Geographies of Work and Employability: A Critical Discussion

Critically discuss the geographies of work and employability produced through attempts to order work and workers Assessment Instructions This assessment encourages you to reflect on broader theoretical debates in the geographies of work and employability. You will complete this assignment in one of two ways: If you are successful in securing placement(s) you will reflect upon the module content in relation to your own experiences of the workplace.

If you are unsuccessful in securing a placement you will complete it by critically reflecting on the relevant module content ‘in theory’. The marking criteria remain the same for either version, the key to success being detailed critical engagement with relevant academic debates on work and employability.

This assessment encourages you to reflect on broader theoretical debates in the geographies of work and employability.

You will complete this assignment in one of two ways: If you are successful in securing placement(s) you will reflect upon the module content in relation to your own experiences of the workplace. If you are unsuccessful in securing a placement you will complete it by critically reflecting on the relevant module content ‘in theory’. The marking criteria remain the same for either version, the key to success being detailed critical engagement with relevant academic debates on work and employability.

Potential topics for reflection include (but are not limited to):

What skills, knowledges and dispositions does the contemporary knowledge/ service worker need to possess? (Week 2, Week 7) What hard and soft skills do employers require you to possess and to what extent does work experience facilitate the learning of these? What is expected in a given workplace setting and how do we learn what is expected? How many different roles/ dispositions are required to be learnt – e.g. how ‘flexible’ and ‘adaptive’ do we need to be? What happens if we don’t naturally possess those dispositions? (Week 7)
How do the hard and soft skills learnt through work experience fit with processes of vocational ideation? (Week 1)
How important are ‘soft’ skills and embodiments in becoming employable and demonstrating professionalism? Have such skills/ embodiments become less important in the current climate of home working? What challenges does homeworking pose to trying to develop and demonstrate such aspects of professionalism? (Week 7)
What kinds of non-monetary value do we gain from work experience and volunteering, and what kinds of tasks facilitate or impede its attainment? (Week 3)
To what extent do requirements to volunteer or gain work experience in the context of higher education employability agendas reshape the value of such experiences? (Week 3,4)
How does social identity shape the process of securing and experience of a placement? How does social identity constrain or facilitate securing a placement? To what extent does it shape the type, length, location and experience of placement? (Week 3,4,6)
How are expectations around gender, age, generation, ability, class, ethnicity experienced and negotiated in the workplace? How does status as a young or older worker influence the kinds of work you are expected to engage in and your remuneration? To what extent are tasks allocated based on assumptions around age, impairment, gender or ethnicity (e.g assumptions about what you can do, should enjoy etc), rather than your skills and knowledge? How does age frame the extent to which we know and claim rights in the workplace? (Week 6)
What techniques of surveillance and control are used to ensure that workers are productive? How do these vary across job sectors? What roles and dispositions do these strategies attempt to specify and produce? What forms of management, conformity and resistance are exhibited in different areas of the workplace? How important are these, for example in giving respite from a constant ‘employee’ performance, but also in teaching us about appropriate performance – pedagogies of organisational culture? (Week 8)
To what extent have strategies of control and surveillance changed due to the advent of home working? How for example do we perform ‘being busy’ or engaged in the context of home working? (Week 8)
How important is it that our values as workers align with those of the employing organisation (for example what are the potential impacts on productivity, wellbeing, staff retention)? How much influence do individuals and organisations have to shape the values of the other and what strategies doe they employ? (Week 9)

Learning Outcomes assessed

Identify central elements of the career planning and graduate recruitment process in relation to graduate employability
Identify and develop key employability skills and knowledge (competence), reflect on areas requiring development, and articulate these in verbal and written forms (e.g. through CV writing, Personal Development Planning and interview)
Assess the impact of recent shifts in educational and industrial policy on different social groups and the experience of Higher Education.
Analyse and reflect on some of the strategies, representations and materialities through which work and workers are idealised and managed both within and outside the workplace and university.

In addition, this assessment will help you develop the following skills and aptitudes:

Use case study material and data to explore, illustrate and test theoretical propositions
Encourage reflection regarding personal identity and social position in the labour market
Analyse sources of inequality in the workplace and critically assess ways in which they can be transformed and reproduced
Identify and evaluate links between social, cultural, political and economic phenomena and geographical distributions

Transferable:

Make links between abstract theoretical knowledge and everyday life
Develop reasoned arguments, both orally and in written form, and demonstrate the ability to critically assess and evaluate evidence and claims
Write clearly and competently, and make reflective comments upon topics learned
Develop time management, interpersonal, planning and self-promotional skills

Values/attitudes:

Being a reflective practitioner who is able to identify the skills and knowledge they are acquiring during their placement and the skills and knowledge that need further development.
Develop and reflect upon personal values and goals in relation to wider political, economic and technological shifts.
Develop an active sense of self through and understand sources of inequality in local and global labour markets

Employability: