ANALYSING SKILL

INTRODUCTION

Skills are crucial for determining the status and pay of occupations and professions, it is also central to the structure of employment and influences gender divisions in society.  It is therefore, important to firstly analyse how we come to define skills before we come next week to analyse skill changes in the contemporary workplace.

CONCEPTUALISING SKILL

An analysis of skill remains one of the most contentious areas of debate in the social sciences.  The  study of skill integrates an examination of:-

  1. the person
  2. the job
  3. the setting

Cynthia Cockburn’s (1983) study of print workers distinguishes between the person, the job and the setting.  

  1. SKILL IN THE PERSON  

Refers to the individual and therefore involves a number of different attributes including, dexterity and knowledge.  This definition views skill as being accumulated over time through education, qualifications, training and experience. This approach is pursued mainly by economists and is typified in the human capital approach. In this definition, it is the individual who is responsible for increasing their human capital and therefore their own job opportunities

Criticisms

1) Inequalities  - There is an inherent assumption in this theory that everyone has the equal ability to increase their human capital

2) Changing context of work - The skill in the person may remain but it is the economic and technical context which determines the value of the skill.

3) Market value – Skill is only defined as relative to its market value.

  1. SKILL IN THE JOB

This approach sees skill in relation to the job itself therefore it focuses on task complexity and discretion.  This approach emphasises that one can have an objective understanding of skill based on the actual tasks undertaken.  Favoured approach of management theorists and IR theorists.

a) Skill as complexity - It assumes that you can have an objective measure of task complexity by studying the work itself - an approach used in job evaluation.  

b) Skill as discretion - This relates to the level of control a worker has over their work.  This emphasises the degree of decision making inherent in work.  In this way skill can be defined in relation to the amount of rules workers are expected to follow.  The more judgement a worker has to exercise then the more skilled a person is.

Criticisms

1) Difficulty in evaluation - it is very difficult for observers to evaluate task complexity in work they are unfamiliar with.  

2) Ignores tacit and social skills - It is sometimes difficult to identify the importance of understanding ‘tacit skills’.  That is those skills which we may acquire in the process of doing jobs which we internalise and take for granted.  These skills are embedded into all jobs but tacit skills normally are not formally recognised.

3) Ignores interdependency – most jobs in advanced industrialised society are based on interdependence, the emphasis on discretion may be unrealistic and ignores modern ways of working.  

4) Discretion is also a problematic concept to link with skill levels.  Grint (1998: 181) comments on how post and milk delivery workers have high levels of discretion and low levels of supervision but does that make them skilled workers?  Similarly, the amount of rules governing work is also problematic – for example pilots have to observe more rules than cleaners – Does that make cleaners more skilled?

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The discussions on skill as discretion and complexity and skill in the person believe that skills can be objectively analysed.  However, the limitations of this approach is that it ignores the ways in which skills are socially and politically constructed.  Therefore, it is important to also take into account skill in the setting.

  1. SKILL IN THE SETTING  

This concentrates on how skill becomes defined in a particular workplace over time by different interest groups.  This is the most common approach amongst sociologists.  Central to this is an understanding of ‘social closure’ Weber ...

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