Explaining the class gap in training: the role of employment relations and job characteristics

Existing studies consistently find a gap in further education between high‐ and low‐skilled workers, implying a gap in formal training between high‐ and low‐skilled classes. In this paper, we hypothesize that the most important reasons for differences between social classes in further education participation are grounded in job characteristics rather than worker characteristics. This is in line with theoretical foundations of the construction of the widely used Erikson‐Goldthorpe‐Portocarero (EGP) class scheme and related classifications, such as the new European Socio‐Economic Classification (ESeC) scheme that we apply in our analyses. We explore the importance of different job characteristics for the explanation of the class gap with a dataset providing detailed information about the jobs of more than 20,000 German employees. The tasks performed and the technologies used in the job are found to be of particular importance. Both are able to explain much of the variation in training activity between different class positions and different educational levels. We discuss the implications of our results for social inequality. Our conclusion is that much of the variation of training incidents between classes comes from the very simple fact that they carry out different jobs. This should always be taken into account when inequality in training between individuals is examined.     

Exploration of technical and nontechnical employee attitudes toward participation in training

This study examined technical and nontechnical employee attitudes toward participation in training. A survey was administered to 337 self‐identified technical and nontechnical university employees. Our findings are as follows: (a) most employees prefer training that is less than 2 hours in length, (b) employees do not want training outside their regular shift, (c) employees strongly prefer hands‐on training, and (d) less than half were encouraged by their supervisor to apply what was learned in nontechnical training to their job.     

Busting the myth of low-skilled workers – destabilizing EU LLL policies through the life stories of Danes in low-skilled jobs

In the EU, ambitious objectives have been set for education and training since the adoption of the Lisbon Agenda in 2000. The policies aim among other things to empower the individual through participation in lifelong learning which is seen as both a right and a duty: ‘People need to want and to be able to take their lives into their own hands – to become in short, active citizens’ (CEC, 2000, p. 7). However, not all citizens are taking part in lifelong learning and consequently the EU and its member states have set up policies with a ‘particular focus on active and preventative measures for the unemployed and inactive persons’ (CEC, 2006, p.1). ‘Inactive’ persons comprise different groups which are marginalised in terms of participation in lifelong learning, among others ‘low-skilled’ who have a lower participation rate in education and training activities (Cedefop, 2013). In this article, the aim is to destabilize the political discourse on ‘low-skilled’ through individual narratives of being in low-skilled jobs. Whereas the problem of being low-skilled from a political perspective is represented as psycho-social problems of the individual, the narratives point to the complexity of people in low-skilled jobs and the role of structure to ‘low-skilledness’. The narratives open up issues of power and the historical arbitrary distinctions between skilled and unskilled in the Danish labour market. It opens up for how the educational structures produce ‘low-skilled’ people, especially in the transition from basic vocational education and training into an apprenticeship. The article points to the narrow focus of policies on the ‘supply’ side of lifelong learning and less on the ‘demand’ side of a ‘needy’ global labour market in which precarious jobs are no longer limited to low-skilled. The article draws on Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (1999, 2009) and narrative inquiry.     

The Learning Intention of Low-Qualified Employees: A Key for Participation in Lifelong Learning and Continuous Training

In our continuously changing society, a need for updating one’s skills and knowledge puts pressure on safeguarding the labour market position of low-qualified employees. However, prior research and official statistics show that employees with a lower level of education tend to participate less in training than highly-educated individuals. This limited participation is associated with employers offering fewer opportunities to low-qualified employees, but also with the fact that low-qualified employees themselves might be less willing to participate. In other words, their learning intentions are assumed to be weaker and more restricted than the learning intentions of highly-educated employees. The article reports on a quantitative survey research on the learning intentions of 406 low-qualified employees. The results showed that employees who participated in formal job-related learning activities during the last 5 years had a stronger learning intention than those who did not. Next, the results of the stepwise regression showed that self-directedness, financial benefits, self-efficacy, and autonomy were significant positive predictors of the learning intentions of low-qualified employees. Also, the limited number of possibilities or opportunities to learn was not significant. The results indicated that a learning intention can lead towards the participation in learning activities, but participation is not merely initiated by offering opportunities for learning. Organisational aspects such as job autonomy and financial benefits can stimulate the learning intention of an employee. Finally, regarding the socio-demographic variables, only limited differences were found. In short, employees with no educational qualifications and a full-time contract had the lowest intention to learn.     

