Search results

The purpose of this study is to assess the training needs on emotional intelligence (EI) of librarians serving in the university libraries of Pakistan.

A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from a randomly selected sample of Pakistani university librarians. A paired sample t-test was used to examine the significance of difference between the four indicators of EI. Further, descriptive statistics were used to assess the training needs on EI.

The difference between all indicators of EI was found to be significant. The results showed less than 50 per cent of deficit, more than 50 per cent of surplus and 20 per cent of job best fit in terms of EI of university librarians. Further, results illustrated that librarians require training to cover the skill deficiencies. Similarly, top-down allocation of tasks is required to produce more person-job fit and control surplus or over utilisation of the skills.

Findings of this study have several implications for university librarians, such as designing of training programs, incorporation of EI in the performance evaluation to investigate the causes of deficit and surplus in EI, etc.

This study is a first attempt that extended the scope of EI towards librarianship in Pakistan. The findings probably motivate university librarians to improve the current level of their EI.

By supplying the skilled workers needed, occupational training plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of a healthy economy. Although planners are not accountable for ensuring a perfect fit between training offerings and employment opportunities, they should anticipate shortages and surpluses of skilled workers. Decision makers can then take corrective action to expand, improve, curtail, or discontinue existing training or add new offerings. In order to discern skilled worker shortages/surpluses, the labour market demand must be determined. Workforce projection and forecasting approaches and labour market signalling approaches are used to make these determinations. The strengths and weaknesses of each approach must be considered when selecting the ones to use. Discusses a number of viable approaches and lists their strengths and weaknesses in tables to facilitate comparisons. Also includes supplemental instruments as examples and to provide guidance in determining workforce requirements. An appendix defines the terminology used.

This paper seeks to develop a framework for Indian labour reforms that lay emphasis on economic growth and social development by balancing growth needs of firms and socio‐economic imperatives of a developing nation. It proposes four management systems and details their interactional dynamics at three levels, namely, at the level of economic security, employment regulation and system flexibility.

This paper provides a literature review of current developments in India with respect to employment, and an analysis of existing labour relations frameworks for similar country contexts.

Labour relations in developing countries is characterised by recent shift to market driven external environment, economically vulnerable surplus labour, low skills, inflexible employment laws, politicised unions with low labour representation, and low corporate involvement in governance. There is a need for policy changes that incorporate economic stability for labour, employment regulation for organisational flexibility, union management for true representation and corporate contribution in labour security and governance.

While market driven, privatization policy regime, are being adopted as a strategy by developing economies to promote economic growth, the resultant need for constant innovation faced by the organisations demand a new policy system for effective labour regulation. Governments are unable to define an effective labour relations policy, constrained and discouraged by the difficulty in balancing the socio‐economic complexity of a developing country. The framework proposed in this paper is a multilevel model, which allows for more efficient and socially effective balance between needs of the firm and the labour.

This paper discusses the redevelopment of MSc Civil Engineering and Construction Management of a modern university in the Midlands of the UK in recent years, with the aim to offer flexible future learning opportunities for built environment professionals and address the sector's skill shortage concerns (Augar Review, 2019 and 2021; Department for Education (DfE), 2020 and 2021; Foresight Review, 2017).

The research method is insider action research and a case study approach. It involves interviews with external and internal stakeholders who contributed to this redevelopment and review of relevant documents related to the development.

The research finding showed that both the internal and external stakeholders welcome the proposed redevelopment of postgraduate courses in Civil Engineering and Construction Management. They found the course offers opportunities for civil engineering and construction professionals to further develop their skills and to address government initiatives on flexible and future learning. The online offer of the course is attractive to potential students. It has brought a substantial financial return to the university and created a new international presence of the course and the university.

It has been argued that an insider research approach may have an advantage in accessing information compared to other research methods. The case study approach may have limitations on generalisability.

This research can be used as an example for other universities that aim to enhance their existing offers to address government initiatives and enhance financial viability.

This paper is a pilot study examining a university's response to skill shortage and government proposal on flexible learning for adults through redevelopment and enhancement of the offer of the existing postgraduate courses.

Aims to consider scenarios created by work‐based learning (WBL) providers in the Tees Valley in the UK

The context of WBL is examined in relation to the notion of the skills gap. The method of scenario development is described

A key task of WBL is to raise the skills levels of young people. WBL providers who deliver over 80 per cent of work‐based, vocational learning across the UK. However, the future of such providers is becoming very uncertain and already their numbers are declining as funding cuts and quality inspections begin to bite. The context of WBL is examined in relation to the notion of the skills gap. Four scenarios are presented of the future of WBL with implications for the present.

Of major concern is the persistence of the low skills equilibrium in UK which will continue to affect the attitudes of learner and the decisions of employers. It becomes necessary to work with employers to consider how skill formation can be deepened.

This paper provides an insight into the views of WBL providers, caught between government requirements to tackle the UK skills problem and employers who define the skills required.

The purpose of this paper is to identify e‐skills shortages, gaps and mismatches in Europe, and the reasons behind these. In this light, the paper explores some key issues/aspects related to development of e‐Skills, while attempting to provide some benchmarking tools by which European countries may be able to access their current and future challenges regarding e‐Skills.

The paper begins with an overview of the problem highlighted in the literature and then moves on to what has already been done to solve the problem in European countries. Several policy options are proposed which could be implemented to deal with the problems of shortages, gaps and mismatches of e‐Skills.

