Simon Beausaert

Learning to stay employable

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of chronological age and formal and informal learning activities on employability. Furthermore, indirect effects of age on employability via learning activities were tested. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted quantitative, cross-sectional survey research (n ¼ 780) in three Dutch and Austrian organizations to study the relationship between chronological age, formal and informal learning activities, and employability using structural equation modeling. Findings – The authors find that both formal and informal learning increase employees’ employability. However, each type of learning contributes to different components of employability. Additionally, the authors find indirect effects of chronological age on employability via formal learning. Research limitations/implications – The results question the focus on chronological age in organizational and political decision making and contribute new insights for the management of an increasingly older workforce. Practical implications – The findings question the predominant use of chronological age as decisive criterion in organizational and national policies and call for closer examination of stereotypes against older employees. Employees should be supported in pursuing learning activities – irrespective of their chronological age. The implications of limiting employees’ access to formal learning activities may limit their future employability. Individual employees, however, are in control of their informal learning activities, and this is a very important lever to maintain and develop employability. Social implications – Given the increasing dependency of social welfare systems on older people’s active participation in the labor market, this study stresses that it is not chronological age per se that affects people’s employability. This diverges from the way of how chronological age is used in policy making. Originality/value – This study contributes further evidence for the relationships of age and formal and informal learning on employability. Additionally, it extends previous literature by examining different effects on different facets of employability, criticizing the prevalent use of chronological age, and investigating potential mediation effects.

Effect of Using a Personal Development Plan on Learning and Development.

Purpose – This study aims to examine the effects of using a personal development plan (PDP) on the undertaking of learning activities and the employees job competencies.Design/methodology/approach – Data from Dutch pharmacy assistants was collected (n=2,271). Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) as well as regression analyses were conducted on this dataset.Findings – The results indicate that PDP users undertook more learning activities in the past than non‐users, but using a PDP does not stimulate users to plan more learning activities in the future. Furthermore, PDP users do not score themselves significantly higher on job competencies than non‐PDP users.Research limitations/implications – Future research should investigate the effectiveness of PDPs for the undertaking of learning activities and job competencies in a broader sample, involving multiple‐raters and focusing more closely on one essential feature of the PDP practice: the feedback given by a supervisor and/or colleague or coach when discussing the ...

The Influence of Teachers' Teaching Approaches on Students' Learning Approaches: The Student Perspective.

Background: Research on the relation between teaching and learning approaches has been mainly conducted in higher education and it is not yet clear to what extent the results can be generalised when it comes to secondary education. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to research how students in secondary education perceive their teachers’ approaches to teaching in different disciplines, and how this relates to their own learning approaches. Additionally, differences in teaching approaches between mathematics and language teachers were investigated. Sample: The participants in this study were 128 students randomly selected at two secondary schools in two different cities in the Netherlands. Both schools are located in a city with more than 200,000 inhabitants. The students are spread across three different educational levels: lower secondary vocational education (VMBO, 12–18 years), higher secondary education (HAVO, 12–18 years) and academically oriented vocational education (VWO, 12–18 years). Design and methods: In this cross-sectional study, instead of teachers’ self-reporting, teaching approaches were measured by student perceptions, which were gathered by means of a questionnaire (N=128). Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to identify whether perceived teacher approaches predicted students’ learning approaches. Finally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were carried out to explore differences in how students in mathematics and Dutch-language courses perceived the teaching approaches of their teachers and which learning approaches they consequently adopted. Results: Results indicate that a teacher-centred approach predicts a surface approach to learning and a student-centred approach predicts a deep approach to learning. Next, it was found that students in Dutch-language courses perceive their teachers as more student-centred, and are hence more likely to adopt a deep approach to learning than students in mathematics courses. Conclusions: These results suggest that when schools aim to support students in developing deep-learning approaches, attention on a school level should be paid to teachers’ approaches to teaching.

The use of Personal Development Plans in the workplace: A literature review

It is evident that in the current knowledge economy learning does not stop after graduation. Learning for a profession is only a starting point for learning in the profession. One tool to enhance learning in the profession is a personal development plan (PDP). Although this tool is very popular to date, there is no review study available to inform researchers and practitioners about effects and conditions enhancing the effectiveness. Therefore, we conducted a systematic narrative literature review, selecting empirical studies to research PDPs in the workplace. The purpose of this review-study was to analyze the literature on the goals that PDP assessment is being used for in the workplace, its effectiveness to reach those goals and the desirable supporting conditions that will enlarge its effectiveness. The results highlight nine clusters of goals PDP assessment is used for, namely: professional development; reflective learning; providing evidence; documenting; certification, selection, and promotion; external mobility; coaching; stimulating confidence; and organizing. Furthermore, the small amount of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of PDP assessment (N studies = 54) indicates that the instrument is effective for personal or continuing professional development, stimulating reflection and improving professional practice. There nevertheless exists a gap between the popularity of this tool and the availability of evidence of its effectiveness. Moreover, almost all studies researching PDPs took place in an educational or healthcare setting. Finally, only the support received from a coach or supervisor and the time and resources provided have been researched as supporting process conditions and were found to have positive effects. In most other included articles the supportive conditions are no object of study but are theoretically discussed and argued upon. It is clear that to inform human resource development professionals using PDPs, more studies systematically investigating the effects of the tool and the supporting process conditions are necessary.

