Participants Manual WS1 by intranetlinkyou

PARTICIPANTS

MANUAL WS1

Funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union

Contents 03

Introduction

Skills: Employability

Drivers of change

Are graduates ready for the future?

Universities as studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; allies in employability

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Introduction The world is changing every day ...and so is the economy (Jeswani, 2016). This chapter goes through â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the state of artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; on future skills, recognizing which are the main skills employers expect to be the future trends. There is a lot of discussion regarding what will be the main future skills needed to be a successful employee (Gow & McDonalds, 2000) but it is known that the next ten years will demand a new set of skills and drivers in order to follow future trends (Davies, Fidler & Gorbis, 2011). For a proper analysis on these trends, it also reflects about employability basic notions and explores the concept of perceived employability (PE). For instance, the challenge is there are new popular job-roles that 5 or 10 years ago did not even exist. Therefore, the question is, are graduated students ready for the current labour market? Why do they need a set of new skills and what have changed? We will try to answer this and other questions and make some suggestions in how graduates, universities and companies can improve their methods and follow this future trend. These insights can bring some useful tips for Linkyou project for teachers to get a deeper knowledge on employability and share this information during classes with their students. In this workshop, we will help teachers identifying the main trends for the future world of work and knowing how to develop these skills during their classes.

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Employability Skills

Employability is the ability to gain, keep and evolve in a job on the labour market and includes basic educational qualifications and employability skills (Jeswani, 2016). This basic educational qualification refers to the academic student background while employability skills are a set of needed tools that will be approach later on. Organizations see employability as ‘being ready to work’ which includes possessing skills, knowledge, attitudes and business skills and at the end to meet organizational goals (Jeswani, 2016). The individual’s perception of their own employability’ is called PE (perceived employability) and should be considered when talking about employability. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) tell students ‘that investment in one’s human capital is the route to career success’, care about the perceived employability of their students and promote that they should develop professional experience while studying (e.g. internships, part-time jobs), so they can have a proper WIL (work-integrated learning) (Jackson & Wilton, 2017). “Yet, despite extensive development and evidence of innovative practices to foster employability within universities, employability remains a complex and problematic area without clear or obvious solutions. Increasingly, enterprising students and graduates are regarded as more employable, and there appear to be advantages in integrating career and enterprise development themes within the curriculum. However, such approaches can pose challenges to the structure, system and culture within HEIs” (Beyrouti, 2011). In order to have a better employability, graduates need to consider both soft and hard skills when applying for an organization. To build these, both technical skills (from technology expertise to teamwork) and generic skills (e.g. attitudes) are needed (Parasuraman & Prasad, 2015). There are four virtual attributes to consider (Gow & McDonalds, 2000): adaptability to changing work environments, accountability, business management skills and cross-cultural competence.

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Drivers of Change

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Employers are seeking more than just a degree,

looking for other ways to distinguish amongst candidates. In this context, universities are under pressure to promote the employability of their graduates (Farenga & Quinlan, 2016). To understand in a wider prospect what is causing so many changes, Davies, Fidler & Gorbis (2011) and The World Economic Forum (2016) share some insights as drivers of change. For Davis, Fidler & Gorbis (2011) lifespan is increasing so people will work until later years and companies have to adapt their ‘career paths’, ‘creating more diversity and flexibility’. Moreover, technological grow will simultaneously take and create new jobs and ultimately asks for a collaboration between human and machines to seek development (Davies, Fidler & Gorbis, 2011). The World Economic Forum (2016) defines drivers as socio-economic and technological. The first ones include remote work with little full-time employees, the rise of middle class especially in Asia and the demand for a greener economy. As technological they consider the productivity growth and little use of software resources caused by mobile internet and cloud tech, the big data growth that requires human literacy to use it and adapted systems and the new energy supplies like renewable energy and hydraulic fracturing (World Economic Forum, 2016). Gathered, this element shaped our global context and justified the need for so many changes in order to develop future skills adapted to this reality. In terms of work conditions, in high-needed jobs, salary is expected to rise in line with a higher ‘worklife balance in all industries’ (except in the consumer sector). Flexible work is one of the main elements of job transformation since “Telecommuting, co-working spaces, virtual teams, freelancing and online talent platforms are all on the rise” (World Economic Forum, 2016). Consider-

