SKILLS MISMATCH: CONCEPTS,MEASUREMENT AND POLICY APPROACHES

The term skills mismatch is very broad and can relate to many forms of labour market friction, including vertical mismatch, skill gaps, skill shortages, field of study (horizontal) mismatch and skill obsolescence. In this paper, we provide a clear overview of each concept and discuss the measurement and inter‐relatedness of different forms of mismatch. We present a comprehensive analysis of the current position of the literature on skills mismatch and highlight areas which are relatively underdeveloped and may warrant further research. Using data from the European Skills and Jobs Survey, we assess the incidence of various combinations of skills mismatch across the EU. Finally, we review the European Commission's country‐specific recommendations and find that skills mismatch, when referring to underutilized human capital in the form of overeducation and skills underutilization, receives little policy attention. In cases where skills mismatch forms part of policy recommendations, the policy advice is either vague or addresses the areas of mismatch for which there is the least available evidence.     

Uncertainty,hiring and firing costs,and the determinants of profit‐sharing rules

We consider a firm run by a manager who acts on behalf of shareholders. The firm produces a commodity whose demand evolves stochastically over time. The firm's employees possess firm‐specific skills and knowledge and thus can bargain over profits with shareholders immediately before the firm hires or fires workers. The firm will distribute more portions of profits to employees when it incurs higher costs to hire or fire workers. In addition, as uncertainty in demand increases, the firm will distribute smaller (larger) portions of profits to employees if the firm does not have the option to fire (hire) workers.     

Age as double‐edged sword among victims of customer mistreatment: A self‐esteem threat perspective

Service workers are expected to maintain high‐quality service delivery despite customer mistreatment—the poor‐quality treatment of service workers by customers—which can be demeaning and threatening to self‐esteem. Although service work is increasingly delivered by middle‐aged and older workers, very little is known about how employees across the age range navigate abuse from customers on the job. Does advancing age help or hinder service performance in reaction to customer mistreatment? Drawing on strength and vulnerability integration theory, we proposed that age paradoxically both helps and hinders performance after customer mistreatment, albeit at different stages. We tested our proposed model in a two‐sample field investigation of service workers and their supervisors using a time‐lagged, dyadic design. Results showed that age heightens the experience of self‐esteem threat but, nevertheless, dampens reactions to self‐esteem threat, leading to divergent effects on performance at different stages. Implications for age and service work, as well as aging and the sense of self, are discussed.     

Skill development,bargaining power,and a theory of job design

We examine the job design decision in the context of skill development and bargaining power. The choice between specialization and multitasking requires employees to develop either specialized or varied task‐specific skills. Employees' (i.e., the owners of the acquired skills) bargaining power depends on their skill sets, which differentiate their ability to hold up production and threaten to leave a firm. When a firm cannot meaningfully elicit skill investments through job design, it will pursue inefficient multitasking to reduce production holdups or inefficient specialization to prevent skilled employees from leaving. We obtain inefficient job design results only for mediocre ability workers.     

Changes in cognitive function: Practical and theoretical considerations for training the aging workforce

Forecasts of the labor force supply over the next 20 years reveals a demographic bubble of older retirees that is not offset by the percentage of qualified incoming younger workers (Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Department of Labor, 2014). Understanding how training may be used to retain older employees can lead to a competitive edge for firms, given the upcoming need for skilled workers. Training also carries benefits for late career workers or job seekers as a means to increase their existing skills or as a gateway to more lucrative jobs. We review shifts in major cognitive skills and information-processing skills over time and make suggestions for enhancing the training environment for older learners based on that information. We also suggest research needs targeting late-career trainees. These practical recommendations for trainers and program designers, and suggestions for future research may lead to more age-inclusive and comprehensive theories of training-based learning.     

