World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 463

The major part played by knowledge and information in manufacturing industry renders obsolete the notion of specialist skills on the part of the workforce. The key concept now is one of "personal competence". Technological progress inevitably changes the job skills required by the new production processes. Purely physical tasks are being replaced by tasks with a greater intellectual or cerebral content such as the operation, maintenance and monitoring of machines and design and organizational tasks, as the machines themselves become more intelligent.
There are several reasons for this increase in skill requirements at all levels. Instead of being organized to perform specified tasks in juxtaposition in accordance with Taylor's principles of scientific labour organization, manufacturing workers are often divided into work teams or project groups on the Japanese model. This approach represents a departure from the idea of dividing labour into similar physical tasks which are essentially learned by repetition. Furthermore, the idea of personalized tasks is taking over from that of employee interchangeability. There is a growing trend among employers to evaluate potential employees in terms of their personal competence rather than certified skills which they see as merely demonstrating the ability to perform specific physical tasks. This personal competence is assessed by looking at a mix of skills and talents, combining certified skills acquired through technical and vocational training, social behaviour, personal initiative and a willingness to take risks.
If we add a demand for personal commitment on the part of employees in their role as change agents, it is clear that this kind of personal competence involves highly subjective innate or acquired qualities, often referred to as "people skills" or "interpersonal skills" by employers, combined with knowledge and other job skills. Of these qualities, communication, team and problem-solving skills are assuming greater importance. The growth of the service industries has resulted in an increase in this trend.
The shift away from physical work - the service industries
In advanced economies there is a shift away from physical work. The implications of this trend for education are even clearer if we look at the development of the service industries in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Most of the active population (60 - 80 per cent) of the industrialized countries is employed in the service sector. The main defining characteristic of this extremely broad category is that it covers activities which are neither industrial nor agricultural and which, despite their diversity, do not involve any tangible product.
Many services are defined primarily in terms of the interpersonal relationship involved. Examples of this are found both in the rapidly expanding private service sector which is benefiting from the growing complexity of
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