Skilled People Research Articles

COMPETENCE BASED LEARNING

Society requires skilled people and therefore education plays a key role in society. The content of education depends on the demand of society. First of all, the national government defines the requirements for education and the national government is responsible for monitoring the system to assess if schools and universities meet the demands and requirements. Secondly, Higher (tertiary) education will have preliminary requirements to enrol students of secondary education. Finally, the labour market has its wishes for all levels of vocational or professional education: it needs competent employees for all levels. Because of the worldwide dynamic development, education should continuously consider the content and methodology of its courses. Teachers become entrepreneurs and mediators in information and achievement of competencies. The learner is the centre of the teaching and coaching activities. Stoas Professional University developed a new and unique approach based on the Stoas tradition of learner centred education, integration of Practice &Theory and the integration of ‘head’, ‘heart’ and ‘hands’. The new approach is called ‘Competence Based Learning. Last year we did a project at your University about project-approached learning. A step forwards to competence based learning. Using practical experience for students to create a challenging study situation. Both developments are interesting to mention. That is the content of my lecture.

Diversity or the lack of it in the architectural profession

Approximately 37 per cent of architectural students are women and the percentage is increasing. This increase is not reflected in the architectural profession; women represent only 13 per cent of the total and analysis reveals that women are leaving the profession after qualifying. The research reported here was undertaken in 2003 and investigated the reasons why women were leaving. Research methods included the appointment of an expert advisory group, an extensive literature review, a web‐based questionnaire aimed at women architects and a series of interviews with women who had left architecture. No single reason emerged from the research to explain why women left but a multiplicity of factors, such as low pay, poor promotion prospects, discriminatory attitudes and sexist behaviour were found to influence departure. The problem has an international dimension as revealed through the web survey and from ongoing academic interest. There are serious implications for the future of the profession if, through its culture and practice, it loses skilled people after they have qualified. Finally a series of key strategic recommendations for the professional bodies as well as practitioners suggest ways of reducing this female brain drain. The aim is to increase diversity in the construction industry and improve the competitive edge of the architectural profession.

Only experienced staff should take NVQ level 3?

NVQs were devised in the 1980s in response to the need to officially recognise the many skilled but unqualified people working in the industry. They were intended to be reliable, objective measures of professional competence and knowledge and were to be gained by people carrying out their normal work competently under observation.

Crowding-out of Unskilled Workers in the Business Cycle: Evidence from West Germany

The paper addresses the question of if and how processes of cyclical crowding-out contribute to the disproportionate increase in unemployment of the less-educated during recessions. To this end, transitions from unemployment to low-skilled jobs and vice versa are analysed using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). It is found that skilled workers increasingly occupy low-skilled jobs during recessions and thus diminish employment chances of unskilled persons. Specifically, the analyses show evidence for crowding-out at the worker inflow: during recessions, the chances of securing a low-skilled job deteriorate to a greater extent for unskilled people than for the skilled, suggesting that in times of poor employment prospects, job-competition between unskilled and skilled people for low-skilled jobs increases. However, the analysis does not show evidence for crowding-out at the worker outflow.

OTC Sessions Confront Technical, Human Challenges Facing Industry

A healthy oil and gas industry fueled by high commodity prices provided the backdrop to a record-setting Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston. The annual event posted a 20-year high in attendance at 51,320 and attracted more than 2,000 exhibiting companies (Fig. 1). Amid the upbeat mood of an industry enjoying profitable times, speakers at the conference offered a clear-eyed view of the challenges confronting an industry that needs to produce more hydrocarbons to satisfy thirsty global demand. Peter J. Robertson, Vice Chairman of Chevron Corp., laid out those challenges in his keynote address at the OTC Awards Luncheon, including surging demand Robertson growth, geopolitical instability, increasingly complex projects, and consumer demand for cleaner fuels with minimal environmental impact. “To me the interesting part is that none of these items are particularly new, but the volume on all of them has been turned up and the combined effects of all of them operating in unison is putting a strain on our collective capabilities,” he said. Those challenges will require huge financial investments. Robertson said that Chevron’s “big 5” upstream projects include three technically challenging deepwater developments in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), Nigeria, and Angola; the expansion of the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan; and the Greater Gorgon project in Australia that includes two 5-million-ton liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains and a carbon sequestration project. But the real test for the industry may not be in locating and developing hydrocarbons, but in finding and developing highly skilled technical people “to carry out all of this work,” he said. The average age of Chevron’s U.S. work force is 47, he said. “Just as more and more of our hydrocarbon resources are being sourced outside of the U.S. and Europe, in the future more and more of our people requirements will be sourced in other parts of the world where there are large numbers of talented, energetic, and interested young work forces—in Southeast Asia, the Former Soviet Union, Latin America, the Middle East, and in Africa,” he said. At the awards banquet, 2005 Distinguished Achievement Awards were presented to J. Kim Vandiver, to Kerr-McGee Oil and Gas Corp., and to Technip. The award recognizes individuals, companies, and projects that have made outstanding contributions to the offshore industry. Vandiver, a professor of mechanical and ocean engineering at the Massachusetts Inst. of Technology, was honored for numerous technical breakthroughs in the dynamics of vortex-induced vibrations that have enhanced the design of structures to withstand high ocean currents. Kerr-McGee and Technip were cited for their successful global relationship that has pioneered and delivered three generations of spar floating production systems in the past decade.