Ideological Currency in the Psychological Contracts of Corporate Manufacturing Employees

Previous research on employee psychological contracts has focused on three different types of expectations that workers have of their employers: transactional exchange of economic currency, relational exchange of socioemotional currency, and, more recently, covenantal exchange of ideological currency. This last type of currency, however, has been studied almost entirely in nonprofit workplaces among employees in helping professions (e.g., healthcare, education) who hold advanced degrees. Although not explicit in the extant literature, the implication of such is that expressions of ideological currency may be limited to certain types of professions. In the present study, we therefore analyzed both white and blue-collar employees’ ideological expectations in a corporate, for-profit, manufacturing environment. Using 1492 responses to an open-ended question received from an email survey, we found that 36% contained an expression of ideological currency, with an additional 44.8% possessing a possible expression of ideological currency. Comparisons of these expressions reveal many similarities between white and blue-collar employees within this organization as well as between these employees and those found in the published literature from workers in other industries. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and future research.     

A hard sell? The prospects for apprenticeship in British retailing

We consider the prospects for apprenticeship in British retailing in terms of the contribution of apprenticeship to intermediate skills and the contribution of large employers to the Advanced Apprenticeship (AA) programme. Evidence is taken from interviews with training and HR managers from 17 large employers. We find that AA is for the most part unpopular with large retailers, who prefer to acquire intermediate skills through the upgrade training of existing employees through bespoke, in‐house training programmes and, to a lesser degree, via the recruitment of skilled workers. The one exception to this rule is to be found in the convenience stores sub‐sector of retailing, where the breadth of skills supplied by AA fits in well with employers' requirements. Even here, however, the scale of Apprenticeship is limited both in terms of the numbers of Apprentices being trained and also in terms of employers' own investment in the training of their Apprentices.     

Homeworking: negotiating the psychological contract

This article explores the psychological contract of female clerical homeworkers who work from home full‐time and are employed at a local authority. Qualitative interviews were carried out with homeworkers and their supervisors. Temporal flexibility was desired by all the homeworkers in order to achieve a better work–life balance, and was deemed important by women without children as well as those with childcare responsibilities. Our findings highlight that homeworkers were able to negotiate their own idiosyncratic deals with line managers in order to attain their desired levels of temporal flexibility. However, the issue of flexibility remains ambiguous with some supervisory staff being more comfortable with the concept than others, leading to some homeworkers enjoying different levels of temporal flexibility than their co‐workers. Our findings suggest that employees perceive flexibility idiosyncratic deals of co‐workers as fair as long as they achieve their own personal levels of temporal flexibility. The potential implications for organisations are discussed.     

Management Control as an Employee Resource: The Case of Front‐line Service Workers

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the conception of management control as an employee resource can enhance critical understandings of front‐line service work. The argument is developed first through a critique of the contemporary control literature and its prominent worker images of smiling docility and haggard exhaustion. Seeking to encourage accounts more sensitive to the subjectivity and agency of service workers, the paper calls for more research attention to the question of how these employees experience and evaluate management control in relation to their self‐defined interests. Analysis of the nature of contemporary service work suggests that one such perceived interest is likely to be interactive control, or the capacity of workers to control and influence those parties with whom they directly interact. Based on a close reading of the emerging empirical literature on services, the article explores various ways in which the bureaucratic, technical and normative regulation designed by management to control service workers is used in turn by workers to further their own control and influence over managers and customers.     

The impacts of shiftwork on employees

This study examines the impacts of shiftwork on shift workers with regard to their employment, health, family and social lives, and explores the moderating effects of demographic variables. It is argued that shiftwork attracts many people because shift workers receive competitive income, without requiring tertiary education, that can be increased by long shifts and weekend work. Generally, although shiftwork does not lead to increased employee turnover the retiring age of shift workers is relatively younger than in other sectors. Shiftwork contributes to increased absenteeism, especially among younger employees and those who have been doing shiftwork for only a short period. It is unlikely for shift workers to moonlight. Shiftwork affects employee health, family and social lives, personal and workplace relationships, and communication skills. While older workers become tired more easily and less motivated, younger workers tend to experience higher rates of absenteeism. Employees who have been in the workplace longer are likely to have higher turnover. Married employees with children are likely to be affected the most in terms of family life and marriage. Gender and type of job do seem to be moderating factors. The contributions to literature and practical implications are also discussed.     

