SKILLS ECO SYSTEMS
In the last decade there has been a great deal written about skills and workplaces as complex eco systems. Most of the words have been written by academics. Some of the ideas have made it into pilot projects in Australian and the USA. A few of the ideas have been merged into new thinking about competency based training. The T&L industry has been largely immune from the whole process. The main arena for discussion has been the tertiary sector e.g. health, racing and information technology.
In brief, the new idea is that producing more Certificate II and III trained workers will not assist the skills situation – the problem is the culture and structure of the workplace and the nature of job design, not the training framework. Pumping more funds into TAFE and PPPs will not make people more productive. It will not make the sector more productive. It will contribute little to GDP growth. Rather, there is a need to fundamentally review and reshape the nature of work in a 21st Century economy.
This is of itself not a new idea. We are 300 years into the Industrial Age and the one central tenet that has been constantly under review is the nature and structure of work and jobs. Economists, sociologists, psychologists, managers, governments and the church have all had something to say on the topic over that long period of time. Agreement has never been reached as to an agreed, single, obvious set of elements that make for productive workplaces.
Part of the problem is one of placing work in the appropriate context of our lives. Work (and therefore skills) is not just about productivity and value; it is about the quality of our lives in general. While economists and others would have us believe that work is merely an element in the production process, we know better than this. Work is central to the existence and meaning of life in an Industrial Age.
The issue of skills is tied intimately to business purpose, hours of work, payment systems, technology, community, relationships, self esteem, flexibility, authority, hierarchy, power and control. It is definitely easier to limit the definition to narrow sense of purpose, but it does not assist us when we are trying to find a better national skilling process linked to national economic and social goals.
The notion of “skills eco systems” derived initially from the high tech sector, where researchers discovered that clusters of high tech skills can be seen in context of a regional or industry wide ecology of high, medium and low skills shaped by an interlocking network of primary and service firms. Movement in one part of the system had ripple effects in all of the system, some intended but most unintended and unplanned. The overall system adapted and repositioned itself as skills shortages appeared in one place, and as the general economic and social environment changed. For example, people moved regions, employers poached talent, new entrants found their way to the available jobs by word-of-mouth, some jobs were removed and other created. None of this was centrally controlled or guided by policy frameworks (public or private).
Study of this phenomenon gave rise to several key theses concerning the make-up of any skills eco system. These issues provide us with a starting point to assess the entire idea of a skills eco system:
1. We need to understand the business context from the ground up. That is, we need to analyse the customers, the marketplace, competitive strategies, business organisations and professional and other networks, financial environment, and future trends in relation to overall economic growth and change
2. The governmental and institutional frameworks such as higher education systems and vocational training systems, as well as informal and non-government systems must be understood
3. The modes of employment, full-time and casual, staff and outsourced, contractor and consultant along with terms and conditions of employment (especially payment methods) must be place in context
4. Work organisation, job design and overall layout and definition of jobs within physical and organisation locations
5. The level and type of skills formation such as traineeships, apprenticeships, on-the-job training, continuing professional development and the like, and
6. The continuing changes in technology in the workplace and the marketplace, especially production, communication computing and social media technologies.
Without getting into the detail of how this hangs together (you can read the whole thing in the 2006 discussion paper produced by NSW BVET called “From ‘skills shortages’ to decent work”, published by the NSW Department of Education and Training), there is a challenge implied in this approach to all existing training frameworks. The current competency based and tight occupational definitions are counter productive in such an eco system. Those who support them are like people standing in the path of the incoming tide and commanding the waves to recede. Or perhaps standing in a rain forest and commanding the complex living system to simplify itself and “get in line”.
“Loose vocational streams” become more important than “occupational groups”. Experience becomes as important as competence. Protecting the craft is less useful than broadening the basis for productive jobs. Decent workplaces become part of the language along with vocational training. The whole system depends on all the elements of the system Workforce development is more than workforce planning, and no-one (not even the people with the current legislative mandates) are “in charge” of the agenda. Collaboration becomes the order of the day (and this is really difficult for some people). The question is not “who’s in charge”, but rather “is anyone in charge?”
OK, so where does that leave us in T&L?
It implies several new directions for exploration in terms of policy and practice:
1. We need to be ready to cooperate on industry based ideas that promote eco systems type approaches. The one that springs to mind is the re positioning of the modal splits (road, rail, aviation, maritime) into “supply chain”. Industry is moving in this direction, but we insist n keeping the traditional occupational and sectoral definitions of skills and jobs.
2. Within specific occupational areas e.g. maritime, we should explore a little more the idea that the specific occupational groups might be more “loose” than they are at the moment. There is also the possibility that the maritime skills eco system should include seafaring, ports and all related on-shore activities e.g. customs broking – follow the skills and job “families”, not the job titles
3. Recognise the complexity of formal and informal training, continuing professional development and industry based accreditation and not be constrained within the AQF framework when we talk about jobs and skills. The idea should not necessarily be to move everyone into the current vocational AQF system, but rather to ask how that system can better serve the needs of the people who work in T&L