About the research
Our working lives are changing. As the population ages, we are working later in life. Education from the secondary level to the postgraduate level is increasing the qualification level of the workforce. Our experience of work is becoming more diverse. Team-working is becoming more prevalent and on-the-job learning is becoming more varied. These changes have been tracked over the last two decades by a team of university researchers in Cardiff, Oxford and London.
Over this period they have been collecting and examining data which maps the level and distribution of skills requirements and the quality of working life, analysing the patterns that emerge and tracing how they have changed over time across the UK.
They discovered the following changes in the quality and patterns of work:
- Older employees have been doing better in the workplace since the early 1990s, closing the skills gap with younger workers and maintaining leads in work intensity and job control. However, their loyalty to their employers (but not to the idea of employment) has declined.
- Within the workplace, older employees are at a disadvantage compared to their younger co-workers when it comes to training. They often receive fewer opportunities for formal training, and when they do it is for shorter durations and of lower quality.
- It is suggested that employee involvement is a requirement for up-skilling the workforce as the quality of this process is usually tied to the nature and extent of this involvement. This idea has been integrated into the policies of individual countries and international organisations such as the European Union.
- While teamwork in the workplace expanded from the 1990s, it was primarily teamwork that gave employees little decision-making power, which in turn suppressed personal initiative and discretion at work.
- In Wales, compared to the rest of Britain, the skill content of jobs is lower which helps to explain lower pay levels there. Trends suggest the skill content has declined where it has risen elsewhere in the UK.
Methodology
This research relied on a large number of individual-level surveys that asked similar questions over time. The researchers analysed the answers to the same questions asked in the various surveys at different points in time to track changing patterns in the quality of employment and the skills used in work. All the surveys focused on people in work with the data collected through face-to-face interviews. The resulting data were representative of those working in Britain at the time each survey was carried out.
Publications
Gallie, D., Zhou, Y., Felstead A., and Green F. (2012) ‘Teamwork, skill development and employee welfare,’ British Journal of Industrial Relations, 50(1), pp. 23-46. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2010.00787.x Retrieved 4 September 2013 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2010.00787.x/pdf
Felstead, A. (2011) ‘The importance of “teaching old dogs new tricks”: Training and learning opportunities for older workers,’ in E. Parry and S. Tyson (eds.) Managing an age-diverse workforce, London: Palgrave.
Felstead, A. (2010) ‘Closing the age gap? Age, skills and the experience of work in Great Britain‘, Ageing & Society, 30(8), pp.1293-1314. doi: 10.1017/S0144686X10000681
Felstead, A., Gallie, D., Green, F., and Zhou, Y. (2010) ‘Employee involvement, the quality of training and the learning environment: An individual level analysis’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(10), pp.1667-1688. doi: 10.1080/09585192.2010.500489 Retrieved 4 September 2013 from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585192.2010.500489#.Uib-uX_3On4
Felstead, A. (2009) ‘Are jobs in Wales high skilled and high quality? Baselining the One Wales vision and tracking recent trends,’ Contemporary Wales, 22(1), pp. 36-61.
Felstead, A., Gallie, D., Green, F., Zhou, Y. (2007) Skills at Work, 1986 to 2006, Project funded by ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisation Performance. Retrieved 4 September 2013 from http://kar.kent.ac.uk/4845/1/2006_Skills_Survey-FinalDraft3.pdf