Clerical Administrative Workers Conceptions of Competence in their Jobs

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1 Journal of Vocational Education & Training ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: Clerical Administrative Workers Conceptions of Competence in their Jobs Rod Gerber & Christine Velde To cite this article: Rod Gerber & Christine Velde (1996) Clerical Administrative Workers Conceptions of Competence in their Jobs, Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 48:4, , DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 11 Aug Submit your article to this journal Article views: 170 View related articles Citing articles: 5 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [ ] Date: 08 February 2016, At: 23:23

2 Journal of Vocational Education and Training, Vol. 48. No. 4, 1996 Clerical-Administrative Workers' Conceptions of Competence in their Jobs ROD GERBER University of New England, Armidale, Australia CHRISTINE VELDE Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia ABSTRACT The growing number of government-sourced reports on improving economic performance of the nation through a carefully-orchestrated National Training Reform Agenda have used the concept of competence as a central plank in their philosophy. All of these reports draw on a rationalistic perspective of competence that is built around designated behavioural outcomes. These outcomes are established in a dualistic way. An alternative approach is to use a humanistic approach to competence in which the concept of competence is explained in terms of workers' experiences of competence within their workplaces. A study is reported here of working with 52 people in the clerical-administrative industry in order to establish their conceptions of competence in clerical-administrative workers. A phemenographic analysis was conducted on the written statements that were prepared by these participants. This non-dualistic investigation revealed five qualitatively different conceptions of competence in clerical-administrative workers. These are: competence as the development of basic skills; competence as the possession of essential knowledge about the job; competence as the possession of personal attributes; competence exhibited as an efficient worker; and competence displayed as a flexible, holistic thinker. Introduction A focus of the National Workplace Reform Agenda has been to increase Australia's competitiveness in an international market place. As a result, the Reform Agenda is driving change in the education and training sectors with the aim to enhance the flexibility and skills of Australia's workers. This aspect of the National Workplace Reform Agenda, which is commonly referred to as the National Training Reform Agenda has been 393

3 ROD GERBER & CHRISTINE VELDE shaped and driven by four recent major reports (Deveson, 1990; Finn, 1991; Carmichael, 1992; Mayer, 1992) and two earlier papers (Skills for Australia, Dawkins & Holding, 1987; Improving Australia's Training System, Dawkins, 1989). The Australian Government's White Paper on employment and growth, Working Nation (Keating, 1994) extends and strengthens the impetus of the National Training Reform Agenda by highlighting the importance of skills and innovation as a key to Australia's future both nationally and internationally. Two major elements in the National Training Reform Agenda are the introduction of key or generic competencies necessary for success in the workplace (Finn, 1991; Holland, 1992; Mayer, 1992; Winning, 1993) and the implementation of a competency-based training scheme to develop these competencies. A third element is the current movement toward national standards, "... developed by industry for the competencies required for the effective performance in employment" (Whitely, 1991, p. 18). In defining competence, Foyster (1990) suggests that a useful statement about the nature of competence must provide evidence about three elements, that is, details of the range of skills performed within the competence which include both key generic competencies (Finn, 1991; Mayer, 1992); industry-specific competencies; standards of performance; and conditions under which the performance is required. However, Sandberg (1991) asserts that such an approach is limited because competence is treated as an entity in itself. He argues for the inclusion of the intentional dimension of competence, that is, the individual's dynamic conception of the work. This humanistic view of competence focuses on the relational link between people's experience of competence, and the context or workplace in which the competence is demonstrated. Such a perspective of competence does not appear to be well researched in the literature arising from the implications of the National Training Reform Agenda (e.g. Finn, 1991; Mayer, 1992, and so on), and therefore is an important aim of this study. The humanistic view proposed by Sandberg adopts a non-dualistic approach to the topic of competence whereas the view typified by Foyster may be termed a rationalistic approach. The major reports mentioned above adopt a rationalistic approach. They do not emphasise the experiential orientation which Sandberg advocates. In order to obtain a more complete understanding of the concept of competence about clerical/administrative workers' conceptions of their jobs in an Australian context, it is necessary to gather this experiential data and then to compare how it relates to the more conventional rationalistic approach to competence for Australian workers. 394

