Working at home: statistical evidence for seven key hypotheses

It is frequently suggested that working at home will be the future of work for many people in the UK and that trends in this direction are already well underway. This paper examines these claims by analysing data from the Labour Force Survey which has, at various times, asked questions about the location of work. Seven key hypotheses are identified, including issues surrounding the extent and growth of working at home, reliance on information and communication technology,prevalence of low pay, average pay rates, gender issues, ethnic minority participation and household composition. The results paint a variegated and complex picture which suggests that those who work at home do not comprise a homogeneous group.The paper in particular highlights differences between non-manual and manual workers, and those who work mainly, partially and sometimes at home

'Training floors' and 'training ceilings': metonyms for understanding training trends

This article outlines a conceptual framework for mapping and understanding training trends. It uses the metonyms of floors and ceilings to distinguish between different types of training configurations. The argument is made that the ups and downs of employer reports of training activity are a crude basis on which to make judgements about the resilience or otherwise of training to the economic cycle. The article, therefore, suggests and demonstrates with qualitative evidence that using the metonyms of ‘floors and ceilings’ provides a more nuanced understanding of the multiple pathways that lead employers to increase, decrease or maintain training activity during an economic recession

“I am a genuine person”: sales training and the limits of moulding instrumentality

Sales work is a key feature of the contemporary service economy which has prompted considerable academic debate. This has centred on the processes of standardization exemplified by sales routines and scripts. It is frequently suggested that these management devices are unproblematically embraced by workers who share a mutual interest with management in controlling customer behaviour and masking the contradictions of simultaneously displaying empathy while ‘closing the deal’. In these accounts, sales workers are denied agency. This paper questions this assumption by presenting empirical evidence from a case study of sales advisors in a large chain of private fitness clubs whose job is to sell annual memberships. The research involved eight interviews with trainers and managers at head office. We were also able to tape record and participate in a five day training course that all newly appointed sales advisors have to attend. We carried out interviews with all eight trainees a couple of months after the end of the course. This allowed us to follow the path of newly appointed sales advisors by hearing, seeing and experiencing the training they receive, and then gathering data on the extent to which the training is followed on the ground. The data show that although the training course placed strong emphasis on routines designed to control customers and maximize the commission received by sales advisors, once back on ‘home’ territory advisors often chose to approach customers with less instrumentality. This contrast is explained by reference to the advisors’ past dispositions and experiences, and to the specific local conditions in which sales take place

Training in the public sector in a period of austerity: the case of the UK

This article examines what has happened to training in public sector organisations in the UK in a period of austerity. It draws on individual-level data collected over the period 2000–2012 and establishment-level data collected from employer surveys carried out between 2005 and 2012. To understand these data further, 75 qualitative interviews with public sector employers were carried out between mid-2010 and early 2012. This article finds that while training incidence remained relatively high in the public sector, establishment-level control over planning and funding fell faster than in the private sector. Nevertheless, the public sector ethos of serving the community along with the tradition of the public sector as a ‘good employer’ meant that the training system within public sector organisations remained largely intact, even when the availability or frequency of some courses was reduced. The result was that limited training funds were made to go further by reducing the frequency of courses, prioritising courses immediately relevant to front-line services, tightening the application of eligibility criteria among potential trainees and economising on training delivery – summed up by one respondent as ‘training smarter’

Worlds within worlds: the relationship between context and pedagogy in the workplace.

This paper explores the different ways in which people engage in teaching and learning in the workplace. There is now much more awareness of the symbiotic relationship between workplace learning, the organisation of work, level of employee involvement, and organisational performance, and the broader economic, regulatory, and social context, within which organisations have to operate. The paper argues that we have to identify and take serious account of the contextual factors (external and internal) which affect all organisations as these are central to developing our understanding of the nature of pedagogical practice within any workplace setting. By closely examining the nature and impact of these contextual factors, we can gain greater insight into the mystery of why organisations adopt different practices and why they create such different learning environments. The paper draws on our tentative initial findings from the Learning as Work project and includes vignettes from both the public and private sectors to highlight the issues raised

Transforming knowledge and skills: reconfiguring the productive system of a local authority

This paper draws on the analytical framework offered by the concept of ‘productive systems’ which shifts attention away from examining sites of work as self-standing units to one which places them in a configuration of relationships. The concept is used in this paper to track how the introduction of a call centre can reconfigure knowledge and skills from one part of the system to another. The empirical evidence for the paper draws from a case study of a call centre which was set up as the primary access point to services provided by a local authority in the Midlands. The paper argues that the productive system perspective highlights the ways in which this call centre facilitated the rationalization of organizational procedures and practices in its back offices, while simultaneously promoting a degree of personalized service

“I am a genuine person”: sales training and the limits of moulding instrumentality

Sales work is a key feature of the contemporary service economy which has prompted considerable academic debate. This has centred on the processes of standardization exemplified by sales routines and scripts. It is frequently suggested that these management devices are unproblematically embraced by workers who share a mutual interest with management in controlling customer behaviour and masking the contradictions of simultaneously displaying empathy while ‘closing the deal’. In these accounts, sales workers are denied agency. This paper questions this assumption by presenting empirical evidence from a case study of sales advisors in a large chain of private fitness clubs whose job is to sell annual memberships. The research involved eight interviews with trainers and managers at head office. We were also able to tape record and participate in a five day training course that all newly appointed sales advisors have to attend. We carried out interviews with all eight trainees a couple of months after the end of the course. This allowed us to follow the path of newly appointed sales advisors by hearing, seeing and experiencing the training they receive, and then gathering data on the extent to which the training is followed on the ground. The data show that although the training course placed strong emphasis on routines designed to control customers and maximize the commission received by sales advisors, once back on ‘home’ territory advisors often chose to approach customers with less instrumentality. This contrast is explained by reference to the advisors’ past dispositions and experiences, and to the specific local conditions in which sales take place