Employability: the structuring concept for individualised almps for youth? Abstract

ESPANET- 2012

Bussi Margherita

European Trade Union Institute

Bd Roi Albert II, 5

1210 Brussels

[e-mail]

Work in progress – please do not quote without author’s permission

Employability: the structuring concept for individualised ALMPs for youth?
Abstract
Among the literature on individualised ALPMs less attention seems to have been paid to the quality and the extent of individualisation, which are built on the concept of employability attributed to these policies. Since the concept of employability itself is blurry and protean, it seems worthy analysing more into depth the process of implementation, where street-level workers and bureaucrats operate and where the employability is partially reshaped, reinterpreted and adapted (Lipsky 2010).

The paper develops from the contribution of Lindsay at al. (2007) – which analyses the work-first and human capital approach in the UK context – and suggest adding the capability approach (CA) (Nussbaum and Sen 1993) as an analytical tool.

The CA can help in: 1) identifying the underlying normative concept of employability; 2) identifying the degree of individualisation actually implemented. The first aspect helps to shed light on crucial aspects of activation, such as the issue of responsabilisation of policy recipients. The latter uses the analytical tools of the governance (resources, networks, actors) to identify the challenges of the implementation that can have an impact on the customisation of the intervention.

The paper tries to implement this approach using documentary analysis and interviews with field workers in the Belgian social system, where important changes towards more individualized employability policies particularly for young people have been implemented.

Introduction: activation and active labour market policies
In the last 15 years, several researches have investigated the impact of the shift towards a more active welfare state (Eichhorst et al. 2008, Lødemel and Trickey 2001) on the redefinition of labour market policies.

When investigating active labour market polices, scholars have underlined the most prominent role that supply side ALMPs have found in countries policies compared to demand-side oriented labour market. Supply-side policies have found increasing interest in the scientific community because the individual’s role in social services has been strongly redefined. ALMPs have stressed the importance of, on the one hand, involving citizens and provide them with opportunities in order to partially substitute the work of bureaucracies and professionals that are considered as ineffective. On the other hand citizens should bear the responsibilities of their life choices and are expected to fulfil obligations whenever they are entitled to welfare benefits (Borghi and van Berkel 2007).

The activation paradigm aims at making work (or transitions) pay, and thus those policies which previously ensured an income in workless periods, change their rationale. Workless periods should need for regaining self-sufficiency and demonstrating individual responsibility in getting back to work, taking training, or carrying out job-search activity so as to leave the socio-economic dependent position as soon as possible. In order to ensure this individual engagement, conditionality of social benefits has been strongly implemented.

In Vendramin’s words (2007) individualisation becomes a sort of “common destiny”, where people are identified and classified according to their personal features. If this process, in partly deliberate, it is at the same time the only available alternative. Individualised human resources strategies; diversification of labour status and flexibilisation of working conditions, the responsibility of carry out a personal project (employability), as well as the shift from qualifications towards social competences (savoir-être and savoir -faire) are an example of how individualisation have been translated in working related situation.

Individualisation within employability
Personalisation of labour market and social policies related services are functional to the improvement (or acquisition) of individual employability.

Gazier (1999) argues at least three periods can be identified in the development of the idea of employability since the beginning of the century. That one developed in the 80s is particularly important for understanding the current idea of employability: it focuses not only on an aggregated perspective (unemployed vs. employed people; socially/medically not employable vs. employable workforce) but it also adopts an individual focus. The “expected labour market performance” clearly disaggregates the idea of employability and reshapes it in micro-economics terms rather than in macro-economic terms. In a micro-economic perspective individual preferences matters in shaping individuals’ choice, and the individual is thought as individually responsible for their choices for example concerning the domain/the quality/the length of education and training.

