and planning for next steps of the involvement of UIC TA providers. This suggests that TA as it is described in the literature does not fit the HWC's model, and perhaps an expanded definition of TA is needed. Further, this suggests that university facilitation using AL, in a model such as the HWC, may be effective in increasing knowledge to action. This aligns with calls for capacity-building initiatives to foster more effective public health practice to address complex issues such as precarious work [36].

These findings did highlight some of the limitations of this UIC TA model. Many of the limitations described by participants revolved around the the timing and tight timeline of the HWC, both of which resulted from constraints of operating within a time-bound grant period. UIC TA providers described the challenges of planning and developing the HWC curriculum in such a short time period, which limited opportunities for cooperative planning between UIC and labor expert TA providers. Likewise, labor expert TA providers noted the challenges of not being involved in the planning of each session. This particular issue highlights the limitations of having a university group, which relies on grant funding, designing, and hosting such an initiative, given many of the factors, such as timing and funding, are determined by the funder and are out of their immediate control.

Finally, findings from the focus group and interviews suggested that TA recipients would value and benefit from UIC TA beyond the HWC sessions. This finding highlights some of the ways in which TA recipient organizations were underprepared for action following the HWC, likely requiring additional guidance and supports to move their plans forward. This finding also highlights the importance of sustained engagement between university groups, such as the UIC TA providers in the HWC, and community groups, which is mirrored in the community–university partnership literature [4].

While this manuscript describes the role of university-provided TA in developing strategies for addressing precarious work, evaluation of the HWC in promoting sustainable relationships and partnerships is ongoing. The impact of the HWC on organizational priorities and on process and systems change to better address precarious employment is also an area of ongoing and future research.