Ensure a positive candidate experience

Many companies are failing to ensure a positive candidate experience during the recruitment process. This means potentially losing out on highly skilled people to competitors, as well as negatively affecting the employer brand.

Information & Communication Technology and capital market perspectives

Capital markets in the late 1990s were shaped by the US stock market bubble which imploded in 2001. The new economy hype has shown all typical bubble aspects of a new sector taking-off: many new firms entering the market, few newcomers realizing enormous profits and a small number of firms with sustained profits. As the New York stock market dominates international stock markets, there were considerable international spillover effects from the US bubble which implied negative costs of capital for firms in most OECD countries and thus stimulated overinvestment in the late 1990s and a following phase of underinvestment. However, telecommunications services and software have remained dynamic drivers of the digital economy. Part of the overvaluation in the stock market in the late 1990s was caused by fraudulent investment bankers who publicly recommended investment in Information & Communication Technology (ICT) shares while putting the thumb down on New Economy firms in internal meetings. The main motive for such inconsistent public reinforcement of the stock market rallies apparently was the desire of investment bankers to stimulate positive cross-selling effects for the mergers & acquisitions department of the bank. Fraudulent accounting at some New Economy firms further drove the stock market boom and contributed to biased pricing. When prices in capital markets suddenly and strongly fell from their high levels in 2000, this move reflected some normalization of stock market prices in the New Economy segment. Is the New Economy over? An analysis of the perspectives of the digital economy requires a focus on the valid core of Information & Communication Technology. As regards the role of ICT, there is one key indicator for the strategic role of this sector for both productivity and growth. The number of software engineers in the US in 2000 was higher than the number of all conventional engineers which indicates that there is an enormous number of highly skilled people who build the digital economy. Indeed, ICT was the key driver of productivity and income growth in the US and part of Europe in the 1990s. High productivity growth in ICT production and productivity effects from the use of ICT have raised economic growth in most OECD countries and several

How to maximize your investment in IT training

Purpose – To highlight the IT skills shortage in Britain and examine ways of combating it.Design/methodology/approach – Presents the advantages of carrying out a training needs analysis, psychological and skill‐based tests to identify an employee's current ability and willingness to embrace the training programme, and the advantages that blended learning can offer over other training methods.Findings – Too many organizations rely on recruiting skilled IT people from outside, rather than cultivating the IT skills of their own employees. Highlights the advantages of the latter approach and suggests that blended learning can be a useful solution.Originality/value – Argues the case for IT training as an ongoing part of an organization's operations, rather than a panic reaction to an immediate skill shortage.

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Forging ahead: Zara Williamson is among nurses in Kent who have been piloting the community matron role as part of the local primary care trust (PCT) 'district nursing renaissance project'. The project has involved training up junior staff so that more senior nurses can concentrate on allocated groups of patients with long term conditions. Ms Williamson said: 'Patients now have continuous support, which was not there before.' It is anticipated that a reduction of up to 50 inpatient admissions per district nurse caseload will be achieved by July. Director of nursing and professional development at Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley PCT, Ami David said: 'We believe these highly skilled people have the potential to become the "community matrons" of the future'.

Accelerating Innovation at Hewlett-Packard

OVERVIEW:Accelerating the rate of innovation is a top priority for technology managers; understanding and managing common innovation enablers and barriers saves time and money. A review of multiple programs in Hewlett-Packard revealed that the top enablers of innovation are highly skilled people, a helping culture, management support, using checkpoints to provide focus, and interdisciplinary people working together. However, barriers are different across programs; consequently, managers should regularly interview teams to determine which barriers need to be addressed. And, barriers can be predicted on the basis of technology and market newness. For example, products with technologies that are new to the company face capability issues while products with new markets may experience market planning issues.

Una perspectiva de la selección de personal en las PYMES

As long as beings grow, they adopt a more critical consciousness of what they really want, need or it is for a number of purposed. Hence, their capability to choose stops being so basic to become more specialized and strict. The business environment is not at any extent so different since from the business growth to the external requirements, they will oblige the organizations to go through such process; adopting a variety of forms and supports to carry out one of the basic processes in the Human Resources Administration, which guarantees after some time the success is successfully performed, it is also reflect in the employee`s performance, as well as in the above mentioned business success.This work aims to show what the Mexican companies are based on when recruiting personnel. A survey was conduced to a sample pool of 150 located in Mexico City and the surrounding Metropolitan Area. The results are an important part of this work.About the Recruitment Process, it does not depend only on the company`s forms and supports but rather on the steps which must be followed to recruit the best candidate to an opening position. The latest point is a query in the survey, since in some cases; they do not know the logical series of steps when selecting the best candidate. Our hypothesis is, then, the following: the unawareness of the elemental theoretical process of Personnel Recruitment might lead the business to select the less skilled people for several positions and, as a result, this will directly influence the employee´s performance.