Recent researches dealing with supply side ALMPs mainly adopted a dualistic typologies often leading to judgment values (Bonoli 2010): on the one hand the workfare or welfare-to-work approach (Nicaise 2002), based on quick and cost-effective reintegration in the labour market (Peck and Theodore 2000; Bruttel and Sol 2006) , and on the other hand a human capital oriented approach, known for its emphasis on education and training in developing people’s capacity to go back to work (Peck and Theodore 2000, Lindsay et al 2007; Lødemel and Trickey 2001). Bruttel and Sol (2006) make clear that the rationale behind human capital oriented approach lays on a longer term perspective of developing jobseekers’ capacity to get back to the labour market. The focus on education, training and health is therefore central in these policies as they represent the domains where investment is needed to further develop and improve vocational skills of the unemployed (Lindsay and Serrano 2009). The programme organisation requires a closer collaboration of different public and private actors who contribute with their expertise on training, education or health, often under the direction of public bodies or pool of institutions (Lindsay et al 2008). On the other hand, work-first approach rationale lays on the conviction that jobseekers, who have not completely lost their contacts their links with the labour market, are mostly in need of an intense job-seeking activity. Thus vocational skills and job-coaching programmes, certainly more costly, are proposed to those who are judged no longer able to stick to the “game rules” of job-seeking activity (e.g. being unable to show and keep a certain working ethics in the workplace, being unable to carry out job search by using, for instance, new technologies; write a CV, or lacking substantial vocational skills).

To conclude, the evolution of the employability concept from macro-economic to a micro-economic and sociological concept shifted the design of labour market policies towards micro labour market policies implying an idea of individual agent that is no longer a passive recipient. Being employable has in fact become the main personal characteristic to be tackled and enhanced.

But at what level should individualisation of employability policies be analysed and which evaluative tools should be used?

The two main approaches identified in the literature, the work-first approach and human capital development approach, provide indeed interesting perspectives mostly on expected outcomes: a prompt return in the labour market or developing skills and addressing individual barriers to work (Lindsay et al. 2007).

However when analysing labour market policies under these perspectives, the way in which institutions and recipients are actually making use of the instruments provided is less investigated. The tools and level of level of analysis of an institutional setting give some insights on the quality and scope of the way individualisation is implemented.

As far as tools are concern, the literature on the public action tells us the mounting importance of performance indicators (e.g. assessing economic efficiency through placement rates)(Salais 2010; Brodkin 2011) seems in contrast with indicators measuring the individualisation of services: for instance the number of files treated by each counsellor, or the rate of labour market entry of recipients or the number of language training voucher delivered can be performance indicators of the organisation efficiency, but are hardly satisfying indicators for the quality of the individualisation of the service provided (as they are indicators of outcome and not indicators of process, and not even of output¹). Salais interestingly recalls that all indicators strongly structure the scope and aims of services, but also carry a hidden normativity and do not neutrally describe the reality they measure (Salais 2010). Performance and outcome indicators should then be brought into question in order to unveil their underlying concept they are based on.

As for the level of analysis, the literature on (social) policy implementation has often highlighted that policies can be fully, partially or not implemented, or correctly/wrongly (according announced policy objectives) implemented by decentralised authorities (Bonvin and Farvaque 2006) or street-level bureaucrats (Meyers et al 1998; Considine and Lewis 2010). This is particularly evident when multiple levels of government/authorities are involved in the organisation and delivery of policies as it is more likely to find contrasting perspectives, interests and priorities (Meyers et al 1998) (Lipsky 2010; Brodkin 2011).

These divergences in implementation are likely to be increased by two trends: the decentralisation of new social policies (Finn 2000; Hamazoui 2003; Bonvin and Conter 2006; Evers et al 2007) and the introduction of managerial organisational approaches (Considine and Lewis 2010; Evers et al 2007: Jacobs and Genard 2011; Finn 2000).

Local actors have been increasingly involved in the delivery of employment programmes which gives them enlarged discretion (Finn 2000). This trend mainly aims at bringing public action closer to target population in order to better respond to their (contextualised) needs and increase efficiency in service provisions. Efficiency and effectiveness of labour market programme has been mainly targeted with the introduction of management techniques, namely management by objectives and performance targets (Finn 2000) as well as introducing private actors in employment and training service provision (Legrain et al. 2006)

The analytical tools presented below adopt a double focus connecting and accounting for the relationship between individuals with the institutional, social and environmental structure they act in, as the relation between individuals and the welfare state has dramatically changed (Evers et al 2007).

With the aim of providing some analytical tools to investigate individualisation in employability policies, it is argued here that the Capability Approach (Nussbaum and Sen 1993) helps: in highlighting the idea of employability that informs policy choices and identifying the extent to which existing opportunities are actually available to individuals.