4 WORKERS' CONCEPTIONS OF COMPETENCE The Study One way to address the need to obtain experiential data amongst Australian workers is to conduct an investigation using a humanistic approach to competence. The study which is reported here is the first recorded study of its kind in the Australian working environment. It seeks to understand how workers in the clerical-administrative industry experience competence in their jobs. Methodology The methodology used in this study was a qualitative one inspired by a phenomenographic approach. This meant that the study focused on the individual clerical-administrative workers' conceptions of the phenomenon of competence in their job. What was of interest here was how the phenomenon of competence in their job presented itself, how it was experienced by the individual workers. The researchers were interested in the workers' conceptions of this phenomenon because it brings different meanings to different people. To perceive something is a human activity. This activity means that the individual organises and delimits meanings, which shape conceptions of the world around him/her. Conceptions are the basic relations between the individual and the world around him/her (Uljens, 1989). Svensson & Theman (1983) confirm this belief by stating that "the nature of the conception is that it represents a relation between an individual and a part of the world. The relation consists of the activity, the thinking, of the individual in relation to the part of the world concerned." Since conceptions are often implicit, researchers have to read "between the lines" when they seek to interpret an interview to find conceptions of a specific phenomenon such as competence in one's job. Data collection in this study consisted of written discourse in which the participants in the study wrote of their experience of competence in their workplace. They responded to the specific task: From your experience, describe a competent clerical-administration worker. Individual responses varied in length from a few lines to a consolidated paragraph. All of the responses were hand-written and were then transcribed verbatim for analysis. The analysis of the data consisted of pooling all of the written statements and conducting a phenomenographic investigation of it. This analysis consisted of following the non-algorithmic, interpretative "discovery procedure" developed by Marton & Saljo (1984) that results in a related set of categories of description. These categories represent the qualitatively different conceptions that the participants hold of their experience of competence in their job. This iterative process has been 395

5 ROD GERBER & CHRISTINE VELDE described by Dahlgren & Fallsberg (1991) as consisting of seven steps; familiarisation with the data by reading through the statements carefully; condensation of the data by selecting the most significant statements; comparison of the selected significant dialogue excerpts to find sources of variation or agreement; grouping those answers which appear to be similar; making a first attempt to describe the essence of the similarity within each group of answers; labelling each of the categories to reflect the essence of this similarity; and comparing the revealed categories to confirm their interrelationships in terms of structural and referential aspects. The results of this analysis were, therefore, a set of categories of description which indicate the different conceptions that the participants held of competence in their jobs and an outcome space that demonstrates the relationships amongst these different conceptions. The quality of the analysis was assured by applying the set of phenomenological principles described by Kvale (1983). These include: bracketing the researchers' beliefs about the phenomenon and conducting the analysis based solely on the discourse of the participants; the use of reduction in working through a number of increasingly deepening iterations to arrive at categories of description; and the horizontalization of the categories, i.e. treating each category as being of equal worth. Participants Fifty-two administrators from different training colleges that specialise in clerical-administrative occupations volunteered to participate in this study. All of these colleges may be classed as private/commercial enterprises who are very in tune with the demands of the clerical-administrative industries in Australia. Geographically, the participants represented business colleges located in the States of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. In other words, the participants in the study all had extensive experience in the clerical-administrative industries. Results The analysis of the written responses from the 52 participants revealed five qualitatively different conceptions of competence in their job, i.e. in the clerical-administrative occupations. These conceptions are represented graphically in the form of a hierarchical outcome space (Figure 1). Basically, the relationships amongst the five conceptions consists of there being three conceptions (1, 2 and 3) which are characterised by discrete differences in their content and focus (Conception 1 focuses on the development and demonstration of a set of basic skills, Conception 2 considers the essential knowledge required by 396

6 WORKERS' CONCEPTIONS OF COMPETENCE a competent worker in this field, and Conception 3 focuses on the personal attributes that competent clerical-administrative workers exhibit in their jobs), a conception (4) which draws on the content of these three conceptions to emphasise the efficiency of the clerical-administrative worker, and a final conception (5) which adopts a holistic and flexible view of the experience of competence which draws upon the content of and approach to competence in the workplace. Detailed descriptions of the categories of description which constitute these conceptions follow Figure 1. 1 Develops basic skills 5 A flexible, holistic thinker 4 An efficient worker 2 Possesses essential knowledge 13 Possesses specific personal attributes Figure 1. Outcome space of clerical-administrative workers' conceptions of competence in their job. Conception 1: competence as the development of basic skills. Participants who held this conception believed that a competent clerical-administrative worker understood and was able to perform at a high level a range of basic skills. These skills may be clustered into four groups - communication skills based on literacy, numeracy and oracy; technical skills based on the use of computers and other specialised office equipment; specialised skills relevant to the particular job; and general organisational skills. The aspect of demonstrated performance was seen to be a critical factor in being competent in these basic skills. Decisions as to which skills may be termed 'basic' are perceived to be based on the National Standards for clerical-administrative workers. As one respondent noted: the workers should "perform basic skills such as the ones in the National Standards". Other respondents were less dogmatic about the nature of these basic skills and just thought of them 397

