How to manage sustainable competences during the whole professional career ?

Sustainable competences for sustainable careers ?

Jean-Marie DUJARDIN HEC-Management School,University of Liège,

Belgium

Question : Why and how can some individual/workers manage and develop their competences lifelong ? Why do other not ? What kind of impact on employability?

CONTEXT

• End of a linear and sedentary career (one employer for the whole career) in EU (?)

• EU: skills portfolio, Europass, Lifelong learning, EQF, learning outcomes, etc.

WHAT IS THERE IN YOUR BACKPACK OF COMPETENCES ?

Combination of• Knowings• Know how• Attitudes (Le Boterf,

1997 & 2008, Tardif, 2006)

Professional Situations(work context)

Competences

Mobilisation of resources

•Knowings•Know how•Attitudes

WHAT IS THERE IN YOUR BACKPACK OF COMPETENCES ?

• learnings in professional life and in citizen life

• Formal, non-formal,informal learnings

• Boundaryless careers : knowing how, knowing whom, knowing why (Cadin, 2003)

THE CONCEPTS OF THE RESEARCH

• Transferables competences : competences that have been acquired in a context - professional or citizen -, and that can be replicated in another context  

Elements: context, de-contextualisation then

re-contextualisation, reflexivity• Sustainable competences : contact with the context,

the resources, the professional or citizen community• Professional careers, employability

TRANSFER OF COMPETENCES : DIFFERENT TYPES

• For the same person : from education/training to  professional context (KirkPatrick Model)

• For the same person : from a professional (or citizen) context to another professional (or citizen) context

• From one person (group/generation) to another person (group/generation)

• From one organization to another organization

What is a professional career ?

• Nowadays conception• Objective and subjective career• Boundaryless careers, protean careers• From career management to professional

project: a vision, objectives, steps, resources

What is employability?

• Definition• Responsibility :

• Internal and external• Objective and subjective

Individual

Employer Public authorities

METHOD

• Focus on the individual, not on the organisation

• Seven case studies during the whole professional life

• Interviews and content analysis :

- 75 workers : 25 «  very mobiles » (« employability champions »)

50 « other » workers

- 25 career/employment/training advisors

Going out

Entering

Training

E-secretaries

SMEBig Firm

Validation University

Outplacement Units

After professional life

Time

VERY MOBILES WORKERS (« EMPLOYABILITY CHAMPIONS »)

• Numerous employers, different jobs, different work places (boundaryless careers, « adventurers of professional life »)

• manage their competences in a more accurate way (personal skills assessment, personal SWOT analysis, personal objectives, positioning on the labour market, etc.)

• Description of their resources and bringing them together in the concept of « metacompetence »

EMPLOYABILITY METACOMPETENCE• Definition :employability metacompetence is the

consciousness that an individual has about his own competences and the ability he has to control, manage and develop those competences, particularly in relation

with the labour market.• Associated competences : managing information (on the

labour market, future jobs, etc.), assessing (ones’ skills, the risk of a new job, etc.) and deciding (accepting a new job, going back at university to study, etc.).

EMPLOYABILITY METACOMPETENCE

• Critical moments or transitions in professional life : looking for a first/new career orientation, for an opportunity of mobility in present company, looking for a new job, facing the loss of a job due to economic crisis, asking for a skills assessment and defining a professional project, undertaking studies at university as an adult, defining an “after career” project, etc.

THE RESOURCES OF METACOMPETENCE

• knowledge : tools (SWOT analysis, SMART objectives, etc.) and information (on the labour market, new jobs, type of contracts, financial incentives for training programmes, etc.)

• know how : reflexivity and metacognition, verbalization, connection in time and space (ability to find a common link in the professional career-path), capacity of maintaining the skills and watching the evolutions on the labour market, knowing why (global sense of professional career)

• attitudes : knowing oneself, trust in personal resources, taking emotional distance, curiousity and mind opening, opening to change in professional life

METACOMPETENCE IN EDUCATION, TRAINING AND AT WORK

• In education: reflexivity, métacognition, post hoc learning (Gordon & Findley, 2011; Tardif, 2012)

• In lifelong learning: training to transfer (Le Boterf, 2008)

• At work : various tools and practices (Dalkir, 2010) (Simonet et al., 2008) : collaborative tools, databases and shared folders, communities of practice, forums for sharing experiments, "debriefing" meetings, etc..

METACOMPETENCE : SOME CONCLUSIONS

• A more autonomous worker : the individual is the « owner » of his competences and of his career-path

• Securing transitions in a professional career (with the support of an advisor)

• The individual’s competence portfolio : need for recognition, portability and traceability

• Flexicurity at European level : yes, but first internal security

• Learning lifelong is a good way to remain employable and to keep in movement

SOME CONCRETE RESOURCES IN THE PROFESSIONAL LIFE

• Validation of prior learning• Career vouchers• Dual system in Lifelong learning• Mid-career interview• Late career and « after professional life » project• Individual career/training account• Lifelong orientation (i.e. Cité des Métiers)

Bedankt voor uw aandacht !