The following sections will introduce the Capability Approach and its building blocks and describe its main added value to research on active labour market programmes by building on existing ideal types of employability policies (Sirovátka 2007, Lindsay et al 2007).

The notions of informational basis of judgement in justice, the concept of capability, functioning and conversion factors will be used in the analysis and shortly presented below.
The Capability Approach as an analytical tool for investigating individualisation
The capability approach stems from the dissatisfaction with subjective states and command over resources as concepts of well-being or (in)equality². (Gasper 2007; Sen 1979)

This means, for instance, that equality of (primary) resources is not enough to ensure that all people have the same opportunities to attain a certain level of effective well-being and agency freedom, which contributes to a general level of equality among the members of a community. The CA is not an explanatory theory of equality and welfare, but rather an evaluative framework of different policies and institutional arrangements (Verd and López 2011).

When assessing, the capability approach calls for a twofold analysis considering the personal situation of the individual regarding the issue at stake (for example achieving decent working conditions) and the surrounding opportunity structure (i.e. capability: all the alternative choices and set of choices that people are actually able to achieve). Thus the CA pays particular attention both to outcomes (functionings) and the process favouring or hindering these achievements. The capability approach is thus a promising analytical tool focused on the effective development of individual’s agency (Verd and López 2011) (Gaper 2007).
The informational basis of judgement in justice

The role played by the informational basis of judgement in justice is particularly important as it defines the factual territory of justice, i.e. the selection, implicitly or explicitly, of certain types of information used to assess people (Sen 1990 quoted in Bonvin and Farvaque 2006).

The informational basis of judgement in justice in employment policy –related context is represented by all those pieces of information used to set up policies designs and carry out their implementation in order to achieve an agreed goal. The sum of these pieces of information informing the institutional action are embedded in the notion of employability.

An extreme example would be: in restricted work-first perspective the idea of employability includes only the individual capacity of being employed regardless individual preferences, attitudes and capacities. The information used by public actors to judge this person employable is rather limited as it will be strictly limited to the identification of physical impediments to work. The informational basis has thus a crucial role to play, since it significantly contributes to determining the scope of freedom of choice that is guaranteed to people as well as the way in which implementing actors will use these pieces of information.

If the extent and quality of individualisation is to be investigated, the analysis of the normative idea of employability that informs public action can be complemented with the analysis opportunity structure that is supposed to be created according to the underlying idea of employability, including resources and rights available to individuals and their formal (and actual) entitlements and factor of conversion for making use of them.
Capability and functionings
The concept of capability includes three fundamental dimensions: capability as choice, capability as human flourishing and capability as functionings (De Munck 2008).

De Munck explains that the idea of capability is strictly connected with the idea of choice and the freedom of the actor of making that choice and his/her rationality in doing that (de Munck 2008). The idea of capability as choice embraces the individual dimension as well as the relation between the individual and the society within which the person makes her choices. This idea of freedom can be situated in a work-related framework can be translated into the freedom to have decent employment, to choose if a part or full time job, or have access to training and opportunities of career development (Bonvin and Farvaque 2007).

Capability conceived as human flourishing implies that the intrinsic freedom of capability of choice should be geared towards a human development and should not remain an end in itself. Human flourishing is identified with “reaching valuable doings and beings” that refer to the concepts of wellbeing and agency. For instance from a capability perspective, being employed is not just a way of individual utility maximisation but it should allow the person to “agency freedom” as work is a source of socialisation and identity formation, an opportunity for personal development, and should then be satisfying (Stiglizt et al 2009) (Lessmann and Bonvin 2011).

In a nutshell capability as choice refers to the bunch of alternative opportunities of choice that the person can freely take, this is often referred as the “capabilities set”: what a person can do or can be – i.e., the ability to achieve. The capability as human flourishing summarise the intrinsic goal and capability as achievement embraces what people actually chose among the (valuable) choices they had.