7 ROD GERBER & CHRISTINE VELDE as the essential skills that are associated with office jobs. For example, one respondent saw a competent clerical-administrative worker as "one who is able to perform basic skills in office jobs". The views of what were the specific basic skills that competent clerical-administrative workers demonstrate varies across the field of respondents. While they fit into the four groups mentioned above, no one person identified all four groups in his/her response. Rather, what emerged was the identification of two or three of these groups. Collectively, these people identified the range of basic skills. The following excerpts reveal the variation mentioned above: (RAT): One who possesses a broad range ofskiils applicable to the clerical-administrative field, e.g. computer literacy, use of office equipment, written and verbal skills, telephone technique, records administration, etc. (R.49):... efficient, fast, accurate word processor; a good organizer of a filing system; able to order supplies on time; competent and confident when answering the phone... (R.41):... sound oral and written communication skills, sound numeracy skills, accuracy, ability to follow instructions. (R5):... good proof-reading/checking skills; good numeracy, literacy skills and keyboarding/'computing... (R24):... completes tasks on time; problem/conflict resolution; good telephone techniques; computer skills; wordprocessing packages... As the above statements indicate, the idea of competence in basic skills has built into it a quality element, i.e. it is not simply the possession of the skill that denotes competence. Rather, it is the ability to use each of these skills in a competent way that is distinctive. Conception 2: competence as the possession of essential knowledge. The possession of certain knowledge was perceived as being an important aspect of competence in the clerical-administrative occupations. The idea of knowing certain things about the job is believed to be quite different from the ability to demonstrate a particular skill. The nature of the knowledge again is quite variable. It ranges from general knowledge of how the firm or company operates to very specific forms of knowledge about the particular job. The concept of competence is not considered on the basis of the extent of the knowledge or its quality. Rather, it is seen as either possessing the knowledge or not. The overall view of competent knowledge is summarised by the following responses: 398

8 WORKERS' CONCEPTIONS OF COMPETENCE (R3): A competent clerical-administrative worker possesses sound knowledge of the company's business activities and of the job at hand, i.e. understands the reasons behind the work required rather than the job just being a routine performance. (R50):A competent clerical-administrative worker is one who knows and understands the relevance of their work in the overall running of the organization. There is something ol a metacognitive aspect to this statement in that the respondent believes that the competent worker not only knows about a specific job, but he/she also knows why they are doing the work. At a more specific level, different types of knowledge are identified as being important for competent workers. This specific knowledge may relate to the company's operations, e.g. (R44): "Answer queries or know where to ask for answers" or R5: U A good knowledge of procedures". Alternatively, it may relate to specific job knowledge that may include: (Rl):... knowledge of the software is extremely important, but speed in typing is not important; pleasant phone manner, aware of office environment procedures. Conception 3: competence as the possession of specific personal attributes. The competent clerical-administrative worker is one who possesses an extensive range of personal attributes. None of the respondents believed that any one person should possess all of the attributes. In fact, the wide range of attributes suggested by the participants in the study indicates their variable nature. Statements in this conception did not attempt to declare whether these attributes are brought to the work situation or whether they are learned on the job. However, they are requisites for competent behaviour in this kind of work. The nature of the range of personal attributes may be organised as actual behaviours while working, e.g. being organised, understand details, works logically and promptly, to holding certain personal values, e.g. being co-operative, supportive, friendly and loyal. These attributes allow the worker to function smoothly during the job performance. The following statements affirm this view: (R48):... One who can see the detail, work in sequence, work logically (R23):... is organised, accurate and clear on any instructions given... (R7):... prompt, efficient, co-operative, reliable, commitment and loyalty... (R16):... reliable, efficient and willing to learn

