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Advances inDeveloping HumanResources May2002
Bates,Phelan / GLOBALLYCOMPETITIVE WORKFORCE
Characteristics of a Globally
Competitive Workforce
Reid A. Bates
Kelli C. Phelan
The problem and the solution. A variety of powerful eco
-
nomic factors are combining to change the way work is done.
These changes have profound implications for the basic employ
-
ability skill requirements of our workers. Research suggests,
however, that too many workers cannot meet the basic skill
demands needed to successfully perform job duties, learn, and
apply learning on the job.The success of human resource devel
-
opment professionals in building a globally competitive workforce
is dependent on a thorough understanding of what basic employ-
ability skills are needed as well as their capacity to help build
workforce development systems that will ensure every worker
has these skills.
The U.S. economy has been fundamentally reshaped over the past two
decades. Profound changes have been driven by the internationalization of
competition; a flourishing customer orientation in which the delivery of
high quality, customized services are the norm for success; a shift from the
production and sale of standardized goods to “boutique markets” that offer
an impressive and expanding array of products; and accelerated, often fran
-
tic, product and process innovation supported by technological advances.
These factors have been accompanied by elemental changes in the way that
organizations organize and approach work. Flexible work structures, matrix
designs, the decentralization of decision making, the flattening of manage
-
ment structures, just-in-time management, teams and teamwork, and lean
production represent just a small subset of responses organizations are mak
-
ing to the new economic environment. All of these factors have, in turn,
forced fundamental changes in both the way work is done and the skills
needed to do that work (Thayer, 1997). They have also given rise to the ques
-
tion, Does the United States have what it takes to remain a world-class
competitor?
Attempts to answer this question have recognized that businesses, in pur
-
suit of productivity and competitiveness, are placing greater demands on
their workers. Today’s workplace is characterized by many complex, tacti
-
Advances in Developing Human Resources Vol. 4, No. 2 May 2002 121-132
Copyright 2002 Sage Publications
䉱
Chapter 2
cal, and strategic tasks that require the assimilation of increasing amounts of
new knowledge, personal thinking/application/problem-solving abilities,
and high work loads with extremely variable content. This is a far cry from
the assembly line of the past 90 years that emphasized rote, fixed processes
and procedures that fundamentally relied on psychomotor skills. Organiza
-
tions need employees who are flexible and can easily adapt to the changing
dynamics of the work environment. Today’s workers are being asked to
learn new technologies, to develop innovative techniques, to cross-function
in work teams, to troubleshoot, to work independently, and to assume the
leadership role in front-line positions. Typically, organizations characterize
the successful employee as one who embodies the characteristics of motiva
-
tion, ambition, dedication, and willingness to accept challenges.
Workplace Skills Research
Concern for the extent to which U.S. workers have the skills necessary to
be successful in today’s workplace has spawned many commissions, task
forces, and studies (e.g., see O’Neil, Allred, & Baker, 1992). The principal
and perhaps most well known of these is A Nation at Risk (National Com-
mission on Excellence in Education, 1983), a government study and report
that documented the poor academic performance of U.S. students relative to
those of its major competitor nations. This landmark publication laid the
foundation for a stream of research that examined various dimensions of the
link between workplace skills, productivity, and economic performance.
Some of this research has documented the association between workplace
skills and a range of important outcomes. For example, research has linked
workplace skill levels with individual job performance (Cappelli & Rogovsky,
1994) and earning power (Altonji, 1992; Levy & Murnane, 1992). Reports
by the National Center on Education and the Economy (1990) and the Office
of Technology Assessment (1990) have indicated that higher levels of work
-
place skills are critical for the development of more productive work sys
-
tems necessary for international competitiveness. This is consistent with
evidence suggesting that rates of innovation are higher in industries with
more educated workers (Bartel & Lichtenberg, 1987) and that firms that
invest more in learning generate more innovation (Cohen & Levinthal,
1990). Finally, although the linkages are complex and not without contro
-
versy (e.g., see Berryman & Bailey, 1992), there is research suggesting that
workplace skill levels are a critical factor in the generation of national
wealth (Berryman, 1994; Reich, 1992).
