VET News

Taking a Look at the Other Side of the Coin

While skills development has long been a focus of policy-makers, ensuring the use of those skills has received much less attention. Skills utilisation, however, is a key component of workforce development, leading to increased productivity, higher levels of staff satisfaction and retention, and maximising the return on investment in skills development.

This report investigates skill underutilisation in Australian workers by examining patterns of over-skilling and over-qualification and the pathways of people into jobs where they are over-skilled. It also examines what businesses are doing, if anything, to maximise skill usage. The research finds that around 19% of workers report that they are not using all their skills at work. Around 35% of workers are over-qualified, potentially contributing to this level of skill underutilisation. It also finds that while employers value the concept of skills usage, there are higher priorities, such as skills development.

The executive summary looks into the following aspects of the report:

• Skills utilisation valued by employers, but there are other priorities
• Employer understanding about skills utilisation depends on the sector and type of job
• Some employees report they are not using al of their skills in their jobs
• Pathways into 'overskilled' or 'overqualified' jobs
• The potential for government or other supports to increase skills utilisation

Key messages:

• Around 19% of Australian workers report that they are not using all of their skills at work. About 35% of workers are overqualified, potentially contributing to this level of skill underutilisation.
• The likelihood and perceived importance of skills utilisation appears dependent on the type of job held. High-skilled, complex jobs provide more opportunity for workers to draw on a broader range of their skills than low-skilled jobs.
• Employers in the early childhood education and care sector believed that all employees were using their skills. Analysis of HILDA data, however, showed that around 16% of workers in selected occupations from that sector reported they were not using all of their skills.- Employers in the manufacturing sector were less confident that employees were using all of their skills, depending on the specific occupations considered. The HILDA Survey shows that around 14% of workers in selected manufacturing occupations report that they are not using all of their skills, with the highest level being metal engineering process workers (31.3%).
• Employers believe that skills utilisation is important for staff satisfaction and retention, but there were very few formal mechanisms in place in the case study organisations for understanding workers’ skills and ensuring their optimal usage. Where mechanisms were used, they tended to be aimed at understanding skills needs, rather than ensuring skills utilisation.
• Employers were unsure whether support from government (or other bodies) would help them to be more active in utilising the skills of their employees. There was no sense that the lack of such support was the reason why these organisations were not addressing skills utilisation more actively. Instead, most turned the conversation towards skills development, including interest in financial support for training, which they see as higher priority.

Read more about the report.

Download the full report.

Date posted Nov 18, 2021