Commodities/resources and factors of conversion
Choices can be made only is alternatives are available. The set of alternatives is determined by resources available. Commodities (material and immaterial resources that the person has control over, such as economic resources, technologies, educational qualifications) can have a control over play an important role as “instruments” for human freedom (Robeyns 2005); nonetheless these instruments can become empty boxes if their use is not possible and does not ensure people’s capability to achieve the life they value. Analysis of conversion factors usually makes reference to the personal, social or institutional/environmental features that facilitate (or impede) the use of one’s resources (Robeyns 2005)³. Personal conversion factors in a work-related context can be the knowledge of a particular ICT programme or a good knowledge of a foreign language. A (lacking) social conversion factor can be discrimination against workers with an immigrant background, that obstacles his/her hiring. For instance if a young migrant could have all the required skills to get the job but recruiting practising are discriminatory, then the potential choice s/he could make is no longer there: a social conversion factor represented by a social behaviour impedes the realisation of having the job (realising an alternative set of valued capability) (An empirical example on training opportunities can be found in Corteel and Zimmermann (2007)
Public actions and the capability approach
In a capability perspective public institutions are meant to increase the space of capabilities and eliminate or at least reduce those barriers to the achievements of freedoms (Enanbling/Empowering State, Farvaque 2002). This can be done for example via the creation of “instrumental freedoms” (that are freedoms which function as conversion factors of material and immaterial resources, Sen 1999) such as complementary social rights (social assistance and unemployment benefit that can be combined), accessible social services (school, health system), positive economic conditions (sound economic situation triggering increasing employment opportunities) which allow the achievement of valuable doings and beings (Farvaque 2010).

Building on the idea of opportunity structure and process dimension, the capability approach informs an idea of employability that develops from a constant and effective interplay between individuals, and private, social and public partners, mediated by proper institutions and laws.

Considering the capability approach as an analytical tool leads to a revised grid describing ALMPs (Figure 1). The analytical grid below is drawn on the existing research on work-first and human capital development employability measures as well as the suggested operationalization of the CA for individualised policies by Sirovatka (2007). The suggested dimensions try to take into account all the useful elements identified by previous researches and the dimensions of analysis overlooked by the workfare and human capital approach.

They are meant to contribute to explicit the underlying conceptualisation of employability and the way in which this is implemented namely by looking at: 1) to the overall rationale informing the programme/policy goal; 2) the causes of unemployment and the conception of the individuals and the locus of responsibility are meant to illustrate to what relevant pieces of information social works takes into consideration.3) the intervention model and the use of tools want to highlight the choice of social intervention but also their (discretionary) use in relationship with individual situations as well as the kind of resources the institution is able to provide; 4) the relationship with the market and with other relevant institutions wants to shed light of the involvement of other (social) actors and on the opportunity structure created to deliver the service and make it actually accessible to people. Besides that the type of involvement of the labour market in a macro perspective also contribute to investigate the individual 5) finally the time perspective is considered as fundamental from a capability perspective mainly for two reasons: 1) the conversion of resources into attainment can require a varying (and long) time framework (the duration of a training); 2) the construction of an opportunity structure may imply long term commitment (creating relevant partnerships).

Finally adopting the CA for analysing public policies implies a “positive” and a normative perspective. The “positive” perspective has been tackled above when presenting the tools which allow reconsidering the social description of employability which has an impact on organisation responses. The normative perspective refers to prescriptions on public actions based on the wider information used to describe individual’s situation (Farvaque and Oliveau 2004). The normative perspective on an employability policy context is summarised in the third column of the grid below.

