"The language of the Government and industry about the importance of transforming the country into a high skill information and knowledge economy may be inspirational but the gap between its perceptions and the reality we face so often across many workplaces remains very wide," argues Robert Taylor, media fellow on the ESRC Future of Work Programme. "We must reassess the state of the current discussion about future skills and innovation needs and question some of our underlying assumptions and public policy prescriptions," he argues.
Research indicates that no serious attempt has yet been made to relate the apparently self-evident need to promote skills and innovation to the actual internal modernisation of companies and the way in which jobs are being organised or restructured in existing and new workplaces. Policymaking, to date, has focused almost exclusively on the introduction of measures to enhance the volume and quality of skilled workers in the labour market.
But, suggests Mr Taylor, "the primary lesson to draw from current research is that Britain's productivity problem and the country's future as the centre of innovation would be immeasurably improved if we focused much more of our attention than we are doing at the moment on the nature of workplace organisational change and not simply on the ups and downs of the labour market, not so much on individual employee needs and more on the framework of institutions within which paid work is being organised."
New research findings which underline the importance of organisational change in creating a more skilled workforce and highlight the failings of current policy in producing high performance workplaces are outlined in this report.
Some of the key findings include:
- Government efforts to improve the quality of the supply of labour are being hindered by the bewildering range of public bodies seeking to offer training opportunities. A coherent policy response to workplace realities is currently lacking.
- Few UK firms give a top priority to the need for the creation of high skills/highly qualified workforce because their basic business activities do not require them to do so. As long as companies can continue to prosper or even merely survive in pursuit of low cost/low value activities, there is little incentive for them to modernise.
- New forms of public intervention are required if Britain stands any prospect of becoming a predominantly high skills, knowledge-based economy. For example, giving much stronger public support to businesses in the restructuring of their product market strategies towards the provision of high value added goods and services through the selective use of public sector purchasing and the encouragement of employers to pursue a quality of working life agenda that links the drive for new job re-design to more innovative forms of work organisation.
Professor Peter Nolan, Director of the ESRC Future of Work Programme, points out that the emphasis in practice on the production of low skill and low value products and services continues to remain a powerful one. "The barriers remain formidable to the construction of a vibrant, technologically advanced and knowledge intensive workforce," Professor Nolan points out.
Ultimately, the most important message highlighted by this current research concerns what kinds of public policy are best able to improve performance and raise labour productivity levels, argues Mr Taylor. "Too much of the present approach remains top-down, ad hoc and fragmented," he concludes. "It is over-managerial in its tone and substance and concerned primarily with the implementation of supply side external labour market measures. What is currently lacking is the development of a comprehensive skills and innovation strategy that is more in tune with the encouragement of workplace reorganisation and institutional change. This is why public policymakers need to turn much more of their attention to the changing needs of workplaces and the actual structure and skills contents of jobs."
For further information,
Contact Robert Taylor, tel: 207-638-0687 email: tylr759@aol.com; or contact Professor Peter Nolan, tel: 113-233-4460 email: P.J.Nolan@Leeds.ac.uk;
Or Lesley Lilley or Anna Hinds, ESRC External Relations, tel: 0179-341-3119/413122.
A draft copy of the report is available from Anna Hinds on 179-341-3122.
Notes for Editors
1. A report, High Road/Low Road – Skills and Innovation in Britain's Workplaces, by Robert Taylor, media fellow with the ESRC's Future of Work Programme, is available on request from the ESRC. This report is based, in part, on research papers presented at an ESRC conference in April 2003 at Cumberland Lodge on skills, innovation and performance. Conference speakers included researchers from the ESRC Future of Work Programme, the ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance and the ESRC Centre for Organisation and Innovation.
2. The ESRC is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It has a track record of producing high-quality relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC invests more than £46 million every year in social sciences research. At any time, its range of funding schemes may be supporting 2,000 researchers within academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds postgraduate training within the social sciences, thereby nurturing the researchers of tomorrow. The ESRC website address is http://www.esrc.ac.uk
3. The Future of Work Programme was launched by the ESRC in October 1998 and is helping to rectify the gaps in our knowledge. Comprising 27 projects and involving more than one hundred leading researchers across the UK, this is the most systematic and rigorous enquiry of its kind, providing evidence-based research for a better understanding of the changing world of work in a period of rapid social, technological and economic change. For further details about the programme contact Professor Peter Nolan Tel 113-233-4504.
4. REGARD is the ESRC's database of research. It provides a key source of information on ESRC social science research awards and all associated publications and products. The website can be found at http://www.regard.ac.uk