Are we getting anywhere?

My EU-project involvement brings me into contact with a lot of information about vocational education and training, the lack of qualified employees, youth unemployment, skilled-worker shortages, business-education interfaces, employability, and everything and anything that is related to topics such as these.

When seen in one light, it's all very depressing: more and more young people can't find work, businesses (especially major, global corporations) complain about everything they can't find but claim they need as far as workers are concerned, governments are broke and can't pay for education or training and there is no money for fundamental, employment-creating investments either, and skilled, older workers are being forced out of the labor market, because, well, they simply cost too much. And the outlook in all these areas is anything but rosy, too.

I try to fight the depression, of course, and sometimes I'm more successful than others. One of the things that often keeps me from being successful is the amount of nonsense that you have to put up with if you bring up what appear to me to be ready solutions to the problem.

For example, it is a well-known and better-documented fact that corporate profits are once again at an all-time high. It is also well-known and documented that wages most places have either stagnated or have declined for the past few decades. The salaries and bonuses of top managers has exploded, forcing everyone to rethink executive compensation, so why not simply spread the work we have around a bit more? What is so bad about breaking the cycle of workaholicism and making the standard work week, say, only 25 or 30 hours? Take most jobs and simply cut them in half. Instead of bludgeoning one person to do the work of two or three, actually have two or three do the work.

Yes, yes, yes, I hear all you über-capitalists squealing, but it would cost a lot less than you think. Is it really a set-back of the CEO only makes 100 times the earnings of the average employee? Is it really the end of financial-market confidence if corporate profits only grew by 20% instead of 40%? And if everybody is doing it, would we notice any relevant difference in the relative standing of the "most profitable", or the "best run" corporations out there? I don't think so, and it has two additional, knock-on effects that are very much worth thinking about: increased tax revenues for government, and increased consumption, which in turn would benefit companies, and on and on and on.

Personally, I think this would be a huge leap forward, for as things are now, we're going nowhere fast. If you want things to be different, you have to start thinking differently. It's that simple.

On the road again

I just got back home again. I had to travel to Turin for two-and-a-half days for an EU project meeting. Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for this.

Some of my colleagues, and everyone who does travel much think I'm mostly on vacation. I'm not. Anyone who does travel regularly knows what a hassle it is anymore: worrying about missing train, plane and bus connections; those incessent, silly, ineffective security checks conducted by unmotivated individuals who are more than overworked and underpaid; the unexpected surprises at the hotel, including what's for breakfast (which can vary considerably from country to country ... Italy tends toward sweet); very often eating alone, and the mere living out of a suitcase, well, it's not precisely my idea of fun.

As usual, it was get into town in time for a late dinner; meetings all day, regardless of the weather; the whole project team gets together for dinner; and meetings the next day and out to catch the bus to the airport. Sightseeing: none. Free time: none. Simply enjoying the ambience of a foreign city: none. Getting some insight into the local customs and culture: none. My question is, what is so vacation-like about that? Oh, right, I wasn't in the office.

With smartphone and internet access everywhere, I'm also expected -- whenever -- to check my work mail and return calls and well, do more or less what I would do if I were in the office. Too often, though, this takes place after normal working hours. After all, if I'm in a meeting, I simply find it impolite to be taking other calls and working my mails when I'm supposed to be paying attention, contributing, and ... you all know the drill.

So, my question is: what's so great about work in the modern world? And, also, why, if computers are supposed to be such productivity enhancers and labor-savers why is it that I find myself simply working more and enjoying it less?

The answers are actually quite obvious: computers are neither productivity enhancers nor are they labor savers; ubiquitous internet and mobile phone access are neither either. All these "conveniences", these "technological advances", these "innovative work practices" are, in the end, are ways to keep me chained to my work for longer hours. Productivity overall might have increased, but in many cases, I'm sure that productivity pro hour has declined.

Yes, I was on the road again, but I'm feeling a lot more like roadkill than the happy traveler.

Collusion or conspiracy

Employability is actually just the tip of an unintended iceberg. When we start worrying too much about whether our graduates can get jobs, we miss the point of education. Instead, by looking almost exclusively at the needs of industry (however you may define that) we naturally start asking what it is that this industry really wants as far as qualified workers. It's a reasonable, but dangerous question.

Quality has long been defined as the fulfilling of requirements; high quality the fulfilling of expectations as well. By stressing the need to know industry's needs, companies start getting involved -- deeply involved -- in schools. They start exercising influence on the schooling process and consequently -- and perhaps inadvertently (I wouldn't want to accuse anyone unjustly) -- they drive education out of the schools. There is simply no room left for it. Two questions immediately arise: do they know what they want? And, what are they willing to do to get it?

