Employment Competence

The final goal of almost all rehabilitation-oriented training and educational initiatives historically has been employment. At its most basic, this is based on the fact that integration into the labor market was seen as the most effective way for those with experience of disability to be recognized as skilled and competent people in their own right who should be treated accordingly. Labor market integration was seen as the most effective and long-lasting solution to the inclusion of those with disabilities on an equal basis to mainstream society. The focus on work, appropriate job skills and employment related behaviors this became central to service provision and strategic planning for integration of those with disabilities into society.

Work is central to our lives: it gives us a sense of purpose and identity as well as providing an income to meet the costs of living and human material needs. Work is one of the main ways we relate to others. It is both an individual responsibility and a social activity, frequently involving collaboration in a team or group setting. Work and recognized employment is a source of dignity and fulfilment. But it can also be a source of exploitation and frustration. For families and communities, the availability of decent work is a foundation for stability and social advancement.

Low employment levels for people with disabilities been a major concern for policy makers, professionals, and people with disabilities themselves for many years. While statistics vary (depending on type of disability, education, age and other factors), the overall employment rate has hovered around 30 percent for over the past two decades. In the United States, despite expectations that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would expand employment opportunities, the percentage employed has actually dropped significantly since the Act was implemented in 1991. While the causes for lower employment levels is debated, at least some of the reason may be continuing prejudice about disability by those in mainstream society. Another factor is the dramatic change in the nature of work due to other factors, including advanced technologies.

Timmons et al (2011)1 used qualitative interviews with people with intellectual disabilities, their families, job coaches and others to determine factors influencing choosing employment in the community. This study also found that the people and systems working with the person with an intellectual disability powerfully influenced choices and ability to work in the community. Family served as key role model encouraging people with disabilities to work and stressing the importance of work. Teachers often provided the first opportunity for people with IDD to work, but the study noted that connections between teachers and the employment system were weak and needed significant improvement. Comparing the activities of NGOs serving people with disabilities and employers, the study found that the agency philosophy significantly influenced when and where people worked, regardless of their own choices.

Agencies focusing on community employment moved people into competitive employment more quickly. Finally, ability to form social relations with co- workers influenced successfully maintaining employment as well as willingness to leave sheltered workshops.

A common feature of services for students with disabilities in Europe is the separation between health, social services and education functions and responsibilities. Much of the more recent literature focuses on the problem of co-ordination and the difficulties families face in assessing services and co-ordinating all the supports. Historically uni-disciplinary pathways of care have been used in most European countries. The need now is to examine how employment oriented dimensions can enable inclusion and produce a cohesive and integrated educational system that centres on the range of needs of the students concerned.

Successful employment is a co-adaption process where the person with disabilities and others in the workplace develop an ongoing adaptation process. The goal is social integration – mutual adjustment between persons with disabilities and those around them. Focusing on people with developmental disabilities, a group with more severe and visible disabilities than those in the self-efficacy studies, researchers found that co-adaption mostly involved adjustment from their colleagues. Adjustment involved discovering the strengths and strategies for success that worked for those with disabilities. This research suggests that environmental factors like workplace understanding of disability and willingness to accommodate remain important, regardless of personal attributes. This also highlights the importance of job placement in employment outcomes. They also show that availability of benefits such as health insurance and input from health providers influence employment outcomes.

In such a context, the context of actually existing employment conditions – as opposed to job skills seen in abstract terms – must be borne in mind as a factor impacting employability as understood in real and concrete terms. The ability to cut costs, maintain increased production rates and maintain competitiveness may tend to dominate all commercial thinking and forward planning. When the imperative is to survive from day to day, most companies can find issues around learning, inclusion, staff qualifications and innovation either esoteric or irrelevant. It is suggested that the role of the employer is to marshal economic and productive activity to meaningful social ends. In this sense, employment can become participation in profitable activities; profitable to all social stakeholders and not just shareholders. Work itself, in this sense, goes beyond the mere provision of jobs to the creation of value - in both economic and social senses.

Learning, in the employment context, is most effectively understood when positively linked with:

- Creativity
- Problem resolution
- Change management
- Diversity and inclusion
- Improved communications.

Employers who have seen learning as more than skill-specific training have been able to benefit from the extraordinary potential of new and diverse elements in their workforces. This has meant that the voyage of discovery around learning has become centrally linked to the strategic learning needs of the employers concerned. The learning of the organization is tied directly to the learning needs of each and every employee. Employers and organizations who see only cost implications in the provision of work-based learning are, at the least, missing out on the extraordinary potential of thinking and acting in different ways.

Innovation is literally doing what has not been done before. It calls for considerable creativity for employers to develop innovative practices. It is often a veritable leap into the unknown. Yet all the evidence is that the companies who achieve success do so because they are doing something new - or something old in a new way. Innovation is not about market gimmicks. It is about products and skills that emerge from new ways of organization and human creativity. Innovation is based upon learning from the past as much as about anticipating the needs of the future.