Social work with indigenous communities

The current research starts from the observation that low-qualified employees hold a vulnerable position on the labour market. It has been argued that learning and development can decrease this vulnerability; unfortunately research has shown that low-qualified employees participate considerably less in learning activities in comparison with high-qualified employees. According to the Theory of Reasoned Action, intention steers the actual behaviour of individuals. Therefore, this research will investigate which factors contribute to the learning intention of low-qualified employees. A cross-sectional mixed-method study was executed. In total 652 low-qualified employees completed a survey and 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results show that prior participation in learning activities, self-directedness, undertaking time management activities and perceived organisational support are positively related to an employee's learning intention. Furthermore, it is important that the content of the training offered is perceived useful and closely related to the job low-qualified employees execute.     

An analysis of the contribution of participative decision making and communication with supervisor as predictors of job satisfaction

This study examined the relationships of (1) perceived participation in decision making, (2) communication with supervisor, (3) employee characteristics, and (4) employee job satisfaction. Classified employees in three administrative units at a comprehensive eastern university in the United States served as subjects. Results of canonical correlation andt-ratio tests demonstrated that job satisfaction was most strongly and positively related to communication satisfaction with supervisor and supervisor's receptivity to information. Implications are discussed in reference to personnel decisions and training, employee productivity, and the possible adverse effects of initiating a participative program of decision making for nonprofessional university employees.Presented at the 22nd Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Denver, May 1982.     

Learning in the second half of the career: stimulating and prohibiting reasons for participation in formal learning activities

Past research has shown that, as workers age, their participation in education and training declines, which is a problem in our fast changing society and economy. This study focuses on the stimulating and prohibiting reasons for participation in formal learning activities. It investigates whether employees in the second half of their career differ from their younger colleagues in terms of the reasons for participation in formal learning activities. 628 employees from the public health sector completed the questionnaire and after performing factor analysis, several ANOVA analyses were undertaken. Employees older and younger than 45 years of age and groups with varying levels of experience within their organisation (employees with more or less than 20 years service) were compared. Results showed that younger employees were more stimulated by their organisation’s steering than their older colleagues. However, younger employees were less keen than older employees to participate in formal learning due to the required investments of time, financial costs, distance and assignments. In comparing more and less experienced employees, it was found that employees with less experience were more stimulated by the organisational steering and wish to progress. More experienced employees were discouraged by dispositional barriers; for example, they felt that they had learned enough or could not learn any more and also dreaded the idea of ‘going back to school’. The differences found in this study support the statement that age and educational participation are not (or less) directly related than has been suggested. Rather, the differences between different age groups seem to be more related to differences in the personal or private lives of employees, while any differences between experienced and less experienced employees appeared to depend on job-related issues.     

芬兰低技能劳动力继续教育现状与策略

芬兰政府意识到技能发展体系应适应日益变化的劳动力市场,及时升级低技能劳动力的继续教育水平,这对本国经济的发展和国家竞争力的提高至关重要.目前,芬兰社会对高技能人才的需求急剧增加,人口老龄化问题突出,成年人现有技能水平不均衡等历史背景,促使该国对低技能劳动力提供更多的、形式丰富的继续教育机会,但低技能劳动力的学习参与度较低.芬兰同时面临着教育结构不合理、继续教育服务与劳动力市场需求不匹配、低技能劳动力具有特殊学情等挑战.芬兰通过改革福利制度,激励低技能劳动力积极参与继续教育学习和提升技能水平;加强继续教育的综合服务和发展数字化教育服务,为学习者提供更便捷的学习支持;鼓励雇主参与制订培训方案,降低义务教育辍学率等方面,促进低技能劳动力进行技能升级,提高整体素质,这为我国教育适应低技能劳动力未来发展提供了有益的借鉴.     

