ABSTRACT

The conceptual complexity of employability remains a barrier for its integration into discipline-based curricula. In the health professions, a particular challenge lies in integrating employability with the dominant paradigms of competency and professionalism. In this study, we explore these contextual challenges, and present the rationale and conceptual basis for a potential re-framing of employability within the context of this discipline group. We propose a novel definition and a conceptual model of employability better aligned to the needs of health professions. While employability has proven difficult to define broadly, it is framed around the expectations of both the employer and employee, thus may be viewed as a mutual transaction of expectations, which is most sustainable when all are optimally satisfied. Given that most work contexts involve multiple stakeholders, employability is defined here from an individual’s perspective as their capacity to sustainably satisfy the optimal balance of all stakeholder demands and expectations in a work context, including their own. We draw upon a scan of the literature and evidence from one health profession, veterinary science (including re-analysis of comments from a stakeholder survey), to inform a conceptual model of employability for these contexts. We propose employability is only partly comprised of skills and knowledge (human capital), and more of psychological capital spanning approaches to work, approaches to self, and approaches to others. The expectations underpinning employability are partly oriented to the work itself, and partly to the human interactions supporting it; partly to efficacy and partly to sustainability. These principles establish a matrix of five domains: effective practice, productive relationships, professional commitment, and psychological resources, plus a central element of reflective identity representing the fundamental growth process of self-awareness and identity formation. By this conception, employability is complementary to, but readily integrated with, outcomes frameworks such as competency and professionalism.

摘要

就业能力的概念复杂性仍然是其融入学科课程的障碍。在卫生专业中，一个特殊的挑战在于将就业能力与主要的能力和专业范式结合起来。在这项研究中，我们探讨了这些背景挑战，并提出了在该学科组背景下可能重新构建就业能力的基本原理和概念基础。我们提出了一个新的定义和就业能力的概念模型，更好地符合卫生专业的需求。虽然就业能力已被证明难以广泛定义，但它是围绕雇主和雇员的期望构建的，因此可以被视为期望的相互交易，当所有人都得到最佳满足时，这是最可持续的。鉴于大多数工作环境涉及多个利益相关者，这里从个人的角度将就业能力定义为他们在工作环境中可持续满足所有利益相关者需求和期望的最佳平衡的能力，包括他们自己的。我们利用对一个卫生专业、兽医学（包括对利益相关者调查评论的重新分析）的文献和证据的扫描，为这些背景下的就业能力概念模型提供信息。我们提出就业能力仅部分由技能和知识（人力资本）组成，更多的是跨越工作方式、自我方式和他人方式的心理资本。支撑就业能力的期望部分是针对工作本身的，部分是针对支持它的人际互动的；部分是为了功效，部分是为了可持续性。这些原则建立了五个领域的矩阵：有效的实践、富有成效的关系、专业承诺和心理资源，以及反映自我意识和身份形成的基本成长过程的反思身份的核心要素。根据这个概念，就业能力是对能力和专业精神等成果框架的补充，但很容易与之结合。