An example of the Gender-Based Undervaluation Approach
The Spotlight skill taxonomy identifies and systematises an understanding of specific categories of skills that are invisible, in some cased even to workers themselves, because their use is hidden, under-defined, under-specified or under-codified.
Recognition of these skills may indicate the need to re-assess job size in terms of the required range, intensity and complexity of skill demand, level of responsibility and conditions of work. Skills likely to be under-recognised are of the following types:
- Hidden skills — Drawing attention to the use of certain skills may undermine their effectiveness when tact, discretion, subtlety or behind-the-scenes negotiation are necessary to avert embarrassment, foster independence, or ensure that work flows smoothly.
- Under-defined skills — Some interactive human service work, as well as cultural and aesthetic work, may require a range, concentration and complexity of non-verbal skills. Tacit knowledge may be shared by modelling and imitation, or embedded in memory and muscles through practice. Contextual awareness may involve the skills of quickly picking up on the elusive significance of non-verbal cues and rapid situational change.
- Under-specified skills — The concept of ‘emotional labour’ embraces a range of skills (often misdescribed as ‘soft skills’) but teamwork and interaction may require skilled emotion management, reflection, self-regulation and insight to ensure psychological and cultural safety.
- Under-codified skills — These are the integrative skills used in managing transitions between activities and in multi-tasking. Work activities are interwoven amongst colleagues to create an overall workflow. Integrative skills allow job holders to appear to do several things at once, by rapidly sequencing, switching and combining activities, modifying and adapting actions, even in the midst of carrying them out, thinking back to purposes and ahead to outcomes. The skills of maintaining a group work process across time and space involve the collective ability to interweave multiple and cross-cutting lines of work, following through, and rectifying breakdowns. The term ‘articulation work’ is applied to work using these skills.
The Spotlight taxonomy was developed on the basis of an understanding that skill under-recognition is likely to be a source of undervaluation. The gender basis of under-recognition, and hence of under-valuation, is likely to be linked to historical divisions of paid and unpaid labour and the emergence of the service economy.
The Spotlight taxonomic framework
Categories of commonly under-reported skills, and their elements, are defined at five levels through which skills are extended or deepened on the basis of life and work experience.
The Spotlight skill levels
| Orienting | Fluently performing | Solving new problems as they arise | Sharing solutions/Applying expertise | Expertly creating systems |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building experience through practice, reflection and learning to work with others | Applying experience in a practiced and self-reliant way | Providing resourceful solutions to problems as they arise in the course of work activity | Sharing developed expertise with colleagues or team | Embedding new solutions in work processes |
Examples of work activities enabled by each skill at each skill level (illustrative only)
| Orienting | Fluently performing | Solving new problems as they arise | Sharing solutions/Applying expertise | Expertly creating systems | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A: Contextualising/Building and shaping awareness | |||||
| A1 Sense contexts or situations | Map unfamiliar job contexts | Consistently monitor job contexts and situations | Solve unfamiliar problems in interpreting contexts | Share new approaches to interpreting situations | Set up shared processes for monitoring contexts |
| A2 Monitor and guide reactions | Learn to monitor & guide own and others’ reactions | Consistently monitor and fluently guide own and others’ reactions | Solve new problems in monitoring and guiding reactions | Share solutions to monitoring and guiding own and others’ reactions | Introduce new approaches to monitoring and guiding reactions |
| A3 Judge impacts | Learn to judge impacts | Consistently judge impacts | Solve unfamiliar problems in judging impacts | Share solutions to judging impacts | Establish new methods for evaluating impacts |
| B: Connecting/Interacting and relating | |||||
| B1 Negotiate boundaries | Find ways to negotiate work roles and boundaries | Negotiate work roles and boundaries effectively | Resourcefully solve problems in/by negotiating roles & boundaries | Share solutions in/by negotiating role boundaries | Implement shared processes for negotiating role boundaries |
| B2 Communicate verbally and non-verbally | Learn effective methods of verbal & non-verbal communication | Effectively communicate, verbally and non-verbally | Solve problems of/by effective verbal and non-verbal communication | Share solutions for effective verbal and non-verbal communication | Implement shared approaches to communication or relationship-building |
| B3 Connect across diverse cultures and communities | Learn to communicate across cultures | Communicate effectively across cultures | Solve problems of inter-cultural communication | Share solutions for inter-cultural communication | Establish systems for building inter-cultural relationships |
| C: Coordinating | |||||
| C1 Sequence and combine activities | Develop methods for organising your own work | Fluently link up your own tasks into a smooth work process | Solve new problems in scheduling and managing own work | Share new approaches to organising personal work roles | Create or improve systematic approaches to integrating individual work activities |
| C2 Interweave one’s activities with others’ | Develop ways of linking into the overall workflow | Interweave your activities fluently with those of colleagues | Solve problems in/by interweaving your activities with those of others | Share approaches to interweaving individual & team work sequences | Create or improve systematic approaches to integrating team work activities |
| C3 Maintain or restore workflow | Learn approaches to preventing/dealing with disruptions | Deal fluently with potential or actual workflow disruptions | Solve problems in maintaining/restoring workflow | Contribute to shared approaches to stabilising workflow | Create systems for stabilising workflow |