ing this scenario, it’s expectable that employment will grow – Architecture; Engineering; Computer Science and Mathematical job family - and decrease - Business and Management Financial operations; Sales and related; Construction and Extraction. The decline of the three main referred areas happens due to ‘automation of checkout processes and smart inventory management’ and ‘costume service roles’ since technology can maintain the relationship with the client replacing the employee in some of these roles (World economic forum, 2016). Knowing that academic background is a ground rule, employers expect relevant capabilities, skills, abilities and personal attributes from their employees (Jeswani, 2016). Although ‘STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)’ graduates are increasing, this number is not enough to fill all the job market needs partly because all the changes will demand new skills ‘requirements in all job families’, so it’s mandatory to adapt and reskill employees from different backgrounds apart from the industry (World Economic Forum, 2016). Although students are lacking professional experience and consequently practical knowledge about how the market works, they should considerer all interactions as opportunities that can help them gain this essential skill in this fast-growing market (Parasuraman & Prasad, 2015). A good way to start can be collaborating with organizations, volunteering for a cause or propose themselves as a lecturer in its faculty. It is also important to guarantee that the university has well-trained professionals to properly guide students across this process (Parasuraman & Prasad, 2015). In addition, work experience promotes successful student placements and develops “a clearer understanding of which experiences are relevant, and why, and would have developed a larger network of employer contacts” (Jackson & Wilton, 2017).

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Are graduates ready for the future?

Organizations are crossing a hard time in finding the right people. When they do so, they need to invest in training so that employees have the right skills to perform efficiently (Jeswani, 2016). The problem is that expectations from employers are not meeting the graduates’ current skills or the performance presented by them in the workplace. The authors named this disparity ‘the employability skills gap’ (Jeswani, 2016.) To reduce it, organizations and employees work together to find a common understanding. Sometimes this can be hard for students because most of them do not understand the importance of having employability skills to get the right opportunity (Jeswani, 2016). “While the University has made great strides in identifying the skills template, establishing its relationship to the curriculum and in identifying the skills inherent in every module, work remains to be undertaken on ensuring skills are fully embedded in practice, and on assessment” (Atlay & Harris, 2000). Universities play an important role in helping their students becoming more employable, through the development of soft as well as hard skills. There is still a long way to go for students since they perceive themselves as lack of experience, lack of knowledge of organizations to job-search and feel with little access to networks (Jackson & Wilton, 2017). Nevertheless, they are confident in their own abilities and this may happen because HEI promote self-confidence on their students what can inflate their perception of value in the labour market compared to reality and promote a ‘lack of humility or understanding of labour market realities’ (Jackson & Wilton, 2017). Graduates are lacking a set of skills that are a core requisite for the professional workplace, namely written and effective communication (Moore & Morton, 2017). Rather than learning specifically how to write something, students need to be in contact with different experiences in order to develop a high sensibility to adapt their knowledge and communication to each situation (Moore & Morton, 2017).

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Skills trends of the future

Social skills will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills. Another set of growing skills in many industries will be content skills, cognitive abilities and process skills (World Economic Forum, 2016). Technical skills do not come first because companies find it easier to improve them through in-house training while management skills would be harder to acquire (Jeswani, 2016). Cross-cultural competence, entrepreneurial ability and lifelong learning are also valued (Gow & McDonalds, 2000).

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Universities as studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; allies in employability

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In this chapter, we will focus on practical tips that may be useful for Higher Education Institutions (HEI) teachers interested in helping their students in employability skills’ development. Some years ago, higher education perceived employability issues in a more liberal way. In this previous perspective, the role of the HEI was to enable the individual to grow in order to, autonomously, find a way to fulfill his/ her role in society. More recently, a new view came across, showing that every course should include employability enhancing content (Cranmer, 2006). Some teachers may be resistant to this inclusion of employability skills during the degree. Some may think that adapting the learning to the work labor is anti-intellectual and may have doubts that this is part of their role as academics. Washer (2007) argues that including key skills in the curricula do not necessarily threaten the notion of a liberal education. The times are changing and, although in the past-times graduates had a long period of training in a new job, now they should be “ready to go” when they start working in a company (Washer, 2007). When universities do not attend employability issues, students have limited options to address their needs. This leaves the students with the whole (and huge) responsibility to choose activities where they can develop these competences (Goodman & Tredway, 2016). In sum, employability may be assessed in multiple ways, such as through the curriculum, career services groups, with personal development plans, via external

speakers, in case studies, in consultancy projects, in volunteering, and many others (O’Leary, 2017). Regardless of the approach, in the end graduates must be aware of their skills and of where they have acquired them (Washer, 2007).