9 ROD GERBER & CHRISTINE VELDE These competent workers were seen to be the ones who demonstrated initiative during the performance of their duties. This display of initiative was exhibited whilst working under pressure. Such attributes allowed the workers to perform at a very high level with job satisfaction. This is illustrated in the following examples: (R39):... the manner in doing the job - attitude and initiative... (R8):... uses initiative, does what is asked, is quick, enthusiastic, enjoys what they are doing and possess good communication skills... (Rll): One who has the ability to work underpressure, anticipate the needs of the college, is organized and works well without supervision. Additionally, these workers are seen to have a highly developed work ethic, which is based on experience and other associated personal attributes. Interestingly, these workers are strongly performance and systems orientated in their work behaviours although they can be patient and pleasant in the process. The following statements support this perspective: (R24): Their attitude is one of a good work ethic and it involves reliability, initiative, experience, the ability to prioritise work tasks and to solve problems and conflicts. (R19): They are knowledgeable, accurate, systems oriented, performance oriented, concerned with details, good communicators, patient and pleasant. It should be remembered that the respondents saw the possession of these attributes as important, but it was vital that the attributes are used effectively during the work situation if competence was exhibited. Conception 4: competence as an efficient worker. Efficiency was seen by some respondents as being the basis for competence. If a clerical-administrative worker cannot act efficiently then the worker cannot claim to be competent. Elements of efficiency that were highlighted were those associated with completing a task or a set of tasks on time, accurately and confidently. Being fast did not necessarily mean that the worker was competent. There needed to be a high level of accuracy in the performance for it to be considered as a competent one The importance of completing tasks well and within the expected timeline that operates within the particular work context was viewed as a critical factor in the exhibition of competence by clerical-administrative workers, The judgement of the standard to which these tasks were to be performed varied with different companies. However, it was the company that set the standard against which such judgements were able to be made. These beliefs are expressed in the following statements: 400

10 WORKERS' CONCEPTIONS OF COMPETENCE (R33): One who is able to do the job that is required within appropriate timelines. (R15): Ability to perform tasks efficiently at a standard within our Quality Assurance procedures. Expected tasks must be performed on time. (R49): A person who can achieve set tasks and goals within a set time frame. In addition to working to time, the competent clerical-administrative worker was seen to be a person who could do so accurately and confidentially. Accuracy was characterised by lack of error; in fact, a number of respondents believed that 100 per cent accuracy was the desired yardstick for accuracy in this area of work. By attaching the idea of confidence to accuracy these respondents emphasised a close linkage between level of performance and personal attributes. Such a worker is one who not only acts competently, but behaves in a competent manner while doing his/her clerical-administrative job. The following statements support these views: (R50): He/she handles the workload accurately, bearing in mind how the output affects the next process in the system. (R40):A competent clerical-administrative worker is a person who demonstrates the ability to perform routine and non-routine tasks accurately, with confidence and speed. (R6):... to complete tasks from the beginning to the end and to do them well. These statements do not promote the idea that the efficient clerical-administrative worker is characterised solely by efficiency. A robot could be as efficient for many of the technical tasks, but the human touch would be missing. This human touch was seen to be of considerable importance in the efficient worker for it demonstrated that this occupational area is associated with human interactions and so the personal efficiency must be associated with personal social skills, such as confidence. Conception 5: competence as a flexible, holistic thinker. The most sophisticated conception about competence in clerical-administrative workers was the one based on their adoption of a holistic perspective of their job, where it was placed consciously within the overall workplace context. It is assumed that such workers will be efficient, skilled in a wide range of technical processes and possessing of desirable personal attributes such as the ones mentioned above. Included in this holistic 401

11 ROD GERBER & CHRISTINE VELDE orientation was the willingness to be flexible in one's outlook and behaviour on the job. Such workers were able to appreciate the workers' as well as the managers' perspective of their job. They exhibited lateral thinking in the implementation of their work. They may well be the workers who are the best prospects for promotion within the company. Different fragments of this conception were evident throughout the statements. The most complete statements came from the person (R48) who saw the competent clerical-administrative worker as the one who... can put together a job from beginning to end; who sees the job as a whole, especially in small business, not just separate parts. Such a worker is flexible in a number of ways. One respondent (R40) understood this to be exhibited through being adaptable to different policies and policy changes within the specific workplace: "One who can follow procedures and adapts to organisational policies." Another person (R49) saw it exhibited in the worker's ability to work independently and in teams depending on the type of job: "... can work independently and as a team member." A further respondent (R12) extended the idea of flexibility to the ability to complete multiple tasks in the course of his/her work activities: "One who is able to perform multiple duties in the office." Discussion These five conceptions perform an important function of illuminating the concept of competence within the Australian office workplace beyond the behaviouristic orientations that have been proposed in the key government reports, such as Mayer (1992), Finn (1991) and Carmichael (1992). By focusing on the workers' experience of competence, this study illustrated that it was much more than technical skill, expertise and efficiency. It is much more than the possession of desirable personal attributes. In fact, competence for clerical-administrative workers is a multi-faceted concept that can be, in part, subdivided into its components, but which is most powerful when it is considered as a whole. In this case, the whole is certainly bigger than the sum of the constituent parts. The relationship between the competent worker and his/her work. context varies depending on the focus of the concept of competence. At the very task-specific end, the aspects of technical competence will vary with the particular jobs. However, at the company scale, the aspects of competence are commonly focused on the relationship of the job to the company goals and policies. The element of flexibility in job performance extends across both job-specific and company-specific aspects. It may be so that these variations in relationships depend on the company or institutional view of competence. Here, a more enlightened view of competence may be exhibited in policies which encourage flexibility in 402

