policy & reform highly desirable, but“ teamwork” isn’ t a discrete skill. It involves a combination of skills, knowledge and understanding, such as communicating, cooperating and collaborating with others, developing a clear understanding of your role and responsibilities and how these interact with those of others, planning and organising your workload in relation to that of others, solving problems and making decisions in conjunction with others, and managing conflict. All of these components are described in the framework in a way that makes them teachable, learnable and observable.
A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH The CSfW emphasises that employability skills are not something you either have or don’ t have. They are acquired gradually, as a result of learning, practical experience and reflection on that experience. Nor are they relevant only to those entering the workforce for the first time; they continue to develop across the span of our working lives.
In recognition of this, the framework employs a staged approach to describe how skills, knowledge and understanding develop over time. Drawing on a broad range of relevant research, including the work of Dreyfus and Dreyfus and their Novice to Expert Model of Skill Acquisition, the framework describes what individuals are likely to know, understand and be able to do at five identifiable stages of development in each of the 10 skill areas.
The theoretical underpinning of the novice-to-expert model provides many useful insights into how skills are developed.
Someone who is a novice in a particular skill area – and everyone starts out as a novice at some point in their lives – is highly reliant on explicit rules( in the form of instructions, processes, procedures, guidelines, models, etc) to guide their actions. With practical experience, and reflection on that experience, their reliance on rules and systematic approaches to work tasks decreases, and their understanding of implicit rules( e. g. conventions and expectations) increases, as does their ability to read the context and operate more flexibly and intuitively. The range of behaviour that signals the milestones of an individual’ s progress have been categorised as advanced beginner, capable, proficient and expert. By definition, someone who has reached the capable stage understands and follows the rules of a particular employability skill in familiar contexts and is learning to adapt these to new situations. Someone who moves beyond the capable stage is beginning to operate in a seemingly intuitive way, using rules as a guide rather than as a fixed requirement.
It’ s not expected, or even necessary, that everyone will reach the expert stage, and certainly not in every skill area. Every work role has its own set of employability skill requirements and expectations, emphasising some skill areas ahead of others, and requiring different stages of development.
The framework can assist employers, educators and trainers to make these expectations more explicit.
CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING A significant feature of the CSfW is its recognition of the importance of context in relation to work performance.
For example, the extent to which an individual can demonstrate the skills, knowledge and understanding they already possess is highly dependent on how familiar they are with the context. This means that when someone moves into a new situation – a new work role, a new organisation, a new industry, or from study into paid employment – their ability to apply their employability skills will be diminished for a period of time, until they come to understand the rules and expectations of the new context.
So, when an employer says that a new graduate is not work-ready, it may be true. Graduates may be able to solve problems, make decisions and work with others in academic and community contexts, and even in other employment contexts, but they still need hands-on, practical experience in their new field, and time to learn how to adapt and demonstrate these skills to the same stage( and beyond) in a new context.
University courses that incorporate extensive work-based learning can facilitate this process, giving students opportunities to adapt and apply their skills in new settings, and to reflect on what works, what doesn’ t and why.
Employers can also provide a range of supports to help new entrants apply and further develop their skills. These include clearly articulated expectations and guidelines, modelling of expected performance and encouragement to ask questions without fear of being thought ignorant. Mentoring programs can also make a big difference.
HOW IS THE CSfW BEING USED? Those who are becoming familiar with the framework are excited by its possibilities for improving the skills and work performance of students and graduates, as well as helping employers to better understand their role in supporting employees.
Allan Gatenby, director of programs for the Association of Career Professionals International, says that recruiters are placing an increasing emphasis on generic skills.“ But a major issue raised by career professionals is – How do we identify these skills?” he says.
He believes that the CSfW has applications throughout the career development process.“ It can be used to develop a person’ s profile and identify opportunities for best fit with a particular role,” he says.“ It can also help applicants build a set of stories about what they’ ve done in the past that will illustrate these skills in action.”
Sue Elston, a careers and industry consultant at the University of Melbourne’ s faculty of business and economics, is already using the CSfW to help students in postgraduate programs get the most out of work-integrated learning activities.“ We’ ve used the framework to develop an online self-assessment tool that students complete before they go out on a practicum and again after they’ ve completed it,” she says.“ The results of these self-assessments help us have discussions with the students about their career goals and their areas of strength and weakness in terms of employability skills, and to identify activities that will help them develop their skills further and increase their chances of gaining employment.”
She has found that students can see benefits in being more conscious of these skills.“ Most of them have shown an improvement in their skills after they come back from their practicum,” she says.“ They also find the self-assessment useful because it gives them an opportunity to reflect on their skills and to identify practical examples of how they’ ve demonstrated them, which they then use in their CVs and in addressing selection criteria.”
The Core Skills for Work developmental framework and a range of sample tools and resources can be found on the federal Department of Industry website at industry. gov. au / csfw n
Sue Goodwin is general manager of Ithaca Group. Kate Perkins is director of Kulu Adventures in Management.
CORE SKILLS FOR WORK
1. Skills to navigate the world of work Manage career and work life Work with rights, roles and protocols
2. Skills to interact with others Communicate for work Connect and work with others Recognise and utilise diverse perspectives
3. Skills to get the work done Plan and organise Make decisions Identify and solve problems Create and innovate Work in a digital world
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