Enterprises are becoming more aware that they need to become both more flexible and more responsive to their external environments. The dynamic of work-based learning offers not just the opportunity to meet minimum obligations to staff. It offers an opportunity to maximize and sustain profitable enterprise that benefits the entire community.

Defining employability rests therefore on the context in which employment currently operates in our society. In a time of increasing casualization, erosion of legal guarantees and the emergence of a high-technology driven gig economy, traditional understanding of employment is severely challenged. The skills that make an individual employable were traditionally centered around job specific skills as articulated through good social skills, good communication skills, ability to interact, show initiative and function socially in mutually supportive ways. Traditional NGOs and service providers instilled such skills in their clients hoping that their evident operation in sheltered employment contexts, for example, would translate into the world of competitive employment. This conceptualization has been seriously challenged by the impact of automation, technology and casualization.

The DeSeCo programme (OECD, 2000) identified four analytical elements of key competences:

1) They are multifunctional
2) They are transversal across social fields
3) They refer to a higher order of mental complexity, which includes an active, reflective and responsible approach to life
4) They are multi-dimensional, incorporating know-how, analytical, critical, creative and communication skills, as well as common sense.

The European Commission identified eight key competences in 2008 (Key Competences for Lifelong Learning) that citizens require for their personal fulfillment, social inclusion, active citizenship and employability in our knowledge-based society. These key competences are:

1) Communication in the mother tongue
2) Communication in foreign languages
3) Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology
4) Digital competence
5) Learning to learn
6) Social and civic competences
7) Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship
8) Cultural awareness and expression.

This forms a new basis to approach employability and to gauge its importance in meaningful and sustainable inclusion. This will contribute to the development of creativity, adaptation to rapidly changing circumstances, intercultural and multilingual competences, social development, “learning to learn” competence and an improved perception of one’s own capacity to solve problems. For those with Intellectual disabilities it is a powerful tool divorced from traditional linear approaches to “job readiness”. Competence based learning requires an approach to education that differs from the traditional approaches to teaching. The emphasis is less on transferring knowledge. In competence based education the emphasis is on rich learning environments that enable students to engage in meaningful learning processes.

The most distinctive features of this approach may be summarized as follows:
- Meaningful contexts
- Multidisciplinary approach
- Constructive learning
- Cooperative, interactive learning (with peers, teachers and trainers)
- Discovery learning
- Reflective learning
- Personal learning

This is the new paradigm of employability, reflecting in real and meaningful ways the world or work and the future challenges emerging therein. Employability can be envisaged as a multi-faceted personality trait. After all, it is the individual whose suitability for a job is assessed - defined as a set of skills, knowledge, and personal characteristics that makes graduates more likely to find work and succeed in their chosen fields, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community, and the economy.

Relational Competence
- Interpersonal skills
- Communication techniques
- Personal competences

A critical issue in the independent social functioning of any person with intellectual disability is the ability to relate in appropriate, equal and mutually satisfying ways to others. The shaping of social identity is at the core of those interpersonal skills which enable and sustain viable social intercourse and the construction of social identity. All personal identity is itself shaped by how individuals relate to each other. This interactive environment shapes us as humans and shapes the culture of which we are all part. Conceptual practical skills include communication, numeracy, academic skills, and self-direction, while social skills include social responsibility, self-esteem, interpersonal skills and social problem solving

Students with disabilities have traditionally been under-represented in educational systems through a combination of segregated structures, low educational expectations and a lack of needed supports. Although many significant developments have taken place on an international basis to harness and adopt inclusive education, reforms in many areas are needed and this remains very challenging for many EU Member States.

When considering the definition of communication skills, it's important to remember that communication occurs in many different ways and contexts. From writing and speaking to body language, we use various skills to convey and obtain information. However, demonstrating strong communication skills is about being able to convey information to others in a simple and unambiguous way. It involves the distribution of messages clearly and concisely, in a way that connects with the audience. Good communication is about understanding instructions, acquiring new skills, making requests, asking questions and relaying information with ease. Good communication skills are perhaps the most basic skills that you can possess as an employee, yet they remain one of the most sought-after by employers. Good communication involves understanding requests, asking questions and relaying key information.

According to American professors Brian Spitzberg and William Cupach, who together developed the model for communication competence in the 1980s, competence has three parts. First is motivation, or the desire and reasons for approaching communication. Highly-competent people tend to actively seek conversations and social situations in which to communicate. They also have clear goals with respect to their communication and are often confident in those goals. The second part of communication competence is knowledge, or understanding how to act. Even if you want to communicate, you can't unless you understand cultural guidelines for communication. Some cultures are formal; some are informal. Some shake hands, some bow, and some put a lot of emphasis on using hand gestures to communicate. Understanding how to interact is an essential part of good communication. The third part of competent communication is skill, which means the ability to perform appropriate behavior. So you once you know how to act, you can put that into practice, provided you have the skills.