Other research, however, suggests the presence and level of adequate
workplace skills may be a problem for U.S. workers and businesses. For
example, it is estimated that 10% of American workers are either function
-
122 Advances in Developing Human Resources May 2002
ally illiterate or marginally literate (cannot read at the eighth-grade level;
Lund & McGuire, 1990), one in five lack the literacy skills needed to func
-
tion effectively in work or life (Knell, 1990), and nearly half of all Ameri
-
cans have literacy levels well below what is needed to be competitive in
today’s economy (National Education Goals Panel, 1994). A recent survey
of 4,500 manufacturing firms indicated that employers believed that 60% of
the individuals they employed do not have the needed math capabilities,
55% do not have the necessary writing or comprehension skills, and nearly
50% do not have the requisite ability to read and translate drawings, dia
-
grams, and flow charts (National Association of Manufacturers, 1997). Data
also indicated that more than two thirds of the employers reported difficulty
upgrading technology or improving performance because of employee skill
deficiencies (Hinck, 1998).
Employability Skills
These and similar data have been interpreted to suggest that current
workplace skill levels in the United States, given the profound changes in
the economy and ways of doing business, have an enormous potential to
severely undermine the adaptive and competitive capabilities of organiza-
tions (Cappelli & Rogovsky, 1994; Carnevale, Gainer, & Meltzer, 1990;
National Center on Education and the Economy, 1990). They have also
thrust into national prominence the concept of employability skills, often
referred to as workplace literacy. Employability skills refer to those skills
needed by individuals to effectively respond to the literacy demands of the
workplace and to successfully perform job duties, learn, and apply learning
on the job (Gowen, 1992). These include skills such as reading, writing,
mathematics, listening, and a number of higher-order thinking skills (Depart
-
ment of Labor, 1991).
The concern for employability skills has prompted educators and employ
-
ers alike to closely scrutinize the complexion of the American workplace in
an attempt to formulate a set of basic job-related competencies. A number of
studies in the past decade have investigated and identified the basic compe
-
tencies required to attain and maintain employment. The Department of
Labor and its Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills
(SCANS) compiled the most widely known report of workplace competen
-
cies. SCANS “essentially performed a job analysis for the economy as a
whole” (Cappelli & Rogovsky, 1994, p. 4) to identify a set of basic skills
generalizable across all jobs and occupations. SCANS “workplace know-
how” identified five competencies that were based on a three-part compe
-
tency foundation. These competencies represent both traditional academic
education and interpersonal skills, as well as workplace competencies that
Bates, Phelan / GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE WORKFORCE 123
are more practical and vocational in nature. The SCANS skills have been
used as an organizing framework for curricula in high schools across the
United States and in the design of a variety of government-sponsored job-
training programs such as those funded through Job Corps, the Job Training
Partnership Act, and the School-to-Work Opportunities Act. The skills that
SCANS identified as the hallmark of today’s worker include the following:
The Three-Part Foundational Skills
Basic skills: reads, writes, performs arithmetic and
mathematical operations, listens, and speaks.
•
Reading: locates, understands, and interprets written information in
prose and documents such as manuals, graphs, and schedules.
•
Writing: communicates thoughts, ideas, information, and messages
in writing and creates documents such as letters, directions, manuals,
reports, graphs, and flow charts.
•
Arithmetic: performs basic computations and approaches practical
problems by choosing appropriately from a variety of mathematical
techniques.
•
Listening skills: receives, attends to, interprets, and responds to ver-
bal messages and other cues.
•
Speaking skills: organizes ideas and communicates orally.
Thinking skills: thinks creatively, makes decisions, solves
problems, visualizes, knows how to learn, and reasons.
