The 7 C's of Workforce Development
1) Consensus is the extent to which the major stakeholders, government, employers and trade unions are signed up to a commitment to upgrade the skills of the workforce.
2) Competitive Capacity.-Refers to the competitive capacity for productive innovation and change. A high skills economy depends on a high level of entrepreneurial and risk-taking activities, whether in terms of new business ventures or through innovation within existing enterprises, linked to new technologies, R&D and the upgrading of skills. This is best achieved in a context of value added' rivalry between companies rather than its zero-sum' variety that leads to cost cutting, down sizing and lose of competitive innovation.
3) Capability refers to the dominant model of human capability that informs the way people think about their abilities and those of others. In Western nations this has been premised on a scepticism towards intelligence that assumes that only a minority are capable of high skilled work and that the education system must be organized in order to identify and cultivate this limited pool of talent.An alternative view is that the development of a high skills economy clearly depends on a model of human capability based on an assertion that all have the potential to benefit from skills upgrading and lifelong learning. It depends on an inclusive system of education and training that achieves comparatively high standards for all social groups irrespective of social class, gender, race or ethnicity. It also depends on teaching generic skills to all.
4) Coordination This refers to the coordination of the supply and demand for labor. It recognizes that there is often an over-emphasis on supply-side issues of education, training and employability. This ignores the need to foster the demand for skilled employment that cannot be left solely to market forces. A key issue here is how national governments try to tailor their education and training systems to the perceived needs' of the economy, and how they seek to incorporate the expanding numbers in higher education into high skilled jobs.
5) Circulation focuses our attention on the way nations, regions and industrial clusters diffuse skills upgrading beyond beacon' companies, R&D institutes, research centers and universities. In a high skills society we would expect to find a high level of circulation or diffusion of knowledge and skills throughout the workforce.
6) Cooperation is a feature of all forms of economic organization on a large scale. The more productivity depends on brains' rather than brawn', the more important cooperation based on high trust becomes.
“Institutions are essential; they facilitate cooperation by building on common interests, hence maximizing the gains for all parties. Institutions provide a guaranteed framework of interactions; they suggest that there will be an expectation of future encounters. They facilitate cooperation by building on common interest, thus maximizing the gain for all parties.” (Mingst, 2011) This theory supports the idea that if one cooperates with the other they both will gain, but once the established trust is lost between the cooperating countries, one should do whatever is in their own economic i...
The human capital, as what sociologists and economists call it, is accumulating all throughout the years in school. The educational system not only helps young people discover what they want to further pursue in life, but gives them skills and knowledge for that end occupational goal (348). With respect to the skills and knowledge received, schooling offers credentialism for students that particular jobs look for which is another reason human capital is a key role in U.S economic growth in the 20th century.
...the extent of knowledge and high-skilled training one has received. If a large part of society is not up to date with these two areas the workforce available will not suited for the particular needs of a highly technological private sector.
They are not the technical skills required by an occupation but are the enabling skills that are necessary in most occupations and that allow people to do their jobs successfully. (Molson)
In all functioning capitalistic economies in the world there are distinct separations between the types of work done, or rather the skills used, to complete the job at hand. The lower level jobs like factory work generally function through having employees follow strict guidelines with attention to detail. While this is still a skill to be learned it requires little development of outside knowledge or the ability to analyze critically. Higher paying jobs come with the responsibility to be able to act for oneself and in the interest of what is beneficial by dealing with each situation in a calculated and often creative manner. These different skill sets are acquired through different methods of learnin...
What this suggest is that the differences in educational institutions will determine an individual or a groups level of education in society, but one must bear in mind the fact that just because certain individuals and groups who belong to a particular socioeconomic status doesn’t guarantee them a successful career.
The second instance is cooperation at any time and any place. Today cooperation yields great results. They say two brains are better than one. An individual cannot achieve as much as a group can achieve and the same applies to one group and multiple groups. The more people that work...
...quired in relation to the skills available leading to the reduction of income inequalities and social cohesion compared with to rival economy’s such as China and India (Teaching and Learning Research Program, 2008.) The idea that a successful knowledge/skill based economy is the dependent of significant proportion of the work-force being in possession of a university level degree or the equivalent as well as higher access to opportunities within the Lifelong Learning sector, participation numbers have to rise to reflect this being beneficial for both individuals and society as a whole.
Coates and Mc Dermot 2002, ‘An exploratory analysis of new competencies: A resource based view perspective.’ Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 20, pp. 435-450.
With the global economy relying more than ever on brainpower and innovation rather than raw materials and manual labour as generators of wealth, a good education has become the key factor determining who will succeed and who will be left behind.
While traditional societies relied on ascribed characteristics to determine an individual’s role in society, modern societies use the education system as a means to sort individuals on the basis of achievement, using measures such as grades, test scores, and work ethic to guide high-achieving students into jobs that recognize and utilize their skills, and low-achieving students into jobs that are less skill-demanding. For example, a high-school student with high-grades, high test scores, and a strong work ethic will be readily accepted into colleges and universities and afforded with opportunities to pursue more intellectually demanding occupations, but a high-school student with low-grades, low test-scores, and a low-to-moderate work ethic will not be accepted into college, and rather, must enter the workforce with only a high school degree, limiting his career options to categories that require low-to-average cognitive skills. Thus, the education system ensures that only the most qualified individuals end up in challenging occupations, directly serving the needs of industrial society. Specifically, functionalists argue that education as a system of role differentiation is beneficial in two ways. Firstly, it is able to address
But still there is a vast skill gap that causes a mismatch between industry needs and institutional output. India being a nation with a high percentage of youth nearly 35% are between the age group of 15 to 21 who after completing their graduation are in a position to enter into a job market. But due to the lack of skills that are required for an industry many people out of that lot fail to enter the job market (Murugaia S. 2014) Employers recognize that “soft” skill development is essential for their employees. These skills are difficult to teach to employees once they are on the job. Therefore, they should be learned through development opportunities such as higher education (Arensdorf,Jill
Recently, the focus in the workplace has moved towards skills development. For example: the UK Commission for Employment and Skills came to the conclusion that over 80% of the United Kingdom’s 2020 workforce is already employed. Taking this shift into account, employers should take part in skills development activities to invest for training their employees.
The first challenge facing human resource professionals in “The War for Talent” is addressing the emerging skills gap. As stated by Lauby (2016) The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) defines the skills gap as “the gap between an organization’s current capability and those it needs,
Human Resource Development (HRD) is often seen to be a central feature of SHRM. Discuss the role and importance of HRD in achieving SHRM organizational outcomes.