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Article
Publication date: 31 August 2012

Kea G. Tijdens, Judith De Ruijter and Esther De Ruijter

The purpose of this article is to evaluate a method for measuring work activities and skill requirements of 160 occupations in eight countries, used in EurOccupations, an EU‐FP6…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to evaluate a method for measuring work activities and skill requirements of 160 occupations in eight countries, used in EurOccupations, an EU‐FP6 project. Additionally, it aims to explore how the internet can be used for measuring work activities and skill requirements.

Design/methodology/approach

For the 160 occupations, work activities were described in approximately ten tasks. Occupational experts and jobholders were invited to rate these tasks and to indicate the skill requirements, using a multilingual web‐survey. Experts were recruited through the networks of the project partners and jobholders through frequently visited websites in the eight countries. The effectiveness of the drafting of tasks descriptions, the recruitment of raters, and the measurement of skill requirements is evaluated.

Findings

The project showed that tasks descriptions for a wide range of occupations and countries can be drafted relatively easy, using desk research. Conducting a web‐survey with a routing for 160 occupations and eight countries is viable. Recruiting experts used more resources than recruiting jobholders using the internet. Measuring skill requirements would need much more resources due to major variations within and across countries.

Research limitations/implications

The article addresses a number of areas that are potentially worthy of further empirical investigations for a Europe‐wide library of occupational titles, work activities and skill requirements.

Practical implications

The paper outlines the potential of a future method for a European library of work activities and skill requirements for occupational titles, thereby facilitating European industrial training efforts.

Social implications

Insight in the work activities and skill requirements of occupations will facilitate labour mobility and related training across EU member states.

Originality/value

This paper explores the potential for a Europe‐wide empirical underpinning of work activities and skill requirements, using a web‐survey and the internet.

Details

European Journal of Training and Development, vol. 36 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-9012

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 2014

Kea G. Tijdens, Esther De Ruijter and Judith De Ruijter

Do similar job titles refer to the same work activities, as assumed often, but hardly empirically tested? The purpose of this paper is to analyze the similarity of 160 occupations…

574

Abstract

Purpose

Do similar job titles refer to the same work activities, as assumed often, but hardly empirically tested? The purpose of this paper is to analyze the similarity of 160 occupations within and across eight European countries using interrater agreement statistics (rWG).

Design/methodology/approach

Using a multilingual web survey, experts and jobholders in the eight countries rated the frequency of ten tasks per occupation they had knowledge of (n=4,197 ratings). Three hypotheses are investigated: first, interrater agreements of occupations are similar regardless the country; second, interrater agreements of occupations are similar within countries; and third, experts and jobholders are similar in their ratings.

Findings

Half of the occupations reveal no agreement across ratings, one-third shows a weak/moderate agreement and one in ten shows a strong agreement. H1 is rejected for task frequency but not for task importance. Within-country similarity of occupations is larger than across-country similarity. H2 is supported for two countries and rejected for two other countries. H3 is not supported. Jobholders demonstrate higher agreement than experts.

Research limitations/implications

An empirical testing of occupation-specific tasks for a wide range of occupations across Europe seems a viable approach.

Practical implications

The paper contributes to the challenges related to labor market mobility across borders.

Originality/value

Work tasks for a wide range of occupations and countries, using job-specific work activities in combination with web surveys and the internet for recruitment of jobholders, have not been used before.

Details

Employee Relations, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

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