•
Creative thinking: generates new ideas.
•
Decision making: specifies goals and constraints, generates alterna
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tives, considers risks, and evaluates and chooses best alternative.
•
Problem solving: recognizes problems and devises and implements
plans of action.
•
Visualization: organizes and processes symbols, pictures, objects,
and other information.
•
Knowing how to learn: uses efficient learning techniques to acquire
and apply new knowledge and skills.
•
Reasoning: discovers a rule or principle underlying the relationship
between two or more objects and applies it when solving a problem.
124 Advances in Developing Human Resources May 2002
Personal qualities: displays responsibility, self-esteem, sociability,
self-management, and integrity and honesty.
•
Responsibility: exerts a high level of effort and perseveres toward
goal attainment.
•
Self-esteem: believes in own self-worth and maintains a positive
view of self.
•
Sociability: demonstrates understanding, friendliness, adaptability,
empathy, and politeness in group settings.
•
Self-management: assesses self accurately, sets personal goals, mon
-
itors progress, and exhibits self-control.
•
Integrity/honesty: chooses ethical courses of action.
The Five Competencies
Resources: identifies, organizes, plans, and allocates resources.
•
Time: selects goal-relevant activities, ranks them, allocates time, and
prepares and follows schedules.
• Money: uses or prepares budgets, makes forecasts, keeps records,
and makes adjustments to meet objectives.
•
Materials and facilities: acquires, stores, allocates, and uses materi-
als or space efficiently.
•
Human resources: assesses skills and distributes work accordingly,
evaluates performance, and provides feedback.
Interpersonal: works with others.
•
Participates as a member of a team: contributes to group effort.
•
Teaches others new skills.
•
Serves clients/customers: works to satisfy customers’ expectations.
•
Exercises leadership: communicates ideas to justify position and
persuade and convince others; responsibly challenges existing pro
-
cedures and policies.
•
Negotiates: works toward agreements involving exchange or
resources, resolves divergent interests.
•
Works with diversity: works well with others from diverse
backgrounds.
Bates, Phelan / GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE WORKFORCE 125
Information: acquires and uses information.
•
Acquires and evaluates information: identifies need for data, obtains
it from existing sources or creates it, and evaluates its relevance and
accuracy.
•
Organizes and maintains information: organizes, processes, and
maintains written or computerized records and other forms of infor
-
mation in a systematic fashion.
•
Interprets and communicates information: selects and analyzes
information and communicates the results to others using oral, writ
-
ten, graphic, pictorial, or multimedia methods.
•
Uses computers to process information: employs computers to
acquire, organize, analyze, and communicate information.
Systems: understands complex relationships.
•
Understands systems: knows how social, organizational, and techno-
logical systems work and operates effectively with them.
•
Monitors and corrects performance: distinguishes trends, predicts
impacts on system operations, diagnoses systems’ performance, and
corrects malfunctions.
•
Improves or designs systems: suggests modifications to existing sys-
tems and develops new or alternative systems to improve
performance.
Technology: works with a variety of technology.
•
Selects technology: judges which set of procedures, tools, or
machines, including computers and their programs, will produce the
desired results.
•
Applies technology to tasks: understands overall intent and proper
procedures for setup including computers and their programming
systems.
The objective of the SCANS effort was to create a nationally recognized set
of employability skills that educators would accept and include as part of their
curricula, students would recognize as connected with work success and strive
to learn, and employers would acknowledge as reflective of the know-how
needed in the workplace. To this end, SCANS sought to develop a valid
criterion-referenced assessment system that would provide an accurate and
predictive framework that could be used to measure what an individual can do
126 Advances in Developing Human Resources May 2002
(Nash & Korte, 1997). The National Job Analysis Study (Nash & Korte, 1994)
was conducted to validate the SCANS assessment framework. This research
was successful in identifying cross-occupational job behaviors consistent with
the SCANS elements, describing these behaviors across five levels of profi
-
ciency (preparatory, work-ready, intermediate, advanced, and specialist), and
specifying the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for each level.
