Tuesday 17 January 2012

Recognition of knowledge and skills at work – in the interest of the employer

an article by Leif Berglund (Luleå University of Technology) and Per Andersson (Linköping University) published in Journal of Workplace Learning Volume 24 Issue 2 (2012)

Abstract

Purpose
Workplace learning takes place in many settings and in different ways, resulting in knowledge and skills of different kinds. The recognition processes in the workplace is however often implicit and seldom discussed in terms of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). The aim of this article is to exemplify and analyse the employers' logics in assessing knowledge and skills of employees. Further we discuss how knowledge and skills get recognition in the work place and what the consequences of such recognition processes might be.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based upon a study in two companies and two municipalities, where twenty-one interviews have been made with human resource managers, team leaders and Labour Union representatives. The research concerned in what ways these organisations visualised and recognised skills among their employees, how the logics of these actions could be understood and in what ways this promotes the interests of the employees.
Findings
The findings show that both companies and municipalities have their own ways of assessing knowledge and skills, mostly out of a production logic of what is needed and used at the workplace. However, certain skills are also kept in silence and made "unvisualised" for the employee. This employer-controlled recognition logic is important to understand when RPL models are brought to the workplace in order to obtain win-win situations for both employers and employees.
Practical implications
It seems important to identify already existing system for assessment of knowledge/skills at the workplace when bringing RPL processes to the workplace.
Originality/value
The approach was to understand assessment processes in these companies and municipalities from an RPL perspective, not widely covered before.


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