Many believe that the workplace has changed dramatically in response to a new competitive business environment that is marked by flexibility, fast response time, and managerial and technological innovations. This new workplace is thought to require workers with higher and more varied skills, particularly general skills such as problem solving; unfortunately, schools are not perceived to be producing students who have such skills. The result, it is commonly argued, is a "skills gap" that threatens American productivity and competitiveness.
The goal of the research reported here was to improve the understanding of skills as they are manifested in technical work, both by extending the theoretical conception of skills and by providing empirical observations of skills in practice. We also wanted to better understand the institutional context in which working activities--particularly learning on-the-job--take place because we view skills as a feature of the workplace as a social system, and not just features of individuals or jobs.
Our study sample included sites in four firms that represent diverse business areas: a transportation agency (TA), a traffic management agency (TM), a microprocessor manufacturer (MPM), and a health care agency (HA). The number of personnel in these firms range from 26 people to tens of thousands. Two firms, TM and TA, are public agencies; the other two are private. Three have service functions, while one (MPM) is a product manufacturer. They serve markets of varying scale, from local (TM), to regional (TA), national (HA), and international (MPM). Most of these sites were feeling the pinch of austerity. Almost all the workers we observed were facing rapid changes in technology and in the way their work was done. In addition, three firms had begun using new management practices such as total quality management (TQM), continuous quality improvement (CQI), or organizational learning to guide restructuring of many aspects of their operations.
At these four worksites we studied skills in practice in seven service and manufacturing jobs:
Over several days we observed workers' everyday activities and interviewed the workers about their backgrounds (e.g., previous education and training experiences) and current job and work experiences. We also interviewed senior managers, staff, line managers, and human resource personnel to obtain information regarding each firm and its policies.
We focused on three skill areas--problem solving, communications, and teamwork--as well as work-related dispositions; all have generally been perceived to be required in the workforce. For instance, the new workplace emphasizes a shift in decisionmaking and problem solving from the supervisory level to the shop floor, where workers must cope on the spot with a growing number of unpredictable problems. Communications skills, both with speech and text, are widely cited as among the most important skills needed by today's workers. Many discussions of new skill requirements in the workforce mention teamwork as a necessary skill. Much attention has been paid to the dispositions needed to succeed on the job; indeed, some studies suggest that the skills "gap" identified by employers may be more about dispositions than academic or technical skills.
Specifically, we set out to determine the following:
This study demonstrates that work context matters in the consideration of skills. Workplaces are complex, dynamic social systems that defy simplistic categorization of skills and straightforward matching of skill requirements to jobs. The study provides a rich picture of skills and dispositions in work and draws the following conclusions:
We observed generic skills and work-related dispositions to be important in work and found this importance to be salient to the workers. Our interviews and work observations enabled us to see how workers actually apply skills in the context of their jobs, communities of practice, and work settings. However, we found that required skills can vary substantially by these contexts. Employers did not always appear to understand just how skills are realized on the job.
We were able to analyze how workers solve both routine and atypical problems and how problem solving is construed by their community of practice. For example, construction inspectors understand problem solving in their work in the context of quality assurance and control. A typical inspection problem occurs when an inspector identifies a discrepancy between the specifications and the construction and then must identify the source of the discrepancy and how to get the error corrected. Survey inspectors view problem solving similarly; however, unlike any of the other jobs we studied, survey inspection requires mathematical problem solving. By contrast, problem solving for the home health care worker and the LVN is primarily situation assessment. The worker is the "eyes and ears" of an extended patient care team, where each patient represents a "problem" that needs resolution. For the equipment technicians at MPM and traffic signal technicians who maintain and repair electronic equipment, problem solving generally means troubleshooting. When the equipment or system breaks down, they must know how to troubleshoot--to identify the problem and fix it.
Required communications skills varied similarly. An important distinction for frontline workers was internal versus external audiences--members of their own firms versus members of "the public," including their firm's customers. For example, communication with patients and their families was a central part of the job of home health providers. Traffic signal engineers working in the field often had to communicate with motorists, the "customers" of the traffic signal system. However, with the possible exception of home health aides, most workers communicated chiefly with internal audiences--members of their work group, co-workers, and supervisors. Finally, the workers in our study communicated with audiences who were single individuals or small groups.
In both speech and writing, the most common purpose for communications skills was to convey an appropriate fact accurately. Home health providers reported on the status of patient functioning and logged their own activities, including facts such as mileage driven. Survey inspectors called out measurements. The second most common purpose was to convey procedural information--instructions. Accuracy, speed, and clarity are highly valued. An amicable and professional demeanor was highly valued in all spoken communications. Such a demeanor was perceived to improve the ability and willingness of the listener to engage in communication. This was particularly important on jobs that required the worker to communicate directly with the public.