Canada and the Globalized Immigrant

As trade and investment become increasingly international and global in nature, there is growing pressure on Canada to keep up with globalization and to facilitate the international movement of skilled business people. Canada’s most recent and far-reaching immigration policy, the investor/entrepreneur program, is attracting entrepreneurs from countries such as Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. Canada had hoped that the new immigrants would provide capital, innovation, and jobs through high-technology firms and businesses. Yet studies show that rather than coinciding with provincial preference for manufacturing and technology businesses, recent entrepreneurs have followed ethnic business strategies resulting in coethnic and service-providing businesses. Fear of financial risk, bank loan refusals, and the familiarity factor all have contributed to entrepreneurial immigrants’ business patterns.

Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground

Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground

What skills crisis?

Thousands more young engineers are to be offered the chance to work in the UK. The Government wants to focus on the contribution foreign nationals can make to filling skills gaps in areas like engineering. Few dispute the need to encourage highly skilled people with specific experience to boost the economy. Less well publicised, however, was a parallel initiative that could see a big increase in the number of young people looking for jobs in engineering. There is a real demand in sectors such as research and development and financial services for maths, science and engineering specialists. We hope that this scheme will encourage overseas students to study in the UK and following graduation be a real asset in the workplace. But is there really a serious shortage of this sort of graduate, and what will be the impact of such a large number of people joining the ranks of UK nationals chasing jobs? These questions are discussed in this article.

University Relations: The HP Model

Hewlett-Packard benefited from one of the earliest examples of knowledge transfer in a strategic relationship, with the investment by Stanford University professor Frederick Terman in the work of former students Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett. Today HP University Relations (UR) works with university partners to create similar valuable synergy UR integrates HP higher education activities and links them with government and industrial partners within a framework known as the University Partnership Continuum. The goal is to engender world-leading knowledge transfer – in the form of both new ideas and highly skilled people – for the benefit of both HP and society at large.

Partners and Pathways in Education

This paper describes the educational relationships that have been established between three keyeducational institutions within the regional city of Whyalla in South Australia. Edward John Eyre High School, Spencer Institute of TAFE and the Whyalla Campus of the University of South Australia have formed a partnership to promote the educational pathways available in the area of Business Studies. The regional educational opportunities created will assist in retaining young people who wish to study in the business field as well as encourage graduates to remain within their local communities. This important initiative embraces the rationale ofsuccessful learning communities and aims to develop skilled professional business people who will become future leaders in business and enterprise and contribute to the economic and social success of regional South Australia.

Engine of change or adherence to trends? An inventory of views

The purpose of this article is to assess the interaction between higher education and societal development. The question addressed is whether higher education engineers societal change or adjusts to global requirements. The answer is both. However, the impact of higher education is not easy to measure. It depends on the interventions undertaken by the stakeholders: the university, government, private sector, and civil society. These interventions may have contradictory effects. Education based on students’ desires can create highly skilled people who may not be required by society. The societal requirements of government, the private sector, or civil society may conflict. These conflicting requirements particularly can become conspicuous when higher education institutions perform in a global network.

People and processes — The Key Elements to Information Security

With the near ubiquitous use of the Internet to connect suppliers, partners and customers, enterprises are looking to technology to protect their data. Companies often assume that technology such as firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs) and intrusion detection systems (IDS) will take care of their security problems. But in order for these to be effective, skilled people and clearly defined processes are also needed to safeguard information.

Squirrels and nuts: metadata and knowledge management

There is a paradox in practical knowledge management in which the need to have an environment in which knowledge is organized in a more efficient manner needs to be balanced against the problem of “information overload”. Two approaches to resolving this paradox comprise: the “big software” approach, involving the use of a sophisticated search engine; and the “traditional information” approach, where content is organized beforehand using highly skilled people to spend time indexing, abstracting and isolating critical pieces of information within the bulk of any information source. It is proposed that a more practical approach would be to use techniques based on metadata, XML (Extensible Markup Language), tagging, data models and relational databases, arguing that, above a certain size of genuinely useful internal knowledge assets, the metadata approach is an essential management tool. While search engines performed reasonably well with the older, smaller databases, the increasing size of these databases means that size and density have become critical variables in knowledge management. Details of metadata and related techniques are described as a means of solving some of the problems involved in organizing knowledge in very large databases.

Immigration Policy and New Zealand's Development into the 21st Century: Review and Speculation

This article reviews the impacts of changes in immigration policy since the 1980s on New Zealand's population, with particular reference to the labor market, and discusses recent initiatives in strengthening policies for New Zealand's development in the 21st century. The policy objectives of encouraging the immigration of highly skilled people and those with capital to invest in business development initially drew favorable response, especially from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. However, the actual experiences of migrants in the New Zealand labor market and business environment were much less positive. Immigrants from Asian countries were found to have high levels of unemployment. Another concern is the emigration of skilled people from New Zealand. The government has undertaken a review of immigration policies and is supporting a longitudinal study of immigrant experiences. The final section speculates on prospects for immigration and the labor force into the 21st century, bearing in mind the evolving immigration policy environment.