How can universities increase their graduate’s employability? To innovate and to include employability themes into the curricula it is important to have a top-down intervention, supported by a strong commitment from the bottom-up (Knight & Yorke, 2002). This way, it seems to be important to involve different actors of the academic environment in the process: teachers, staff, and career services. For a successful project, it is important to respect the cultures, academic integrity, autonomy and diversity. The intervention should be process-based rather than content-based (Knight & Yorke, 2002). There are different approaches to develop employability skills directly or indirectly. On one hand, career services groups, through employability skills agenda, may directly assess employability skills. On the other hand, universities can improve it indirectly through the “promotion of graduate identity and the provision of opportunities for functioning” (Jolly, 2011, cit in O’Leary, 2017).

HEI must define which skills they would like to include in the curricula and which ones can be developed by other means (Beyrouti, 2011). In some cases, knowledge about transversal areas like mathematics and grammar can be developed in stand-alone courses, to solve the gap of some courses in those matters (Mason, Williams & Cranmer, 2009). It is also possible to have structured programs to differentiate the skills according to the students’ stages. Atlay and Harris (2000) present in their paper a case study of a University, which has divided the work around skills into three levels (starting in level 1, designed to the first year undergraduate) with different set of skills. Moreover, Cranmer (2006) presents a model for delivering employability skills in higher education curriculum that goes from total embedding of employability skills (delivered by subject lecturers and mandatory) to parallel development of generic skills – which it is optional, and delivered by, for example, Careers and Employability Unit personnel. When there is an embedded subject model, soft skills are included in the teaching and learning activities across the curriculum, (e.g. integrated into core subject such as mathematics, statistics, economics, or others). On the contrary, in a stand-alone subject model, we have specific courses that aim to develop specific soft skills, such as English language, entrepreneurship and others (Hamid, Islam & Manaf, 2014). For instance, work-integrated learning is a practical way of learning that alternates times for study with periods of applied work in business, industry or government agency. This is a valuable experience, since it challenges the student to incorporate the-

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ory and practice. It is also demanding because of the responsibility required for the student to be in a real workplace (Hamid, Islam & Manaf, 2014). In on-the-job learning, students are able to develop their confidence levels, teamwork and communication skills. This requires a connection between universities and labor market, to ensure that students are having contact with the right companies and the right tasks to their specialization, so the teachers’ work is crucial in this mediation process (Hamid, Islam & Manaf, 2014). Volunteering is another example that can help students in increasing their perceived employability (Goodman & Tredway, 2016). They found that the more frequently students volunteered, the greater their expectation that potential employers would view their employability positively.

How can this work in the classroom? HEI should have a pedagogical approach in which they value active learning from their students and discourage a passive attitude that contributes more to surface than to meaningful learning. Teachers must try to understand if the modules are allowing the development of the employability skills they aim to access (Yorke & Knight, 2006). Students may take the skills’ training more serious if it is part of the curriculum than when it comes in form of stand-alone courses. Besides, it is important that they understand the value of the theme, which is easier to happen if teachers recognize these projects and present them as a useful thing (Washer, 2007). There are different perspectives, and

some students report their skills as something natural, that you either have or do not have (Lucas, Cox, Croudace & Milford, 2004). Likewise, Knight and colleagues (2002) talk about “learned helplessness”, that is

paring with others (Cranmer, 2006). To be buddies in this development, teachers can use simulations, problem-based learning, project work, simulations of the workplace, roleplays of dealing with “mock” clients,

When universities do not attend employability issues, students have limited options to address their needs.

