Re-skill People to Re-think Structural Change
Creators: name: Aichroth, Laura
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: Other Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Sociology
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences

description: Motivation: Why do we care? Economically speaking, we humans are doing better than ever before. At the same time the humanistic extremes such as rich and poor or healthy and sick are moving further and further apart (United Nations, 2020). The pursuit of economic growth and more materialism has numerous negative consequences for the environment, society and individuals. This is why we are facing major and complex challenges that we can only solve, if each individual makes a positive contribution (Messerli et al., 2019). Problem: What problem are we trying to solve? What is the scope of our work? On the one hand, the current Covid 19 pandemic highlights some major challenges, but on the other hand, this external need for adjustment can be seen as an opportunity to help more people do more good. For example, certain industries such as aviation or hospitality are structurally affected by the crisis, forcing companies such as TUI, Condor or Lufthansa to make mass layoffs. So how can we manage to avoid a further increase in the unemployment rate (Federal Statistical Office (Switzerland), 2020; State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, 2021) and at the same time help people to get jobs that fulfill them and match their intrinsic values, thus increasing the overall well-being and well-doing? Approach: How do we go about solving or making progress on the problem? Matching people with fulfilling jobs, a state, companies and individuals benefit alike: (1) A state aims to have full-employment, which contains to have people in jobs and to have the right people in the right jobs (Elsby et al., 2014). Furthermore, a state strives to mitigate existential risks and maximize well-doing. (2) Companies aim for highly qualified and intrinsically motivated employees, as they are a company's most valuable asset and one of the most important predictors of business success (Andela &amp; van der Doef, 2019; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). They also strive for a low turnover rate in order to reduce costs and knowledge loss. (3) Individuals aim to have a job that suits their personal interests, needs and skills. Thus, leading to a higher well-being and physical and mental health (Chuang et al., 2015; Seligman, 2018). Results: What's the answer? In order to address those challenges, four strategic parties collaborate by setting up a career-advice-system: the University of St. Gallen as an education and training partner, Lionstep as a job matching platform, companies having to lay off employees and companies seeking for skilled employees implemented the so-called Re-Skilling-Program. The Re-Skilling Program started in April 2021 with the aim of retraining, supporting and advising employees who have lost their jobs in order to qualify them for suiting open positions at other companies. The program with all interventions and measurements is designed to have a career-advice system (1) which mitigates potential unemployment to strengthen long term well-being, (2) which supports suitable person-job-fits and person-organization-fits to reduce skill-gaps and lower fluctuation, and (3) which enhances the internal values by at least 10% to bring people to jobs that suit their personality. Conclusions: What are the implications of your answer? By starting the Re-Skilling-Program and measuring subjective well-being, the aspiration index, person-job, and person-organization-fit, we will have a chance to implement and adopt a career-advice-system, that structurally supports (1) states, (2) companies and (3) people to overcome obstacles and thereby make society more resilient to adopt to change and increase long term well-being and well-doing.