The relationships of communication with supervisor and decision‐participation to employee job satisfaction

This study examined the relationship of communication‐related variables to employee job satisfaction. Specifically, employee communication satisfaction with supervisor, perceived supervisor receptivity to information and ideas, employee participation in decision‐making, participation versus desired participation level, and job satisfaction with supervisor, co‐workers, promotions, pay, and work were studied. The subjects for the study were classified employees (secretaries, clerks, lowest level supervisors, etc) in three administrative units (Controller, Personnel, and Admissions & Records) of a comprehensive Eastern university. The communication‐related variables accounted collectively for a substantial amount of variance (76%) in employees job satisfaction. Moreover, communication satisfaction with supervisor and supervisor receptivity in information were found to be more powerful “predictors”; of job satisfaction than the decision participation variables. The study cast some doubt upon the comparative value of participation as a communication strategy with low‐level employees. Specific guidelines for direct application of results and implications for future research were derived from the study.     

“I know it’s not your job but…”: Extra-role tasks,communication, and leader-member exchange relationships

Employees are sometimes assigned tasks that lie outside their official role. Employees may perceive such extra-role tasks (ERTs) as unreasonable or illegitimate. Grounded in role theory and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, we conducted two studies that examined how ERTs are associated with supervisor-employee relationship quality and how the ERT assignment is communicated. While supervisor-subordinate relationship quality was unrelated to the likelihood and frequency with which supervisors assign ERTs to employees, employees with low-quality relationships evaluated ERTs as more unreasonable than those in high-quality relationships. Study 1 showed that ERT messages that included a request (vs. command), acknowledgement, explanation, and appreciation were associated with higher quality LMX relationships. Study 2 found that ERT message characteristics influenced the perceived unreasonableness of the task for employees in high-quality relationships, suggesting employees in such relationships are particularly vulnerable to “job creep” and role expansion.     

职业核心能力培养探索

职业核心能力是适用于各种职业、伴随终身的可持续发展的关键能力、基础能力。在知识经济社会,职业核心能力的培养具有重要的现实意义,是世界职业教育和人力资源开发的发展趋势,是我国能力建设的重要内涵和职业教育改革的必然归宿。劳动和社会保障部组织开发职业核心能力培训认证体系,开展职业核心能力培训测评的探索,具有十分重要的意义。     

中小企业员工的满意度分析

员工满意度低、离职率高是中小企业面临的普遍问题,影响到企业的生存和发展。本文分析了中小企业员工满意度低的原因,并提出了相应的改进对策。     

The Effects of Trainee Characteristics on Training Effectiveness in Improving Organizational Performance

Despite the existence of many comprehensive and user‐friendly guides to evaluate training programs, most practitioners have had difficulty assessing training effects on corporate outcomes. Research revealed that trainees, organizational, and training‐related factors might influence the effectiveness of training in terms of organizational performance. The current study examines the effects of trainee characteristics among those factors, specifically what kind of trainee characteristics could affect training effectiveness in terms of job performance in a company. In addition, telephone surveys were conducted to aid in understanding of the reasons for leaving and high turnover of company personnel. The current and terminated employees who went through training programs in the company differed when considering previous sales experience in years and type of sales experience as trainee characteristics factors, with those still employed having a statistically higher average number of years and a higher rated type of sales experience. The current employees demonstrated higher job performance. The implications of these results on the attainment of training effectiveness as well as the selection decisions in the organization are discussed.     

青年员工职业倦怠影响机理的质性研究

为厘清保险公司青年员工职业倦怠影响因素和结构维度,基于Maslach理论,以11名青年员工深度访谈文本为数据来源,采用扎根理论三级编码,笔者建构了保险公司青年员工职业倦怠概念模型。该模型揭示,个体因素与工作情景因素不匹配是诱发青年员工职业倦怠的根本原因,阐明职业倦怠影响因素不同组合的作用路径。研究结果深化Maslach等人关于个体与情境匹配模型观点。由此,提出如下建议:掌握唤起积极情绪的能力,树立“界限”意识,保持积极乐观的心态是完善员工个人因素的重点;以岗定编,以考代训,实现富员强司,营造互助的职场氛围,帮助青年员工获得社会支持是夯实工作情景的重点。     

Graduates on the labor market: Formal and informal post-school training investments

The purpose of this article is to obtain an understanding of which factors determine whether an university graduate receives formal on-the-job training or not and the amount of informal training received. Using a cross-sectional survey of Spanish graduates, this paper confirms that the informal training graduates receive in their jobs is more intense among doctors and lawyers – professions that require a more extensive period of learning before reaching the required level of skills. Likewise, those graduates that hold jobs requiring greater know-how than they can actually provide (infra-educated) also receive more informal training. In the case of formal training, the likelihood of taking part in in-house training programs is greater among civil servants and the employees of large private firms. However, the belief that workers with higher ability (a positive signal of a worker’s trainability) should have higher chances of receiving employer-provided formal training is not confirmed in this study.     

