Employability

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Employability (including employability or employability ) is the ability to participate in working and professional life. Individual employability is the result of the agreement or difference between the requirements of the world of work on the one hand and personal, professional, social and methodological skills as well as individual health and ability to work on the other. The weighting of the factors influencing employability is controversial.

description

There is no clear definition of employability. The majority of current concepts are based on the ability of the individual to create their own employability. The ability to maintain employability is becoming increasingly important in view of the rapid change in framework conditions and demand on the labor market. Another decisive factor is demographic change , which is leading to a change in the composition of the age structure in the population and workforce.

Processes of changing employability affect personal characteristics such as attitudes, competencies and characteristics. Changes in the framework conditions on the labor market and in companies support and influence this process. The concept of employability is gaining practical importance in the field of employment policy and concepts of personnel development: for example, as part of the Lisbon Strategy of the European Union in 2000, it was agreed to make the promotion of employability part of the European employment strategy .

Concepts for promoting individual employability put questions of competencies and employability in the foreground. The terms of social and methodological competences, which are often summarized under “general competencies” or “ key qualifications ”, are rather unspecific and not very differentiated. For action and development, a specification (making measurable, operationalization ) is necessary. There are some lists of the transferable skills relevant to employment. Empirical studies have identified the following requirements in companies that can influence individual employability:

The list of generic competences represents an idealized profile (basic conditions for work ability are also required). It would be presumptuous to believe that a person could possess or develop all of the above-mentioned competencies in the best possible way. To get a workable, realistic picture of employability, a different perspective is needed. This shows the basic philosophy of the employability concept, which is centered on the individual : "Recognize and understand changes in the requirements" - the regular examination of the conformity of one's own skills, attitudes and characteristics with the requirements of the desired professional environment forms a continuous development process.

It is not uncommon for the requirement profile of employability to cause astonishment, since the existence of interdisciplinary skills is taken for granted. However, empirical studies paint the opposite picture. It is by no means a given that employees have these key qualifications. The employability- related qualifications are considered necessary and desirable, but the actual characteristics show considerable deficits. A clear difference is visible between the desire and the actual expression of the employability-relevant competencies. Only the technical competence is an exception.

Possible explanations for the apparently inadequate expression could be, among other things, the inadequate importance that these factors have so far been given in the education system , in socialization and in societal appreciation compared to specialist knowledge . Other factors are sometimes cited in the literature, e.g. B. Consequences of the social security system on attitudes and values ​​in society and in the individual (colloquial “fully comprehensive mentality”). This is the result of studies at the Institute for Employment and Employability at the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences.

Ergonomic perspective

From an ergonomic perspective, ability can be understood as "... the internal potential (intrinsic or training and experience-oriented) to carry out an action or to achieve a physical or mental work result" (Luczak / Frenz 2008, p. 25).

Maintaining and promoting employability is a task that employers, the state and the individual must equally take on. For individuals, securing their employability is an unrelenting process that opens up new perspectives not only with an employer and in a professional field, but also on the entire labor market. The design of the individual professional situation is not a one-off task, but is constantly changing over the course of life. Above all through the integration of Germany into European politics, the term “employability” has established itself in German politics and, against the background of the corresponding international discourse, is an integral part of the labor market and employment policy discourse in Germany.

Social science conceptual content

Employability from an individual perspective has the following meanings:

  1. Increase in career opportunities on the internal and external job market,
  2. continuous discussion and adaptation of competencies and qualifications,
  3. Increase in self-confidence and personal responsibility and
  4. Equal partnership relationship with the employer (cf. Blancke / Roth / Schmidt 2000, p. 9).

See also

literature

  • Andrä Wolter : Studies and career in transition: From academic personality development to employability? In: Marc Fabian Buck, Marcel Kabaum (ed.): Ideas and Realities of Universities. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-631-62381-7 , pp. 169–198.
  • Alice Galon: Employability. In-company training between employability and limited resources. VDM, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-8364-0694-9 .
  • S. Blancke, Ch. Roth, J. Schmid: Employability as a challenge for politics, business and the individual: Concept and literature study. University of Tübingen, 2000.
  • Dietmar Krafft, Claudia Wiepcke: Employability. In: Goethe Institut (Ed.): Market Lexicon. Supplement to the magazine Markt, No. 35/2005.
  • Katrin Kraus: From job to employability? On the theory of a pedagogy of acquisition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 978-3-531-14840-3 .
  • H. Luczak, M. Frenz: Competence - acquisition, maintenance, expansion. In: H. Kowalski: Strengthening the personal health competence in the company - Up to 67 fit in the job. Harrfeld, Essen 2008, p. 25.
  • Hans-Uwe Otto, Klaus Schneider: From Employability Towards Capability. Inter-Actions, Luxembourg 2009, ISBN 978-2-9599733-6-9 .
  • Bernd Kriegesmann, Markus Kottmann, Lars Masurek, Ursula Nowak: Competence for sustainable employability. Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Dortmund / Berlin / Dresden 2005, ISBN 3-86509-269-1 .
  • Michael Niehaus: Promotion of employability - requirements for politics, companies and employees. In: Society for Work Science (Ed.): Designing sustainable work systems. GfA Press, Dortmund 2012, pp. 539-543.
  • Jutta Rump, Thomas Sattelberger , Heinz Fischer: Employability Management. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-8349-0118-0 .
  • Claudia Wiepcke, Ewald Mittelstädt: Employability as a future strategy for social security. In: Günther Seeber (Ed.): The future of social security - challenges for economic education. Bergisch Gladbach 2006, pp. 169-185.
  • Claudia Wiepcke: Employability in the Bologna Process: An Area of ​​Tension between Society, Businesses and Students . In: International Journal of Learning. 16, New York 2009.
  • Annotated literature database on employability

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ European employment strategy. ec.europa.eu, accessed on June 16, 2012 .