ICT skills training and employment outcomes in Washington State | A brief note on the methodology

A couple of blogs ago, I briefly described the project we are working on in Washington State. We surveyed people who participated in ICT skills training between 2007-2008 at the organizations we selected in Washington State (NGOs, One-Stop shops, and Community Colleges). In total, we have 464 people in our sample representing five metropolitan areas in the State: Seattle, Spokane, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, and to a lesser extent Tacoma. Most of the people who responded to our survey have a high school diploma (42%), the rest continued to either 2 year (26%) or 4 year college (22%). The vast majority are women with an average age of 48 years old.

As in any other research, there are many limitations in this study that are worth discussing even if briefly. In the spirit of transparency and open research, the main limitations follow:

• The sample is not representative of the population in Washington State nor it represents the universe of people that benefit from the services provided at these organizations
• The ICT skills training, although basic, is designed and implemented in different ways and it varies in lenght, content, and teaching/learning approach.
• People were asked in the survey to self-assess their ICT skills level
• The motivations of trainees are very different (some enroll in the training by choice, others are required due to unemployment insurance benefits)

With this in mind, we confront the first research question head on: Did ICT skills training improve the employment opportunities of the people in our study? Did they find employment after the training, and if so, what can help us explain this positive outcome?

Where is all the hype about ICT skills and employability coming from? | or setting up the context

All the hype is coming from a trend researchers labeled "skilled-biased technological change". This trend, they argue, is being fueled by the increased diffusion of ICT across economic sectors combined with changes at the organizational level. This techno organizational changes are increasing the complexity of jobs, and thus, placing new demands in workers skills. Under this framework, low-skilled workers are in danger of been "crowded-out" of the labor market or trapped in dead end and low wage jobs since they do not have the skills required to perform under this new workplace environment*.

The penetration of ICT in a variety of economic activities is not only cutting across sectors, but also, across different types of jobs. Once, those basic ICT skills commonly assumed to be an entry ticket for getting a job in IT-intensive industries today they are becoming increasingly important for traditional sectors such as agriculture, construction, micro-entrepreneurship, to name a few. This trend is not only visible across sectors, but also across business hierarchies and different types of job positions. In many countries, particularly developed but increasingly in developing ones, ICT-related occupations represent twenty to thirty percent of the total national employment share with ICT specialists accounting for three to four percent, and jobs requiring basic ICT skills accounting for the rest**.

In addition to ICT, there are different skills required for the labor market today. Communication skills, team work, collaboration, critical thinking, decision-making, social skills, are among the skills most often mentioned by employers. However, in this basket of skills ICT skills play a unique role and it is worth discussing. ICT skills are not only valuable as a skills on their own right - you know the basics of how to operate a computer, some software, and perhaps some office applications - but also as catalyst to improve or further develop the other skills mentioned above.

Are ICT skills more important than the other skills? It really depends on the job requirements, depends on how basic are the computer skills of the individual, and depends on who do you compete with when looking for a job. So, ICT skills are one among many skills that is clear! Are basic ICT skills relevant for employability? Absolutely but we can't isolate the contribution of these skills from other confounding factors that determine the ability of a person to find a job. Previous job experience, portability of your skill-set, demands for your skill-set in the labor market, the availability of affordable training to improve your skill-set, personal context, all play a role. But it is futile to try to paint a fully comprehensive picture of what helped an individual to find a job. Too many variables and very difficult to generalize.

A more valuable intellectual exercise is to eat the pie piece by piece with the caveats that this approach may generate. So we start with the first piece of pie: ICT skills training and employment. Employment (binary, you are employed or unemployed) is not the same as Employability (a process)

* See for further elaboration: de Grip & Zwick (2005) "The employability of low-skilled workers in the knowledge economy"
** See OECD Information Technology Report (2006)

So, do low-skilled workers can improve their employability with ICT skills training?

I haven't blogged in a long time and I must admit I miss it dearly. Blogging helps me to articulate thoughts as the research process evolves and it is a great exercise to confront my own intellectual bottlenecks. I stopped blogging for reasons I can't explain and I profoundly regret it now that I am trying to articulate the findings of a research project that is as we speak in deadline crisis mode. So here I am again...

In September last year, we started a research project in Washington State working with organizations that provide ICT skills training and other employment-related services to help low-income, low-skilled, and unemployed people improve their employment opportunities in the labor market. We were interested in exploring three particular research questions:

• Do ICT skills training improve employment opportunities for these groups?
• Do ICT skills and use of ICT at work has an effect on wages for those employed after the training?
• Are there any aspirational benefits that contribute to employment outcomes?

Three type of organizations participated in the study: 1) Non-governmental organizations; 2) One-stop shops which are financed with state and federal government resources; and 3) Community Colleges. In total, we had 16 organizations in 6 metropolitan areas of the State. We surveyed the trainees that participated in ICT skills training at these organizations between 2007 and 2008. We sent 5000 surveys and received 454 responses back (around 13% response rate considering those surveys returned to addressee).

In the next series of blogs I'll try to articulate the findings of the study and confront through this some of the roadblocks that are getting me stocked and my own internal intellectual struggle to move this project forward

Lessons from Riga | Networks are about personal relations and trust

There are so many interesting things that happened during these two days of the Telecenters Forum... many lessons and ways for the network to move forward. The most relevant learning I am taking with me back to Seattle is that networks are about people who care for each other personally, first and foremost.

It is difficult to convey in few words how relevant this lesson is. Networks, as a form of organization, do not provide much value if personal relations, trust, and care for each other at a more deeper level is not present in a group. During these two days became very evident that we see value on a European network because the people who are part of it at this stage care for each other as individuals first, and community leaders and e-inclusion advocates second.

