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Policy debates across advanced industrial economies are stressing the centrality of skills and training to compete in the new 'knowledge economy'. In the UK [United Kingdom], increasing importance is being placed on improving workplace learning, yet policy has so far failed to confront the issue of employers' lack of investment in training and development. This article examines whether the high skill sectors that exist within the UK can provide a model of workplace learning for other such sectors to emulate. By using case study research from the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries, training and development practices are examined in relation to the requirements of the business and individual employees. This article will argue that the companies in question, despite their favourable product market position, remain constrained by the broader institutional environment.

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Current UK skills policy is centred on the need to drive up qualification obtainment and make the system more employer-led with Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) being given the role of articulating the ‘voice’ of employers. Through a study of recruitment and selection processes in the fitness industry, this paper explores employers’ attitudes to existing qualifications and whether their skill needs are being identified by their SSC. It also considers the broader implications of an employer-led system. The research is based upon interviews undertaken in 17 gyms, focusing on the occupation of fitness instructor. The findings reveal that managers adopt a wide range of approaches in how they recruit, train and value qualifications in the labour market. Although qualifications in this sector are important, the over-supply of ‘qualified’ workers means there is little incentive for most employers to tackle low wages or improve opportunities for training and development.

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This article examines the link between labour market regulation, in particular in relation to employment security, and the development and maintenance of an adequate skill base. The implications of the different institutional and regulatory contexts within France and the UK are addressed through a comparative study of the civil aerospace sector. The evidence indicates that the institutional framework can have a profound effect on levels of employment security and, therefore, on training and skill development; and thus that labour market flexibility in the UK is a major barrier to the development and maintenance of skills. Show less

This article is a response to Frank Coffield's recent reflections in this journal [indexed at TD/TNC 71.480] on the Performance and Innovation Unit's [PIU's] project on workforce development in Britain. It questions the extent to which the PIU's findings represent a 'new understanding' of the UK's skills problem and asks why academics have been so reluctant to spell out what a demand-side strategy for tackling the problem would involve.

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The paper examines the claim that the Scandinavian 'social democratic' model has been able to support 'better' forms of work organisation, which afford employees higher levels of autonomy and control, when compared with 'liberal market economies', such as the UK. It focuses specifically upon the experience of one occupational group, vocational teachers in English and Welsh colleges of further education (FE) and their counterparts in Norwegian upper secondary schools. This group has been subject to a process of educational restructuring and the application of new public management, albeit in different forms and to differing degrees. However, very little is known about how their jobs compare in terms of their levels of discretion and autonomy, and their influence in decision-making processes both within the college/school and in the wider policy environment. The paper draws upon a range of interviews undertaken within FE colleges and upper secondary schools in England, Wales and Norway, alongside interviews with national stakeholder representatives. The research finds evidence to support the view that Scandinavia is indeed distinctive, with Norwegian teachers enjoying comparatively higher levels of job quality in relation to the key indicators of autonomy, discretion and decision-making influence.

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This article presents research findings from a case study of a company’s pharmaceutical sales force working in the UK and Ireland. We explore how changes in the nature of the customer and the competitive environment are impacting on the way management are structuring the work process and the nature of skills required. A central focus is whether these changes are pushing management to increase the skills and knowledge of sales reps or are encouraging the use of a more rigid and less autonomous form of work organisation. Can we identify a shift of this occupational group either towards the ‘knowledge’ worker end or towards the routinised service worker end of the skill/control spectrum.

By analysing the relationship between customer, employer and employee, we evaluate how changes in the pharmaceutical industry and the reorganisation of the UK’s national health service (NHS) have led management to re-evaluate the balance between control and autonomy in managing sales reps’ work. We argue that management’s desire to empower and upskill reps, through the ‘capture and transfer’ of knowledge and the recruitment of higher qualified individuals, was being undermined by the use of forms of control which reduced autonomy and routinised the work process. The routinisation approach was more pervasive, despite the beliefs by many reps that it was inappropriate for successful selling within the particular customer environment and its negative impact on job satisfaction and labour turnover. Our evidence would refute any assertion of a general trend towards more skilled and autonomous work, showing that there remain considerable pressures on management to control and downskill their workforce, despite the benefits of autonomous working.

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A current theme within debates over interactive service work is that many routine service jobs are 'skilled' because they require workers to perform 'emotion work' and 'articulation work'. Drawing upon workers' views of their skills in two mass market call centres in the UK, the article questions the use and validity of these new skill concepts. It is argued that these concepts overplay the amount of task variation, discretion and control available to workers. Even more problematic is the tendency to equate skill with the ability to cope with badly designed jobs and stressful working conditions.The findings suggest that there is a need for a thorough debate about what is meant by a 'skilled job' in an expanding service-based economy.

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In the UK policy context, skills, education and learning are seen as a universal solution to a vast array of economic and social problems. In challenging this view, this paper argues that those educationalists calling for progressive reforms to the education system need to acknowledge the reality of the contemporary workplace and the institutional context of UK capitalism. When it comes to the question of how the UK might move towards a more inclusive high skills society, no matter where we start to look - be it the economy or a highly class-divided English education system - it all seems to add up badly. In challenging the current policy agenda, educationalists will need to insist that progressive educational reform cannot be separated from the struggle for broader political, social and economic change.

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The view that vocational education and training is central to economic prosperity and social well-being is one that is widely held by policy-makers in many countries. Delivering this agenda requires skilled and professional teachers. Ensuring that vocational teachers are able to maintain and develop both their 'craft' skills and pedagogy, through continuing professional development (CPD), is, therefore, a growing area of policy concern. While research has revealed that models for the regulation and organisation of CPD for vocational teachers vary across countries, their relative effectiveness has rarely been considered. This paper seeks to address this gap by comparing the approaches currently being adopted in three countries - England, Wales and Norway. Focusing specifically on teachers of hairdressing, it explores the opportunities for CPD and considers the constraints on teachers' ability to reflect and improve on their practice. The research draws mainly on interviews with teachers of hairdressing in two English and two Welsh further education colleges and three Norwegian upper-secondary schools. The findings suggest that while hairdressing lecturers in England and Wales have more opportunities to keep up to date with their 'craft', those in Norway find it easier to access pedagogic education and inhabit an institutional environment that affords more time and space to share ideas and collectively improve their practice.

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Although the current Labour government is committed to developing the UK as a high skills society, there is much confusion as what such a society might look like and from where it might draw its inspiration. Some academic commentators have also expressed the need for a clearer vision of the kind of society to which the UK might choose to head for under the banner of ‘high skills’. In this paper, the authors discuss whether such a vision is needed and what, in their view, this vision might look like. The authors argue that Germany and Scandinavia offer the best ‘actually existing’ examples of high skill societies and consider whether the UK could move towards a northern European inspired high skills model. Having identified some of the obstacles currently blocking such a project, the paper discusses whether a vision is still needed and why academics must continue to debate what it means to build a high skills society in the UK.

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