The use of a personal development plan and the undertaking of learning activities, expertise-growth, flexibility and performance: the role of supporting assessment conditions

In the current search for tools that encourage and assess learning and development, personal development plans (PDPs) are being used ever more frequently by organizations. A PDP is an assessment tool used by the employee to reflect on, to document the competencies s/he has been working on and to present his/her plans for further development. This study conducted among employees working in a governmental organization in the Netherlands (N = 287) focused on the PDP practice as conceptualized by three supporting conditions: learning and reflection, information and feedback and the motivating supervisor. It examined which of these features enhance the undertaking of learning activities, expertise-growth, flexibility towards changing circumstances and performance. Results from the hierarchical regression analyses indicate that a motivating supervisor, information and feedback and reflection by the employee on the basis of his/her PDP affect whether or not a PDP contributes to the four measured output variables. Next, by conducting mediation analyses evidence is found for the mediating role of undertaking learning activities in the relation between the PDP practice and two output variables.

The Personal Development Plan Practice Questionnaire (PPQ): The development and validation of an instrument to assess the employee’s perception of the personal development plan practice.

Presented at the JURE 2010, Connecting diverse perspectives on learning and instruction, A conference of synergy.

Working on professional development of faculty staff in higher education: investigating the relationship between social informal learning activities and employability

In this study, we examined how social informal learning and formal learning of faculty staff in higher education relate to their employability. Data were collected from 209 faculty staff members working at a Dutch university. Results showed that social informal learning was related to the employability of faculty staff. Further analysis revealed that especially external information seeking and acting upon feedback from colleagues and not formal learning predicted the employability of faculty staff. The finding suggests that institutes of higher education should especially foster the professional development of their faculty staff by stimulating exchange of information and seeking and using feedback with colleagues in a proactive manner.

Aging Workers' Learning and Employability

In today’s time of demographic change and rapid innovation, age and employability as well as the role of learning and development are high on the agenda of policy makers and human resource managers. Empirical studies, however, do not provide consistent evidence for the relation between age and employability and between age and work-related formal and informal learning. While many studies find negative relationships, some other studies present positive or insignificant effects. The inconsistent results may hint at conceptual weaknesses of chronological age as a measure, which are often ignored. One such weakness is the difficulty to disentangle age effects from cohort and period effects. Moreover, since people become more heterogeneous the older they get, the less suitable age is as predictor. Therefore, we state that chronological age in itself may not be the most important factor in predicting work-related learning and employability. Alternative significant predictors might be work centrality, learning self-efficacy and future time perspective. In addition, we identify age-related individual and organizational obstacles for work-related learning and employability. Two of the most prominent individual obstacles are a decline in motivation to learn and less capability to learn. Organizational barriers are due to negative stereotypes about aging workers and a lack of supportive learning climate for older workers. Therefore, research on other individual and organizational factors might provide more satisfying answers and contribute to new insights for the management of an increasingly older workforce.

Aging and the motivation to stay employable

Purpose – The demographic shift and the rapid rate of innovations put age and employability high on policy makers’ and human resource managers’ agenda. However, the authors do not sufficiently understand the link between these concepts. The authors set out to investigate the relationship between age and employability and aim to identify motivational mediators of this relationship. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the roles of future time perspective and goal orientation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted quantitative, cross-sectional survey research (n=282) in three Dutch and Austrian organizations. The authors used structural equation modeling to investigate the relationships between chronological age, future time perspective, goal orientations, and employability. Findings – Future time perspective and goal orientation strongly relate to employability. The authors found indirect relationships between age and employability via perceived remaining opportunities. Rese...

Development and Validation of a Scale Measuring Approaches to Work-Related Informal Learning.

Social approaches to work-related informal learning, such as proactive feedback-seeking, help-seeking and information-seeking, are important determinants of development in the workplace. Unfortunately, previous research has failed to clearly conceptualize these forms of learning and does not provide a validated and generally applicable measurement instrument. We set out to develop and validate such a scale measuring social approaches to work-related informal learning. We collected data in four organizations in Austria and the Netherlands, with a total sample size of 895 employees. These data were used to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which showed four distinct factors: feedback-seeking from the supervisor, feedback-seeking from colleagues, help-seeking and information-seeking. In conclusion, the scale we developed is valid in a range of contexts and thus is an appropriate tool for research as well as human resource development practice.