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The purpose of this paper is to examine selected findings of the 2006 CAVAL Training Needs Survey across Australia, New Zealand and Asia and to assess their implications for academic libraries in the context of generational change.

This paper compares 2006 Training Needs Survey data with previous survey data (2004 and 2005) and uses the findings to inform a range of simple strategies to assist academic libraries recruit and retain talented staff.

The data appears to confirm studies conducted in the US and Canada that show Generation X and Y learning styles are typically motivated by a desire to enhance professional skills and thus marketability to future employers. For many Generation X and Y staff working across a range of professions, access to professional development has become an important component of their overall remuneration package. It also figures highly in any decision to join or remain with an organisation. This paper concludes that a better understanding of generational change and commitment to professional development are critical to the recruitment and retention efforts of future academic libraries.

This paper draws upon survey data not previously available for research.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the extent of “over‐qualification” (i.e. holding a qualification which is above that required to gain entry to the job being done) and “skills under‐utilisation” (i.e. being in a job which does not make use of the knowledge and skills possessed) in the United Kingdom and to examine whether these conditions are correlated with age.

The paper makes use of the 2006 Skills Survey. Cross tabulations of both conditions with age are produced and binomial probit estimates of both conditions are reported.

It is estimated that 38 per cent are over qualified; 15 per cent are in jobs which do not make use of the knowledge and skills they possess; and age is correlated with the probability of being over qualified but not with the condition of under‐utilising the knowledge and skills possessed.

Skills policy in the United Kingdom focuses almost exclusively upon increasing the supply of more highly qualified individuals. Given the extent of over‐qualification and skills under‐utilisation demonstrated in the paper, more effort should be made by policy makers to design and implement policies which increase the demand for highly skilled labour.

The paper answers three questions: How prevalent are qualification mismatches? How prevalent are skills mismatches? To what extent are the two conditions of being over‐qualified and being in a job which does not offer scope to make use of the knowledge and skills possessed correlated with age?

The paper aims to examine worker job attribute preferences, by which is meant the extent to which individuals desire a variety of specific qualities and outcomes from their paid work. It seeks to examine how these preferences are ranked and to identify their principal correlates.

The study makes use of a quantitative methodology, notably the application of an ordered probit model to analyse a data set which has its origins in the 2006 Skills Survey.

“Work you like doing”; a “secure job”; “friendly people to work with”; and “opportunities to use your abilities” are the four highest ranked job attribute preferences. Worker job attribute preferences vary with the characteristics of the worker, including gender, domestic circumstances, highest qualification held and occupation.

The study reports “correlations” and does not imply “causation”. The findings are for the year 2006. On the assumption that job attribute preferences are constrained by the employment opportunities available, the findings may change with the economic cycle, in a manner comparable to recent research findings about some facets of job satisfaction.

This is the first detailed statistical examination of this subset of questions in the survey in question.

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically manager and employee views on employees’ skills utilisation in organisations in Scotland.

Questionnaires to managers and employees, plus three case studies comprising manager interviews and employee focus groups.

Highly significant differences are found between manager and employee views on: the match of employee skills to their current jobs; the extent of utilisation of employees’ skills; and opportunities for promotion. The main difference in views is on the match of employee skills to their current jobs, with employees opining more than managers that employees’ skills exceed the requirements of their job. Also, for managers and employees alike, the meaning of skills utilisation is obscure despite the language of skills being widely used in organisations.

The scale of the empirical research is possibly limited. There is potential for manager and employee bias. A case study of a private sector organisation is not included.

It is apparent that there is potential to increase employees’ skills utilisation in organisations in Scotland. Managers are challenged with better utilising the skills within their workforces by using these skills to drive improvements in work processes and practices.

Previous commentary and research on skills utilisation mainly centres on policy and employer standpoints. This paper focuses on manager and employee viewpoints on employees’ skills utilisation.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: who commits? And who engages? For example, does an individual’s likelihood of committing/engaging vary with his/her age; or with the level of his/her qualifications; or with his/her occupation? Of what consequences are the characteristics of the workplace at which the individual is employed?

The investigation uses the Skills and Employment Surveys Series Data set to construct the indicators of commitment and engagement. Using an ordered-logit model and an OLS model, these indicators are analysed to identify their covariates.

Who commits and who engages depends upon the indicator used to measure the attitude/behaviour in question. Changing these indicators sometimes means that an individual no longer commits/engages. Further, even for the same indicator of commitment/engagement, who commits/engages varies across individuals.

The indicators of commitment and engagement examined are derived from the responses in a pre-existing data set which has its origins in survey instruments which had quite comprehensive terms of reference. Owning to the cross-sectional nature of this data set and the statistical methodology applied, the statistical results are correlations between some possible indicators of commitment and engagement and some variables which denote the personal characteristics of individuals and the characteristics of the organisations with which they are employed. Causation cannot be inferred from these correlations.

Commitment and engagement are central to many models of the management of human resources. However, the likelihood that an individual commits and/or engages differs across the workforce has rarely been examined. This paper addresses this research lacuna using a data set which is rich in detail about an individual’s personal characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the employee well-being from the perspectives of: first, individuals who have personal characteristics stereotypically associated with employment at the margins of the labour market and second, of individuals employed in jobs stereotypically associated with jobs at the margins of the labour market.

A set of OLS regressions is used to analyse a data set which has its origins in the Skills and Employment Surveys Series Data Set.

The expectation was that, for the individuals identified, their well-being as measured by a series of indicators would be relatively low. This proved to be not always the case. To illustrate: individuals without qualifications (relative to those who possess qualifications) reported positive experiences of well-being; and individuals in jobs which took little time to master (relative to those in jobs which took time to learn) also reported positive experiences of well-being.