a corrosive belief of not being good enough to succeed in the real context. This way, we may find students who are willing to protect their self-esteem by avoiding trying different and challenging experiences. Knowing this, teachers should try to understand their students’ beliefs about skills’ development and be aware if they are on the fixed or on the malleable dimension (Knight & Yorke, 2002). Studies show that different departments identify different core skills (Lucas, Cox, Croudace & Milford, 2004), which suggests that it may be useful to include employability themes in the classroom, adapting the content to the more relevant skills according to the field of study. In fact, to find the best way for an individual to improve employability skills we must attend to the course’s specificities, since the academic background by itself also plays a role in development. In addition, some skills may be more relevant to certain work contexts, when com-

and so on (Washer, 2007). If there is a sequence of well-designed tasks and if the students do it in groups, they will increase both the scientific knowledge and soft skills, such as dealing with deadlines, teamwork and communication (Anderson & Lees, 2017). Teachers should encourage progressively higher levels of autonomy, involving a variety of pedagogic methods and styles. It is important that they incite deep learning among their students, helping them to become aware of their improvement. Students relate their skills with personal attributes. In their view, some skills arise naturally from personality types and develop naturally with aging. This way, students experience skill development as a tacit process. They need to be aware of the skills development process and developing their own vocabulary around skills (Lucas, Cox, Croudace & Milford, 2004).

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References •

Anderson, D., & Lees, R. (2017). Marketing education and the employability challenge. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 25(2), 128-137.

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Atlay, M., & Harris, R. (2000). An institutional approach to developing students’ ‘transferable’ skills. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 37(1), 76-84.

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Beyrouti, N. (2017). Digital Technology Management and Educational Innovation: The Marketabilityand Employability of The Higher Education Degrees. The Journal of Developing Areas, 51(1), 391-400.

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Cranmer, S. (2006). Enhancing graduate employability: best intentions and mixed outcomes. Studies in Higher Education, 31, 169-184.

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Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). Future work skills 2020. Institute for the Future for University of Phoenix Research Institute, 540.

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Farenga, S. A., & Quinlan, K. M. (2016). Classifying university employability strategies: three case studies and implications for practice and research. Journal of Education and Work, 29(7), 767-787.

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Goodman, S. & Tredway, G. (2016). Antecedents of perceived graduate employability: A study of student volunteers in a community-based organisation. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 42, 1-10.

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Gow, K., & McDonald, P. (2000). Attributes required of graduates for the future workplace. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 52(3), 373396.

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Hamid, M.S.A, Islam, R. & Manaf, N.H.A. (2014). Employability skills development approaches: an application of the analytic network process. Asian Academy of Management Journal, 19, 93–111.

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Jackson, D., & Wilton, N. (2017). Perceived employability among undergraduates and the importance of career self-management, work experience and individual characteristics. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(4), 747-762.

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Jeswani, S. (2016). Assessment of Employability Skills Among Fresh Engi-

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neering Graduates: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 10(2), 7. •

Knight, P.T. & Yorke, M. (2002). Employability through the curriculum. Tertiary Education and Management, 8, 261–276.

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Lucas, U., Cox, P., Croudace, C. & Milford, P. (2004). ‘Who writes this stuff?’: students’ perceptions of their skills development. Teaching in Higher Education, 9, 55-68.

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Mason, G., Williams, G., & Cranmer, S. (2009). Employability skills initiatives in higher education: what effects do they have on graduate labour market outcomes?. Education Economics, 17(1), 1-30.

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Moore, T., & Morton, J. (2017). The myth of job readiness? Written communication, employability, and the ‘skills gap’in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 42(3), 591-609.

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O’Leary, S. (2017). Graduates’ experiences of, and attitudes towards, the inclusion of employability-related support in undergraduate degree programmes; trends and variations by subject discipline and gender. Journal of Education and Work, 30, 84-105.

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Parasuraman, J., & Prasad, N. H. (2015). Acquisition of corporate employability skills: A study with reference to engineering graduates. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 9(2), 22.

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Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2001). Key skills for developing employability. London: QCA.

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Wahser, P. (2007). Revisiting Key Skills: A Practical Framework for Higher Education. Quality in Higher Education, 13, 57-67.

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World Economic Forum (2016). The future of jobs: Employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution. World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland.

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Yorke, M. & Knight, P. T. (2006). Embedding employability into the curriculum. York: The Higher Education Academy.

Contact Marina Ventura, Coordinator. Career Services and Alumni office. Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) T: +351 21 790 3000 marina.ventura@iscte.pt Av. das Forรงas Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal.

https://linkyou.fahsbender.pe Watch the video: https://youtu.be/vkcd5-o0Jas

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This document reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union