The paper presents recent developments in the field of e‐Skills and highlights the various dimensions/aspects and issues of e‐Skills in the European perspective and prescribes innovative policy options to solve the problems of e‐Skills shortage/gap/mismatch in Europe.

The paper presents a discussion and provides some policy options to solve the problems of e‐Skills shortage/gap/mismatch in Europe, which will be helpful for policy‐related discussions and in suitable policy formulations.

The paper provides a detailed analysis of the issues related to e‐Skill by a comprehensive survey of literature and the existing framework. It also prescribes some alternative ways to resolve the problems of e‐Skills shortage/gap/mismatch in Europe.

Training improves workers’ competencies by eliminating or reducing mismatch between the levels of acquired and required skills. However, the question of who needs the training can be pertinently managed by training needs analysis (TNA). Thus, the purpose of this paper was to explore the training needs of Pakistani university librarians on collection management skills.

The study was conducted on a randomly selected sample of Pakistani university librarians. Using survey questionnaire method, a five-point Likert scale was utilized to measure the acquired and required levels of collection management skills (CMS). A paired sample t-test was used to ascertain the significance of difference between the acquired and required skills. Further, descriptive statistics were used to perform TNA.

Results of the paired sample t-test showed a significant difference among all indicators of CMS. Further, findings of TNA specified more than 50 per cent of deficit (over-utilization), less than 50 per cent of surplus (under-utilization) and 20 per cent of job best-fit in terms of CMS. Based on these results, training and top-down allocation of tasks are suggested to the higher authorities to manage over and under-utilization of CMS and to produce more job best-fits.

These findings are significant to design training programs on CMS, to revise courses on collection management, to evaluate performance of collection managers and understand the causes of under and over utilization of CMS. Moreover, findings inform librarians to eliminate mismatch in the levels of acquired and required CMS through training programs that may further enhance job best-fits.

This study aims to examine Taiwanese hospitality students’ self-reported professional competence in surplus food management and assess the usefulness of their university training in this area. Using the importance-performance analysis (IPA) method, it is possible to obtain a clearer understanding of the priority order of the items that require improvement and to identify which surplus food management competence items should be strengthened in the school curriculum and which items should be enhanced by the students.

This study used the questionnaire survey method. It evaluated seven dimensions covering 29 items related to surplus food management competencies of the kitchen staff. The evaluation was done using IPA to determine the relationship between professional competence (performance level) and courses provided (importance level). The factor coordinates were completed according to the means of personal qualifications and courses provided.

According to students’ self-assessment, the dimensions of “Personal moral attitude,” “Food handling attitude,” “Education and training attitude” and “Culinary knowledge” were located in the “Keep up the good work” quadrant, meaning that the students think that their surplus food management competence is relatively high and the courses provided are sufficient. Thus, these items have better performance at the present and they hope to maintain the status. However, “Menu analysis” and “Sanitation knowledge” were found to have low importance and low level of performance. Therefore, these two dimensions require attention in the course design and educational training.

The questionnaire responses were self-reported; this study assumed that all participants answered honestly. Future studies may include additional factors in the analysis, such as hospitality management, culinary skills, internship experience and work time that may affect the perceptions of students. Moreover, professional chefs could be surveyed to determine their professional competence and training needs.

The professional training that students receive determines, to a large extent, their performance in their jobs and the resulting stability of their employment. Therefore, improved competence gained through good-quality training can help students meet the demands of the hospitality industry.

Migration of skilled workers to other countries remains a highly contentious issue. Skill drain does not take place based on skill surplus and deficient equation. Skilled migrants can make their choice to migrate on their own with minimal control of the Government. This paper aims to argue that sending countries lose skill which cannot be offset or justified by the remittances inflow.

This paper is based on a research conducted on skill migration from the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In this study, skilled migrants are engineers, medical doctors, nurses and academics. The author interviewed 12 engineers (four from the Philippines; two from Malaysia; four from Singapore and two from Thailand); nine medical doctors (four from the Philippines; three from Singapore, one from Malaysia and one from Thailand); eight nurses (six from the Philippines and two from Thailand); and 14 academics (six from the Philippines; five from Singapore and three from Malaysia) who were working abroad.

Skill migration continues to grow because of the growing demand, wage differentials, glorifications of the contribution of remittances to development and failure of the origin countries to retain them. The question remains whether the respective sending country is producing more of them so that they can send after their own demand is met. This paper investigates whether the sending end can afford exporting such skills.

This is an important contribution to the scholarship.

The purpose of this APQC (American Productivity and Quality Center) research study is to understand which strategic workforce planning approaches are currently in use; whether these approaches are meeting business needs; and what workforce planning challenges organizations are facing today.

This study involved survey research with 236 valid respondents representing organizations from a wide range of industries, regions, workforce sizes and revenues. American productivity and quality center (APQC) identified 46 “best-in-class” workforce planners from among these organizations based on their consistent achievement of superior results from workforce planning.

Best-in-class workforce planners are doing more than closing skills gaps and reducing skills surpluses. They are optimizing talent. Leveraging technology, varied work arrangements and employee development, they assemble the optimal mix of talent to achieve business goals.

The findings provide insight into how best-in-class workforce planners build a strong foundation for effective workforce planning through the distinctive ways they use process, people, technology and time. Organizations that adopt the practices and approaches of best-in-class workforce planners can drive improvements in their own workforce planning process.