The subjective indicators of employee well-being available from the data set offer only a partial psychological perspective of the concept.

Although the subject of employee well-being is well-researched, this paper focusses upon an increasingly prevalent group of workers within the labour market, often described as “disadvantaged” (or, using Standing’s terminology, the “precariat”). Furthermore, it reports some outcomes which do not conform to the conventional wisdom.

The literature on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) shows them to be major innovators; this is confirmed with recent data, which the authors use to examine the various types of innovation that KIBS undertake. The implications for employment and work in highly innovative industries are important topics for analysis, not least because we are in a period where dramatic claims are being made as to the implications of new technologies for professional occupations. Thus, this paper aims to address major debates and conclusions concerning innovation patterns in KIBS and the evolving structures of professional and other work in these industries.

This essay combines literature review with presentation and discussion of statistics that throw light on the patterns of innovation that characterise KIBS. The authors also consider data that concern trends in the organisation of work in these industries; while the focus is mainly on KIBS firms, they also pay some attention to KIBS-like work in other sectors. Even though KIBS are distinctive industries in modern economies, these analyses can be related to more general studies of, and forecasts about, changes in work organisation.

The authors show that innovation patterns and employment structures vary substantially across different types of KIBS, with the distinction between technological, professional and creative KIBS proving to be useful for capturing these differences. The authors are also able to demonstrate important long- and medium-term trends in the structure and activities of the KIBS industries. In particular, data clearly demonstrate the increasing share of professional as against associate and clerical workers in most KIBS. Evidence also suggests that polarisation trends across the economy are mirrored, and in some cases amplified, in KIBS. The future prospects for employment in KIBS, and for professional work in particular, are seen to involve multiple factors, which together may bring about substantial change.

The study involves literature review and industry-level statistical analysis. Future work would benefit from firm-level analysis and validation and explication of results via consultation with practitioners and users of KIBS. Some puzzling variations across countries and sectors will need to be explored with national and sectoral experts.

Research into KIBS activities, and their future, should make more use of the extensive statistics on employment and other structural features of the industries that have become available in recent years. KIBS firms and practitioners will need to take account of the forces for change that are liable to restructure their activities.

The literature on KIBS has been concentrated on a rather narrow range of issues, while analysis of the current contributions and future development of the industries requires attention to a wider range of topics. This paper suggests how these topics may be investigated and their implications explored and presents results of enquiries along these lines.

Motivated by the concept of procedural utility, which emphasises the salience of process-related job aspects, the purpose of this paper is to addresses three questions: first, “is job satisfaction different for the self-employed with no employees and the self-employed with employees?”; second, “is job satisfaction different for managers employed in smaller establishments and managers employed in larger establishments?”; and third, for both the self-employed and those in waged work, is job satisfaction overall correlated with satisfaction with ten identified job aspects’?

A data set which has its origins in the (UK) 2006 Skills survey is examined, making use of ordinal logit estimations.

There are differences in job satisfaction between the self-employed with no employees and those with employees, with the latter tending to be more likely to be satisfied. There are differences in job satisfaction between managers in smaller establishment and managers in larger establishments, but not for the three process-related job aspects associated with procedural utility. For the self-employed, there is a predominantly positive and sometimes statistically significant correlation between an individual's job satisfaction overall and satisfaction with the ten job aspects. For the waged worker, there is a uniformly positive and predominantly statistically significant correlation between an individual's job satisfaction overall and satisfaction with the ten job aspects.

The self-employed and those in waged work cannot be assumed to constitute homogeneous groups. Consequently, when future research seeks to examine the manner in which job satisfaction may differ across employment status groups, these groups cannot be treated as mere dichotomous dummy variables.

This is an empirically based reappraisal of hypotheses associated with procedural utility which focuses upon within group differences for two sub-populations in the data set, the self-employed and waged workers.

Research has long shown that employees working for non-profit organisations report a higher level of job satisfaction than workers in other sectors. This chapter investigates trends in job satisfaction using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (1992–2008/2009), through models which contain detailed information on individual, job and organisational characteristics. We use fixed-effects ordered-logit models to investigate job satisfaction taking account of our panel structure and the nature of the job satisfaction dependent variable. The results suggest an important, non-profit premium in job satisfaction which, contradicting the apparent bivariate evidence, is not changing over time (in appropriate models) – the warm glow of higher job satisfaction remains.

The aim of this paper is to describe a successful strategy for a HE partnership engaging with businesses in a socially deprived area.

The approach to this project and report is one of a case study, the paper tells a whole story from inception to delivery and reports on the lessons learned in delivering in a socially deprived region. Success for the project has been based on partners’ existing frameworks allowing accredited outcomes at CQFW levels 4 and 5 which provides a curriculum offer tailored to sector priorities and provides progression opportunities within the broader HE framework.

The project has demonstrated the point that employer responsiveness is fundamental to success. To build upon the experiences of the project team, a work‐based learning project forum has been set up between similar projects within both institutions, to disseminate information and minimise the duplication of employer engagement activities. Based on previous experience, there is little direct mailing to companies as this has activity has not provided value for money in terms of student recruitment and awareness raising. The work of the Employer Engagement Training Officers in identifying demand for learning amongst employers and employees in the region has been critical in developing appropriate provision which employees will choose to engage with. Changes have been made in the philosophy of recruiting tutors to ensure the most experienced staff are engaged. The planning of delivery takes place even earlier to combat associated delays in validation, procurement and marketing.

Distinctive features of the project are twofold. First, the majority of learning takes place through active and reflective engagement within places of work. Second, cognisant of both the geography and economic demography of the region, employers and employees take advantage of work‐based learning opportunities in cluster groups and hence the curriculum offer reaches out across both sectors and workforce subgroups.