An LSA-Based Software Tool for Matching Jobs,People, and Instruction

New LSA-based agent software helps to identify required job knowledge, determine which members of the workforce have the knowledge, pinpoint needed retraining content, and maximize training and retraining efficiency. The LSA-based technology extracts semantic information about people, occupations, and task-experience contained in natural-text databases. The various kinds of information are all represented in the same way in a common semantic space. As a result, the system can match or compare any of these objects with any one or more of the others. To demonstrate and evaluate the system, we analyzed tasks and personnel in three Air Force occupations. We measured the similarity of each airman to each task and estimated how well each airman could replace another. We also demonstrated the potential to match knowledge sub-components needed for new systems with ones contained in training materials and with those possessed by individual airmen. It appears that LSA can successfully characterize tasks, occupations and personnel and measure the overlap in content between instructional courses covering the full range of tasks performed in many different occupations. Such analyses may suggest where training for different occupations might be combined, where training is lacking, and identify components that may not be needed at all. In some instances it may suggest ways in which occupations might be reorganized to increase training efficiency, improve division of labor efficiencies, or redefine specialties to produce personnel capable of a wider set of tasks and easier reassignment.     

企业对高学历新员工心态培训的认知和探讨

新员工的入职培训是企业人力资源培训体系的重要环节,使高学历人才“引得进、干得好、留得住”更是培训的重中之重。很多企业将培训重点放在岗位应用知识、技能培训上,却忽视了对新员工的心态培训,从而导致人才流失严重,培训有效性不高。文章围绕高学历新员工的心态培训展开,就心态培训的意义、内容和培训方法进行了初步探讨,便于企业通过行之有效的心态培训加快新员工组织社会化的过程,增强对企业的认同感,成为真正的企业人。     

Persistence in the determination of work-related training participation: Evidence from the BHPS, 1991–1997

In this paper we investigate the role of workers’ training history in determining current training-incidence. The analysis is conducted on an unbalanced sample comprising information on approximately 5000 employees from the first seven waves of the BHPS. Training participation is modelled as a dynamic random effects probit model where the effects of unobserved heterogeneity and initial conditions are accounted for in a fashion consistent with methods proposed by Chamberlain (1984) and Wooldridge (2005), respectively. The results suggest that prior training experience is a significant determinant of a worker's participation in a current training episode comparable with other formal educational qualifications.     

Training Transfer and Transfer Motivation: The Influence of Individual,Environmental, Situational,Training Design,and Affective Reaction Factors

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of individual, environmental, training design, and affective reaction factors on training transfer and transfer motivation. To determine the relationship between these factors and their influence on training transfer and to test the model, the researchers collected data from employees in the Malaysian banking sector. Structural equation modeling with Amos 16 was used to test the model and determine the relationship. The study suggested that training stakeholders should manage the training program effectively. Transfer is maximized when trainees have social support, high performance self‐efficacy, and transfer motivation. Stakeholders (e.g., trainers, trainees, supervisors, and peers) are important to the training transfer process, as are learner readiness, trainee reaction, instrumentality, and training retention. This study revealed that perceived content validity and transfer design work together and influence the trainee's performance self‐efficacy. In other words, if trainers want to improve the performance self‐efficacy level of trainees, they need to explain how the trainee can transfer the learned skills at the workplace and make sure the content of the training is similar to the actual job. The main objective of training programs is to align the employee's expertise with organizational goals. Organizations can achieve their desired objectives only when employees transfer the learned skills on the job. Unfortunately, employees often transfer only a small percentage of skills they have learned in training. To effectively manage their training programs, organizations need to identify and focus on the factors that resist effective training transfer.     

福建省农村中小学教师培训问题与对策探析

加强农村教师队伍建设是当前教师培训工作的重点。福建省农村教师培训尚存在任务分工不明确、参训机会不均等、师资力量不足、针对性和实效性不强等四个主要问题;进一步搞好农村教师培训应在机制保障、师资优化、模式创新、校际合作、激励措施等方面加以完善,促进农村教师培训工作持续、健康地开展。