Promotion Signals,Experience, and Education

This paper uses a nation‐wide representative survey of employees to examine whether more informative job promotions carry larger wage increases. In job assignment models with asymmetric information, unexpected promotions send a signal to the external labor market to revise upward their assessment of a worker's ability. The employing firm must then increase wages to prevent the worker from being bid away. Less educated workers are assumed to come from a group with lower average ability. Their promotion is hypothesized to induce a larger positive update of the assessment of their ability than the promotion of more educated workers. Promotions of less experienced workers, with less known about their abilities, should also result in strong signaling effects. We obtain regression results consistent with our hypotheses, although the size and significance of the estimates hinge on the promotion definition. Inexperienced workers gain more from promotions that entail new managerial responsibilities, whereas less educated workers gain more from nonmanagerial promotions. This sensitivity to the definition of promotion suggests that promotions reveal information on different dimensions of ability for different types of workers.     

Promoting Effective Psychological Contracts Through Leadership: The Missing Link Between HR Strategy and Performance

This article offers line managers and HR professionals an actionable, research‐based framework for developing psychological contracts with employees that suit their organizational and human resource (HR) strategy. Leadership styles supporting the firm's HR strategy are key to making psychological contracts that benefit both the firm and its members. When managers' styles are out of sync with HR strategy, this mismatch can lead to poorer performance through ineffective and unfulfilled psychological contracts with workers.     

Assessing skills and autonomy: the job holder versus the line manager

Managers and their employees may have different perceptions of the skills used in jobs. We carried out a survey aimed at explaining such differences, in respect of verbal, physical, problem‐solving and planning skills, the qualifications required to get the job and indicators of workplace autonomy. First, for most skills there is a reasonably good match between the perceptions of the line manager and those of the employee. But in the case of the contested skills associated with autonomy there is little agreement. Secondly, for most skills there is a small ‘perceptions bias’, in the sense that employees rate required skills at a higher level than their line managers. Thirdly, consistent with the hypothesis that skills are socially constructed, when the manager is male and the worker female there is a tendency for the boss to underestimate and/or the worker to overestimate their skill level by comparison with other gender combinations.     

Multinational Retailers in China: Proliferating ‘McJobs’ or Developing Skills?*

abstract Much has been written on the nature of skills and the extent to which there is increased skills development or a deskilling of workers in modern workplaces. This paper broadens the debate and explores these issues in the novel context of UK‐ and Japanese‐
invested retailers' operations in China. Data derived from over two hundred interviews at twelve retail stores in six Chinese cities and questionnaires completed by almost eight hundred employees elicited contextualized accounts of interactive service workers' own perceptions of their training and skills development. It was found that these firms made a substantial contribution to skills development, fostered and enhanced both directly by company training and also through experiential workplace‐based learning. It might be, however, that this constitutes an essential but ‘one‐off’ increase in skills in transitional economies such as that of China.     

Demarcation of the core and periphery dichotomy: evidence from Turkey's shipyards for a paradoxical precarity model

Combining ethnographic inquiries with questionnaires, this article rectifies the dearth of systematic research on core employees in Turkey's shipyards. In doing so, it revises conventional associations of precarity with the peripheral jobs both exclusively and predominantly. In particular, we point to the rise of a peculiar model, ‘paradoxical precarity’, as the core jobs have become more identifiable with precarity than the rest. Paradoxical precarity has four distinguishable contours: (i) The masses of core employees lost their jobs to precarious workers. (ii) Even so, a substantial proportion of employees remain at the core. (iii) This, however, came at a cost: they became more dissatisfied than others with remuneration, job security, employee involvement and job intensity whilst frustrated with unions and (iv) paradoxical precarity has faced political and economic challenges but it is reproduced by a managerial short‐termism under competitive pressures to save on high skills thanks to an ever‐increasing number of graduates.     