Other Skills Studies
The SCANS initiative was one of the first efforts undertaken to identify
the skills and competencies needed by individuals to be successful and com
-
petitive in the workplace. However, a number of other studies have also
examined this issue. It is instructive to reflect briefly on some of this
research both to get an understanding of the extent of the research in this
area and as a means of highlighting some of the important skill themes that
emerge.
Jobs for American Graduates (JAG) examined the topic of workplace compe-
tencies. Since its inception in 1980, the primary objective of the JAG model is to
secure a quality job that will lead to a good career. Operating under that premise,
this school-to-work program has been implemented in hundreds of high school
throughout the nation and helps high school students make the transition to the
work force or college. The core competencies as identified in the model are the
following:
Job Survival Competencies
•
Demonstrates appropriate appearance
•
Understands what employers expect of employees
•
Identifies problems of new employees
•
Demonstrates time management
•
Follows directions
•
Practices effective human relations
•
Effectively resigns from a job
Basic Competencies
•
Comprehends verbal communications
•
Comprehends written communications
•
Communicates in writing
•
Communicates verbally
•
Performs mathematical calculations
Bates, Phelan / GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE WORKFORCE 127
Leadership and Self-Development Competencies
•
Demonstrates team membership
•
Demonstrates team leadership
•
Delivers presentations to a group
•
Competes successfully with peers
•
Demonstrates commitment to an organization
Personal Skills Competencies
•
Understands the level of maturity needed for the school-to-work
transition
•
Identifies a personal value system and understands how it affects
decision making
•
Bases decisions on values and goals
•
Identifies the cognitive processes used in decision making
•
Demonstrates the ability to assume responsibility for actions and
decisions
•
Demonstrates a positive attitude
•
Develops a healthy self-concept for home, school, and work
The National Academy of Sciences (1984) convened a panel of scholars, edu-
cators, and labor union representatives to identity the skills high school gradu-
ates need to be successful upon entering the workforce. They identified a set of
10 core employability skills consistent with the JAG competencies and summa-
rized their findings by saying that (a) the ability to learn is the major asset
required in the workplace, (b) core competencies are required across all job lev
-
els in the workforce, and (c) good work habits and sound attitudes are highly val
-
ued by employers (O’Neil, Allred, & Baker, 1997).
Supported by a grant from the Department of Labor, the American Society
for Training and Development (ASTD) also investigated the skills required for a
competitive workforce. As with SCANS, the emphasis of this effort was on the
identification of the skills needed across all jobs. Based on a review of relevant
research, extensive on-site studies, telephone interviews, and consultation with
experts, 16 skills within seven skill groups were identified (Carnevale et al.,
1990). These skills are generally indicative of the fact that the range of required
work skills is both expanding and emphasizing personal development skills,
particularly the skills people need to be able to make successful transitions into
and within the workplace (Gainer, 1988). The ASTD study identified the follow
-
ing categories of necessary job skills:
•
individual competence including communication, comprehension,
computation, and culture;
128 Advances in Developing Human Resources May 2002
•
personal reliability including personal management, ethics, and
vocabulary maturity;
•
economic adaptability including problem solving, learning, employ
-
ability, and career development; and
•
group and organizational effectiveness including interpersonal skills,
organizational skills, negotiation skills, creativity, and leadership.