Figure 1

EMPLOYABILITY_POLICIES___OBJECTIVES_AND_PRINCIPLES'>EMPLOYABILITY POLICIES	OBJECTIVES AND PRINCIPLES
	Work first	HCD	CA
Rationale Shaping policies objectives	Facilitating quick return in the labour market Lowering the number of benefits recipients (economic rationale)	Improving skills, health and personal development	Improving personal, professional and social integration and promoting favourable and sustainable transition to the labour market considering needs and aspirations Targeting social justice objectives (inter-individual perspective) and social cohesion (macro-objective) (social justice rationale of public action (Farvaque 2004)
Causes of unemployment Contributes to the definition of employability, actions to be taken and actors to be involved	Mainly lack of motivation, working ethics and meaningful working experience Tackling macroeconomic problem from an individual perspective	Mainly lack of skills needed in the market or lack recognised qualification (skills-match) Tackling macro-economic problems (skills-mismatch) with individual measures	Multiple causes impeding labour market participation also dealing with personal, education and professional previous choices or externally caused (economic crisis) Tackling aggregated individual problems (relational and aggregated perspective on employability) at a individual level
Locus of responsibility Defines the extent of actors’ involvement and expected responsibilities	Responsibility lays on individuals as they have to repair for the lack of competitiveness (Walther and Pohl 2007/Dif-Pradalier et al 2012)	Responsibility shared among individuals, institutions and the society	Responsibility shared among individuals, institutions and the society
Conception of the individual At the basis of the information collected and used to judge people’s situation and position to their definition of employability	Maximising utility in the short term (neoclassical perspective: work as a disutility) and thus victim of moral hazard and dependent on benefits Passive recipients of activation measure, expected to comply with what has been prescribed Culture of poverty of the underclass	Maximising utility in the longer term and reaping economic returns from increased skills S/he is expected to value education and training in a logic of life-long learning Well-being freedom and no agency freedom. Informed actor Promoting lifelong learning	Achieving what /he she values in terms of agency and being (capability for work) Considered as a person with “thick needs” and an elaborated conception of the good that need to be supported Considered capable of practical reasoning Intrinsic and instrumental role of work Agency freedom
	INSTRUMENTS AND IMPLEMENTATION
Intervention model Use of tools implementing individualised employability programmes, shaped by employability conceptualisation and organisational framework (constraints and opportunities)	Short-term training; intense job search Low cost intervention by unit focus on immediate activity; standardised practices especially via computerisation lack of autonomy of service delivers strong conditionality of monetary benefits	formal entitlement supporting long-term training; integrated with other social services (education and health); individual job-coaching (job search and personal working development plan) use of ITC tools to monitor performance of training and skills acquisition	formal entitlement supporting the enrolment on long-term and quality training (leading to recognised qualifications or even general education/not strictly work-oriented); integrated and coordinated with different social services (psychological/health-related); attention to people’s needs of WLB and career aspirations Sufficient amount and duration throughout transitions period
Use of tools and relationship with individuals Creating and providing material and immaterial resources/factors of conversion and instrumental freedom TECHNOLOGY OF AGENCY (DEAN)	Extensive use of sanctions and sanction used to incentive the take up of available jobs Often use of a contract not negotiable and with limited options Low discretion and strongly standardised/bureaucratisation Positive views about ICT and computerisation of practices (as it increases monitoring and lowers transaction) Paternalistic approach; Lack of time for dealing with coaching due to huge workload of front-line workers	Encourages participation by demonstrating benefits of high quality opportunities Trust-related approach and more flexible use of training opportunities Recipients are considered as clients	No actual use (or very limited) of sanction Encourage participation by demonstrating benefits to the person (long-term) project. Trust-related approach/partnership Negotiated contracts between institutions and the recipient based mutual engagements that keep into account the power relationships between individuals and service delivers action plans that set reversible objectives capability for voice Informed recipients
Institutions involved Expanding or limiting the network of services where recipients can find complementary resources and opportunity for capability expansion.	No established or long-term collaboration with other institutions providing other types of services. Might have collaboration with private companies/agencies/NGOs dealing with job search and short training activities. Strong top-down approach and objective and performance-oriented management. Pressure on local agent for meeting performance target (rate of return in the labour market) No integrated policies among employment services	Cooperation with other institutions usually locally based which provide different services Trainings are usually shaped according to market needs	Cooperation with other institutions usually locally based which provide different services Possibility to easily create new partnerships so as to answer people’s training/social and personal need No constraints from top-down or internal performance targets. If they exist they have an monitoring and not sanctioning use
Relationships with the labour market Relational and relative perspective of employability	Financial top-ups to incentive job entry (make work pay) Focused on short-term skills needs in the market Regular market is preferred Macro perspective : strong accent on supply-side intervention for fostering employability without intervening directly on the demand side (with investments)	Financial incentive to companies guarantee on-the-job training or job coaching for people in training (collaboration for setting up training)	Financial incentive to companies guarantee on-the-job training or job coaching for people in training (collaboration for setting up training) Providing sheltered employment opportunities if necessary Employers are often involved in providing access to professional or training activities (“intern”/training)
Time perspective	Short time perspective both in terms of service provided and benefit duration	Medium to long time perspective (forward looking)	Time perspective depending on people’s needs and aspiration (forward looking)
EMPLOYABILITY	Market/functional employability	Fostering employability	Enabling employability