On the job and co-worker commitment of Dutch agency workers and permanent employees

This article explores the relationship between employment status (agency workers vs. permanent employees) and affective and normative job and co-worker commitment. Our study was conducted on employees from four metal companies in the Netherlands. As HRM practices seem to influence employee commitment, we performed 89 interviews across all four companies and included blue-collar workers, their managers (direct supervisors, HR managers and production managers), as well as works council members. To test our hypotheses on commitment differences, we conducted quantitative research within the companies (permanent employees N = 167; agency workers N = 54), all blue-collar workers. Results show that permanent employees and agency workers express similar degrees of commitment to their job and to their co-workers, apart from affective commitment to co-workers, which is lower for agency workers than for permanent workers. We argue that national legislation, as well as managers' attempts to offer HR practices equal to those of permanent staff, play a prominent role in stimulating agency workers' commitment.     

Improving the psychosocial environment for older trainees: Technological training as an illustration

Currently, there is a higher proportion of older workers in the labor force and the applicant pool than there have been in previous generations as a result of the Baby Boomer demographic bubble. Regarding these older workers as a potentially valuable resource and developing their skills accordingly may help employers fulfill their labor needs in an increasingly competitive market. Relative to younger workers, there is limited information in the literature with respect to the design of a psychologically and socially supportive training environment for this particular demographic. Our intent in this review is to provide a research-based framework for understanding the specific psychological and social needs of older trainees. We first examine the impact of ageism and age-related stereotype threat in the learning environment, and ways to reduce their negative influence on training. We then turn to a consideration of the motivational needs of the older trainee, and the unique ways to foster positive levels of training motivation and self-efficacy. At each step of our discussion, we use technological training as a specific example of these training challenges and remedies. This training domain was chosen because of its increasing relevance to job acquisition for older applicants and to the career development of mature employees. Practical implications for theories and practice tailored to older learners are emphasized.     

Examining the link between flexible working arrangement bundles and employee work effort

Empirical evidence regarding the link between flexible working arrangements (FWAs) and work effort is mixed, with the literature showing that some practices are linked to more while others to less work effort. In this study, we argue that this discrepancy may be due to the existence of different types of FWA bundles with potentially distinct effects on work effort. Using Understanding Society, a British national survey, and building on theories related to social exchange, the study examines the link between employee‐centered and employer‐centered FWA bundles, and work effort. This study further tests whether these relationships differ depending on employees' family responsibilities. Based on a sample of 13,834 employees, results show that both employee‐centered and employer‐centered FWA bundles are negatively associated with work effort, and findings for the latter bundle are more pronounced. These negative associations are somewhat stronger for employees with fewer family responsibilities. We infer that employees appear to use employee‐centered FWAs for their intended purpose, that is, to balance life and job demands, while they might perceive employer‐centered FWAs as unfair, resulting in less work effort in an attempt to restore fairness.     

Cultural diversity in hospitality work: the Northern Ireland experience

International workers are a growing category of employees in the hospitality industry of Northern Ireland (NI). The retention and skills shortages of the industry are significant factors in facilitating this increase. Thus, international workers could be an invaluable new source of labour for the hospitality industry, provided that they are properly looked after and managed. However, little is known about the number of people moving to Northern Ireland to take up work in the hospitality industry. This paper sets out to answer some of the ‘unknowns’ – including nationality, demographic characteristics, educational, employment and economic background. The paper draws on data collected through a survey of migrant workers in nine hotels in Northern Ireland and focus groups with migrant employees in all of the survey establishments. Issues of social integration within the workforce and the wider community as well as the future that migrant workers see for themselves are discussed from a human resource perspective.     

Access to training and its impact on temporary workers

Does temporary work provide a way for individuals to improve their skill levels? Using a sample of more than 4,000 employees of US temporary staffing agencies, we analyse whether blue, white and pink‐collar temps get access to company training, and the impact of skill development on wages and employee retention. We find that less than 25 per cent of temps take part in training. Educated and experienced individuals are more likely to be offered training, but lower‐skilled individuals are more likely to take training when it is offered and spend more hours on it. Office workers who took part in training were more likely still to be with the agency a year later and experienced significant wage growth, while training had no effect on wage growth for blue‐collar workers. Skill development that took place on the job was associated with greater wage growth for all types of temps.