Several states have also undertaken to identify the generic skills employers
believe to be important for success across all economic sectors. For example,
Michigan’s Commission on Jobs and Economic Development, a group com
-
posed of business, education, and labor leaders from across that state, identified
26 generic employability skills and 86 subskills representing three general
domains (academic, personal management, and teamwork skills) (Mehrens,
1989). In the early 1990s, the Iowa Business Council launched a project called
“Making the Grade: Keys to Success on the Job in the 90’s” with a goal of defin
-
ing the skill areas required for employment success. Working in conjunction
with the American College Testing Program, the Iowa Business Council identi-
fied the following necessary competencies: reading and understanding work-
related materials, applying mathematical reasoning to work-related problems,
listening to and understanding work-related messages, and writing work-related
messages. This list is comparable to the information reported in the Center for
Public Resources’1983 study, which identified the following areas as a criterion
for employability: reading, writing, speaking and listening, mathematics, sci-
ence, and reasoning (Henry & Raymond, 1983). Projects similar to these have
been undertaken in New York, Texas, and Oregon to name a few. In general, the
content and nature of the employability skills identified across these studies are
fundamentally consistent with the SCANS skills.
Bailey (1990) has also researched the skills required of employees. Pri
-
marily focusing on four employment sectors (apparel, textile, banking, and
business services), his findings are also largely consistent with other research.
His findings showed that employees must be able to meet the demands of
their positions, work efficiently as team members, show more initiative, and
have a clear understanding of the overall processes, products, services, and
markets in their respective fields. In addition, employees must have the flex
-
ibility to change as the business or industry evolves (Bailey, 1990).
Examination of the content of these research-based employability skills
frameworks suggests there are some major job-readiness elements common
to all of them. Based on an analysis of a cross-section of this research,
O’Neil et al. (1997) identified four common themes. First, there is a nearly
uniform need for basic academic skills, the three Rs as well as speaking and
listening skills. Second, most research in the area of employability skills
identifies higher order thinking skills as essential. The most important of
these skills include creativity, problem solving, change adaptation, decision
making, and learning how to learn. Third, interpersonal and teamwork skills
Bates, Phelan / GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE WORKFORCE 129
are consistently judged to be essential in the new workplace. The impor
-
tance of these skills is based on the increasing need for employees to be able
communicate and cooperate with others in making decisions about work
priorities, resource utilization, work processes and procedures, and so on.
The most important interpersonal/teamwork subskills that emerge across
these different frameworks include negotiation/conflict resolution skills,
leadership skills, and the ability to work with others from diverse back
-
grounds. The fourth employability skill category common across most of
these studies relates to attitudes and personal work habits. This includes ele
-
ments such as self-esteem, motivation and goal setting, and responsibility.
Conclusion
This chapter has addressed the human capital implications of a restruc
-
turing American economy. It has outlined in broad terms a variety of power
-
ful economic factors that are combining to change the way work is done and
described the profound implications these changes have for the basic skill
requirements of our workers. Several research efforts were reviewed that
aimed at identifying the generic employability skills needed by individuals
to be successful in today’s workplace, and common skill themes running
through this research were identified. The SCANS research along with other
studies discussed in this chapter have several important implications for the
development of effective workforce development systems. First, this research
has served as an effective wake-up call to our workforce development sys-
tems by underscoring the need for these systems to be able to recognize and
respond to the dynamic changes taking place in the workplace today. Sec-
ond, they indicate the need to take a much closer look at the extent to which
the education and training elements of our workforce development systems
are successfully assisting learners in making effective transitions to the
world of work. It is clear that our success in building a globally competitive
workforce is dependent on the ability of our workforce development sys
-
tems to provide the employability skills, both the basic academic skills (the
three Rs, listening, speaking) as well as the higher order competencies
required for success in today’s workplace. Recognition of this need is fur
-
ther underscored by current efforts by the National Skills Standards Board
(1998-2000) and others to build a structure of skill standards based on
employability skills. Finally, this research has been effective in sparking
and facilitating communication between educators, human resource devel
-
opment professionals, employers, policy makers, and other stakeholders in
an effort to bridge the skills gap and build a globally competitive workforce.
Many of the policy guidelines outlined in the following chapters reflect this
dialogue and represent workforce development system design elements
needed to assist in the development of a globally competitive workforce.
130 Advances in Developing Human Resources May 2002
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