Teamwork is a description of how work is organized. What constitutes a "team" is subject to local definition and thus must be defined in relation to the working context. Thus, the "skill" or "interpersonal competency" needed to participate in a team will depend on the work organization. For instance, a self-managing work group is an intact and definable social system, with a defined piece of work and authority to manage the task on its own. This traditional conception of self-managing work groups generally characterizes teamwork in two jobs: survey inspectors and test cell associates. A second important characteristic of the work teams is the distribution of knowledge, skills, and sometimes authority among individuals. Teams can be formally recognized and supported by the organization, or informally constituted by team members themselves. The survey inspector team, for example, is comprised of individuals of different rank and skill, with party chief as the acknowledged leader. Home health providers are members of a large managed-care team, characterized by both distributed knowledge and authority linked to special certification. Construction inspectors operate as members of a "virtual" team, which helps improve the quality and efficiency of their work. Traffic signal technicians and test technicians (MPM) work independently for the most part, but they may form field teams for short-term problem solving or specific activities.
Dispositions or "habits of mind"--individuals' tendencies to put their capabilities into action--are thought to influence how individuals deal with various situations. Since the concept of dispositions appears to subsume both motivation and volition, we use this term in our analysis. Some respondents discussed feelings and interpersonal relationships, such as a sense of closeness or mutual respect, as being important qualities. We incorporate these characteristics into our analysis as well. The survey inspectors possess three important dispositions for work. Because their jobs require teamwork, the survey inspectors emphasize cooperation. They also stress a disposition for attending to details and exactness. This emphasis on quality derives from their professional standards as surveyors. Construction inspectors also must have a conscientious attitude toward their work. Because home health providers spend most of their time visiting patients at home, they must be independent in their work habits. They must also be flexible and tolerant of oversight. Home care workers must be patient, friendly, and sensitive to a range of cultures and socioeconomic conditions. Technicians at MPM need to be flexible and adaptable to change, since the technology evolves quickly even though the tasks are repetitive. For test cell technicians, the most important attitudes are the ability to work as part of the team, to be flexible to the work assignments--working on different machines, on different shifts, and sometimes on Saturdays--and to be "eager and willing to learn." Technicians need to work independently with little supervision and to accommodate the variability of the job--a normal slow pace punctuated by emergency calls. They also need to be motivated to keep up with technology changes on their own.
Firms have several options for responding to new skill demands created by technological, management, or work process innovations and to regulatory changes: hire employees with certain skills, produce skills in their own training program, contract with outside agencies or individuals to provide training, or create incentives that encourage workers to invest in their own skills. Generally, we found that firms lacked effective strategies for acquiring needed skills in their workforce. They did little to foster skill development among nonmanagerial workers and sometimes had policies that undermined skill development.
At TA, a merger and adoption of TQM in one division have hampered hiring and training in the agency itself. Instead, individual firms and their subcontractors have responsibility for training construction inspectors. Contractors formed a consortium for planning, training, and trainer hiring. For survey inspectors, training is integrated with their standards of professional practice and includes a combination of union-provided training, on-the-job training (OJT) in line with professional standards, and limited formal classes to meet mandatory requirements, such as safety-related training.
TM, finding that experienced traffic signal technicians are at a premium, has adopted a "grow your own" strategy and identifies appropriate "growable" candidates with coursework or degrees in electronics or digital systems. However, it has no budget for training programs, despite significant changes in technology and agency liability for maintenance. It relies on OJT as a skill development strategy.
MPM hires skilled workers and has a training program that is connected to the firm's strategic plan and reflects its recent adoption of total quality management (TQM) principles. The firm makes use of OJT, dedicated trainers, and outside consultants to provide general training. HA provides continuous training opportunities, both elective and mandatory, for all levels of the workforce to meet both individual job and institutional certification. Training is tied to career development programs for nurses, aides, and other staff.
As a group, the firms we studied did not have strong connections with education providers for supporting acquisition or development of workforce skills. The two smallest firms, TM and MPM, have no formal connections to schools. The two larger firms, TA and HA, have links with local high schools. HA has relationships with magnet schools and career academy programs in local high schools and encourages employees to use the tuition reimbursement program to upgrade skills.
Although our sample of jobs and worksites is small, the issues raised in this research are not unique to these cases. Our detailed observations provide interesting and instructive examples from which others can learn, and our conclusions should encourage reconsideration of basic assumptions about skill requirements and skill acquisition that underlie current approaches to reforming schools and to setting skill standards. The study also suggests fruitful lines of research that take a sociocultural approach to the twin problems of understanding and meeting skill requirements.