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure they know what they want. I've been in enough meetings and at enough conferences on the subject to know that their requirements are anything but clearly defined and articulated: students should be "skilled", be capable of "teamwork", they should have sound math knowledge (in engineering related disciplines), they should be able to communicate. That all sounds very nice, but what does it mean? It sounds a lot like the three R's (reading writing, 'rithmetic) to me. Isn't that what we have been doing all along? Apparently not, so what's the consequence?

As sports is the first and easiest ways into education institutions of all varieties, we've seen it already. They come bearing gifts: stadiums, sponsorships, specific equipment or facilities. And what they bring along with these are commercial interests, consumerism, advertising, and, of course, guilt: what often looks like a donation is really a down payment.

I'm not saying that legitimate business doesn't have its own interests, nor that these interests are bad. What I am saying, however, is that these interests are private interests, not public interests. We have long passed the time when we erroneously believed that what is good for GM is good for the country. We should have learned that private interests in public education is really a conflict of interests.

The tyranny of employability

Having made a distinction between education and schooling, at least in general terms, it seems reasonable to take a closer look at what that means across a broader front. Although I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, I'm not too inclined to take many of them too seriously, but I am sensitive, I believe, to subtle changes in attitude that, once they spread, appear to the casual observer that they were somehow planned or are part of a larger scheme.

In many of the projects in which I am involved, one word keeps reappearing which is giving me some pause for concern. The word? "Employability". At first glance, it seems relatively harmless. The idea behind it is simply to provide those seeking employment those, more or less, specific skills and capabilities that will enhance their chances of landing a job. Noble, right? I mean, who doesn't want to help people get into gainful employment? I do. (And, just to be clear on the issue: there is really no reason why everyone doesn't have a job -- and a meaningful one at that -- but at the moment, that's not how the deck is stacked, but more on that another time.) I'm sure you do, too. So what's the problem?

As with so many well meaning, well intended initiatives, this one has all the potential to become our latest Frankenstein. Why? The reason is just as simple: it's too limited a concept. If person A needs skills X, Y, and Z, and I train him (or her) to obtain those skills, what happens when technology or processes or the situation changes and those skills are no longer required? They would have to be retrained. But, in the meantime, chances are very good that they will be out of work again, because why should a business keep someone around who doesn't have the right skills? Exactly. In other words, by pursuing a strict policy of employability, we are actually condemning a large segment of our population to irregular cycles of employment and unemployment, of being in demand and of being in the way. Is that what we really want?

We moderns pride ourselves in living in such a dynamic and fast-changing world. The pace of life hasn't slowed down and it doesn't seem it's going to soon. But not everyone takes part in that world. Some are simply victims of it. Since we've got schooling down and have turned our backs on education, we are creating that very class of people who will never be a part of the world we claim to love so much. It's not their fault that they are improperly prepared, for it is our own policies that condemn us.

We need to seriously rethink our attitudes toward something as common and necessary as education. I don't think we can afford not to. And, the sooner we do it, the better for all of us.

2012 Reboot

Here we are, a week into the new year, and what has changed? Nothing really. Why should it have? We don't do the holidays like we should. We've forgotten some of the most important lessons we ever learned, or at least repressed them. I can't say we're all the better for it either, but we must make do, even with what we've got.

By all appearances, 2012 is going to be a challenging year. The Americans will be having elections; the Germans are squabbling over their Federal President; the English are trying to save their last "industry" financial services; the French are trying to save their banks; the Russians are trying to have a say, as are most of the Arab world; the Chinese are finally realizing capitalism isn't all it's cracked up to be. Oh yes, I think we've still got a lot of excitement in store for this year ... and we'll have to figure it all out fast if it's coming to an end next December. Those feisty Mayans ... what'll they think of next?

I was reminiscing this morning – a prerogative of folks my age – about the "old days". I'm not sure they were all that good, but they had one thing going for them: people used to work for a living. Remember that? Oh, it's not what you might be thinking. I'm not talking about the evils of the welfare state, on the contrary, I'm talking about the time when people were employed, maybe even had careers, and were halfway secure in thinking that they could support themselves and their families (i.e. live) from their work. There's not a lot of that around anymore, is there?

No, we traded in employment for "jobs": something we're required to do, for which we expect to get paid, but those who do the paying think this should be as low as possible. It doesn't matter if you can live from it or not. That's not the job-provider's problem, is it? I was wondering because in most of what I have to do at the training company I work for is to ensure that when people have taken our training, that in the end, they have a job. Our job, if you will, is to make these people "employable" ... whatever that means.

When I was growing up, even the service-station attendant could live a modest life from what he earned. Not only don't we have service-station attendants anymore, if we did, they certainly couldn't live from what they earned. That "lowest rung" in the worker's hierarchy has been raised above the reach of a lot of young people these days. Is it really because the "market" doesn't need them or want them, or is because we, "society", don't want them anymore? Or, who decided that it's OK not to be able to live even a modest life when working full-time? Was that the "market", too? And if it was, who put the "market" in charge?