There are specific things to do that can improve communication skills:
 
1.  Listen, listen, listen. People want to know that they are being heard. Relational competence is about intense listening to what the other person is saying, instead of formulating responses. Ask for clarification to avoid misunderstandings.
2.  Who you are talking to matters. Effective communicators target their message based on who they are speaking to, so try to keep the other person in mind, when trying to get the message across.
3.  Body language matters. This is important for face-to-face meetings and video conferencing. Make sure to appear accessible, so have open body language.
4.  Check your message before you hit send. Spell checkers are lifesavers, but they are not foolproof. Double check what you have written, to make sure that words communicate the intended message.
5.  Be brief, yet specific. provide enough information for the other person to understand what you are trying to say.
6.  Write things down. Take notes while you are talking to others or when you are in a meeting, and do not rely on your memory.
7.  Sometimes pick up the phone. If there is a lot to say, instead of email, call the person instead.
8.  Think before you speak. Always pause before speaking, not saying the first thing that comes to mind. Pay close attention to what you say and how you say it.
9.  Treat everyone equally. Do not talk down to anyone, treating everyone with respect.
10.  Maintain a positive attitude and smile.

Being able to relate to others, to understand their needs and expectations, to have some insight into the feelings of others is the foundation of effective relationships. We are all social beings. And just as we want our respect from others and our personal needs understood, it often starts with being able to link that to how we respond to the respect for others and meeting their needs which defines our social competence. This is the bedrock for developing relationships with other individuals, environments and society in general.

Personal Competence
- Self determination
- Empowerment
- Personal autonomy Future planning
- Creativity

Social inclusion and participation in educational provision can provide a dynamic synergy of perspectives and possibilities. But the challenges should not be underestimated. Social inclusion cannot be tacked on as a well-meaning cosmetic aspect to otherwise fully market-driven course provision. Social inclusion cannot be seen as a token gesture around formal notions of social responsibility. Rather these must become the warp and woof of all course provision where the thinking, methodology and principles of social inclusion inform all aspects of the organization’s life and practice.

Part of this inclusionary dynamic will be to find newer and more innovative ways to include those who would normally be excluded from educational provision. Another part would be to ensure that all courses reflect an understanding of the inequalities and disparities present in our society from the outset. Closely connected to this should be an ever-deepening awareness of the nature and extent of diversity in our society. This applies to the diversity that has always existed as well as to the newer forms of diversity that have become apparent in recent years.

Personal competence is needed for individuals to have a sure sense of their needs and a strong sense of their own self-worth. This sense of personal capacity is based on a wide range of factors. It involves the ability to self-reflect, take corrective actions when required, the skill to empathize with others and to respond appropriately to requests for help. It is a form of established self-awareness which is balanced, honest and authentic. And this heightened level of self-awareness promotes good and positive relationships with others. It also gives a solid foundation to personal growth and development in the context of individual (or even group) empowerment.

Empowerment is a process that challenges our assumptions about the way things are and can be. It challenges our basic assumptions about power, helping, achieving, and succeeding. To begin to demystify the concept of empowerment, we need to understand the concept broadly in order to be clear about how and why we narrow our focus of empowerment for specific programs and projects (specific dimension or level, etc.) and to allow discussion of empowerment across disciplinary and practice lines.

At the core of the concept of empowerment is the idea of power. The possibility of empowerment depends on two things. First, empowerment requires that power can change. If power cannot change, if it is inherent in positions or people, then empowerment is not possible, nor is empowerment conceivable in any meaningful way. In other words, if power can change, then empowerment is possible. Second, the concept of empowerment depends upon the idea that power can expand. This second point reflects our common experiences of power rather than how we think about power. 

Empowerment is a construct shared by many disciplines and arenas: community development, psychology, education, economics, and studies of social movements and organizations, among others. How empowerment is understood varies among these perspectives. In recent empowerment literature, the meaning of the term empowerment is often assumed rather than explained or defined. We see this inclusive individual and collective understanding of empowerment as crucial in programs with empowerment as a goal. It is in the critical transition, or interconnection, between the individual and the communal, or social, that programs or initiatives can be invaluable for people and communities.

Autonomy, the freedom to choose how to accomplish tasks, is shown to have positive impact on individual creativity. The literature suggests that this positive effect is mediated by intrinsic motivation. It may seem reasonable to assume that autonomy would benefit team creativity as well. However, the literature does not provide consistent support for this latter notion. Individual autonomy and team autonomy are distinguished. Task interdependence and team level creative self-efficacy are proposed to moderate the effects of individual and team autonomy on team creativity.

Personal competence is about individuals being able to grow, to express themselves, to develop an engagement as equals with the external environment in which they are valued and respected.