12 WORKERS 1 CONCEPTIONS OF COMPETENCE completing one's clerical-administrative job. Alternatively, a traditional rationalistic view of competence is based on technical expertise and efficiency and has little to do with personal satisfaction. These results and their interpretation offer the opportunity for researchers in workplace education to consider competence in a humanistic rather than a rationalistic light. Sandberg (1994) has demonstrated that such a humanistic approach to competence offers a powerful alternative to consider when seeking to clarify the nature of this key concept in workplace performance and ultimately in national productiivity. The National Training Reform Agenda should revise its understanding of workplace competence by adopting a humanistic approach to this concept than its current rationalistic approach. It is the challenge to do so that emanates from this article which should attract the attention of national policy makers. Such an action is vital because the approach to competence that is adopted by these people can impact positively or negatively on training and change in the workplace. From these results, the humanistic approach to competence is closer to what is happening in practice. This is a good reason to support it in policies regarding workplace competence. Since this study is an initial one in the Australian context, it can have increasing impact on policy makers and company human resources directors if further investigations were conducted with more people in the clerical-administrative industry and new investigations were conducted with other types of industries, e.g. the manufacturing and service industries. Even if these studies are not conducted, this one has demonstrated that workers' experiences are powerful inputs to the clarification of the concept of competence in their work. Together with theoretical statements about industrial competence, experiential statements can lead to the development of a more comprehensive theory of competence in workplaces. Correspondence Rod Gerber, Faculty of Education, Health and Professional Studies, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales 2351, Australia (rgerber@metz.une.edu.au). References Carmichael, L. (1992) The Australian Vocational Certificate Training System. Employment and Skills Formation Council. Canberra: National Board of Employment, Education and Training. Dahlgren, L. & Fallsberg, M. (1991) Phenomenography as a qualitative approach in social pharmacy research, Journal of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 18(4), pp

13 ROD GERBER & CHRISTINE VELDE Dawkins, J. (1989) Improving Australia's Training System. Canberra: Department of Employment, Education and Training. Dawkins, J. & Holding, D. (1987) Skills for Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service and Department of Employment, Education and Training. Deveson, I. (1990) Training Costs of Award Restructuring, Volumes 1 and 2, Report of the Training Costs Review Committee. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Finn, B. (1991) Young People's Participation in Post-Compulsory Education and Training; Report of the Australian Education Council. Canberra: AGPS. Foyster, J. (1990) Getting to Grips with Competency-Based Training and Assessment. Leabrook: TAFE National Centre for Research and Development. Holland, S. (1992) The National Reform Agenda and the Changing Nature of Teacher's Work. Seminar Presented to the Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Brisbane. Keating, P. (1994) Working Nation: the White Paper on employment and growth. Canberra: AGPS. Kvale, S. (1993) The research interview-a phenomenological and a hermeneutical mode of understanding, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 14, pp Marton, F. & Saljo, R. (1984) Approaches to Learning, in F. Marton, D. Hounsell & N. Entwistle (Eds) The Experience of Learning. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, pp Mayer, E. (1992) Employment-related Key Competencies for Postcompulsory Education and Training: a discussion paper, The Mayer Committee. Melbourne: Ministry of Education and Training. Sandberg, J. (1991) Competence as Intentional Achievement: a phenomenographic study. Melbourne: Educational Research and Development Unit, Occasional Paper Sandberg, J. (1994) Human Competence at Work: an interpretive approach. Gothenburg: BAS. Svensson, L. & Theman, J. (1983) The Relation between Categories of Description and an Interview Protocol in a Case of Phenomenographic Research. Pittsburgh: Second Annual Human Science Research Conference. Ulijens, M. (1989) Fenomengrafi-furskning am uppfattninger. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Whiteley, J. (1991) CBT:assessment models appropriate for competency-based training and their relationship to teaching and learning approaches. Brisbane: Research and Development Division, Office of Vocational Education, Training and Employment Commission, Queensland. Winning, A. (1993) Vocational education and training in Australia, Educaton and Training, 35(3), pp