For networks to be valuable there needs to be a commitment to put that bit of extra effort, extra hours of work to share, learn, and take advantage of each other's experiences. All of that exist simply because we consider each other friends and care about each other's work. Competition is not a word that you will find in this group, and I am very happy to see that.

From Barcelona, to Riga, to wherever else this initiative takes us we must have this lesson very present: we are friends, we trust each other, and we want each other's project to succeed just as our own.

Telecenter Leaders Forum in Riga | building a network for collaboration in Europe

My work has brought me once again to this wonderful city for a gathering of Telecenter leaders representing almost every country in the European Union + some others. The effort to bring together organizations from around the EU working on e-inclusion programs started last year in Barcelona. In this second meeting of this nascent EU telecenters network these organizations will discuss ways to strengthen collaboration, establish venues to learn from each other, and find a common voice to promote this programs among governments and the private sector.

60 people, 43 organizations representing 23 countries from the European Union + 3 North American + 2 Mexicans. Old friends, new friends, all together discussing for two days the opportunities for collaboration and networking. With Riga as the setting... what else could we ask for!!

Building your trainers ICT skills | ECDL certificate as an alternative for train of trainer programs

Having qualified trainers is one of the most important elements of e-skills training programs, this is well known, not really rocket science. However, the way that NGOs approach train of trainer (TOT) programs really varies depending on the needs of the target population, the social mission of the organization, the availability of human capital (i.e. trainers willing to improve their skills if necessary), and the resources available to train them.

Some NGOs develop their own TOT programs combining a variety of skills (e-skills, teaching methodology for groups with special needs, cultural sensitivity, etc). Others, use readily available e-skills training programs that lead to official certification, and this is the case of LIKTA and its NGO partners in Latvia. LIKTA provides resources to its NGO partners for train the trainer programs that require trainers to become ECDL (European Computer Driver LIcense) certified, ensuring not only the quality of the trainers that the partners recruit, but offering also an incentive for them to build ICT skills that are transferable to the broader labor market.

For many trainers, the income they receive for teaching e-skills to underserved populations is an additional income aside to their every day jobs. For others, working with NGOs as trainers is the main and sole source of income they bring home. In either case, improving trainers quality and ability to teach while providing an incentive such an ECDL certificate, which by the way is expensive and out of the reach to many,is definitely a very wise strategy:

• It is a smart use of NGO resources: time and money | instead of channeling resources to develop the actual ICT skills component of TOT - no need to reinvent the wheel
• NGOs end up with qualified trainers with transferable skills in the labor market (either currently employed outside the NGO, or building experience for future employment)

NGOs working with a variety of groups (disabled, elderly, etc.) can bring "expert" trainers that help these groups with "specialized" teaching approaches. LIKTA's partner in Ventpils, the Digital Center, provides training for deaf and blind or visually impaired people using this strategy and, as the NGO director reported, they think it is a successful approach.

Some food for thought...

Field research in Latvia | e-inclusion projects in Preili and Ventspils

On Wednesday and Thursday during our visit to Latvia, we had the opportunity to travel to the southern and western provinces of this country. Since there are many commonalities between the two e-inclusion projects, I decided to write about them jointly and point in separate posts to unique features of the e-skills training programs of these organizations. First, a brief intro to Preili and Ventspils, as we all know locality matters.

On Wednesday, we traveled to Southern Latvia to visit one of LIKTA's partner the Society Preili NGO centre, in a beautiful town called Preili located in the Latgale region. This region was declared one of the poorest in the newly expanded European Union, and similar to what we witnessed in Bialystok, Poland, the lack of opportunities has caused a significant migration of the workforce to Ireland and the UK. The region main economic activity is agriculture and of the most important sources of jobs is a big dairy farm, located at the heart of the city. This region has a strong Russian population

On Thursday, field research took us to Western Latvia to Ventpils, a beautiful port city located in the Kurzeme region and in the only part of the Baltic Sea that doesn't freeze during the winter. The city is also known for its Universities which attract a large population of students from all over the country. We visited the Digital Center of Ventspils. The city's main economic activities revolve around the port, the Universities, a chemical plant, and some small and medium enterprises.

During these two days, we interviewed NGO staff, trainers, and trainees. We visited the training facilities, and another important ICT public access point: libraries

Cultural Note 4 Revisited: On women in Latvia

I must say, this is the first time that I visit a country were women are the center of any possible activity in society. I've heard about women in Latvia been much more active in different economic, social, and every day circles than men... this is an understatement. I've never been surrounded by so many motivated women eager to always improve themselves, find the next thing, and been completely outgoing and outspoken. I must be honest, I loved it!!

I shared with you before how hard was for me to engage men in conversation while doing the interviews for the research. Well, with women I didn't have that problem and actually the problem became having enough time to capture their experiences and motivation with the e-skills training, enough time to capture their stories. I tried my best.

I asked during my interviews why women seem to be more active than men and more willing to learn new things and a I got a wide range of responses influenced, of course, by people's own stories and personal experiences. However, my interpreter Gatis, a very nice smart men by the way, explained to me that during Soviet times the collectivization of work brought women into spheres that were solely dominated by men (factories, farms, etc).

The Soviets even created an award called The Labor Hero to be granted to all those men and women whose hard work - work as in labor - had made a difference in their communities.The younger generation of women for whom the Soviet occupation is a historical memory are taken this full participation to heart too.

In the centers we visited during our research, almost all the trainees, trainers, and NGO workers were women of all ages. All of those demanding the NGOs to provide more e-skills training programs were women. There is something about labor heroes, I guess. Once again, the advantage of having good interpreters and local friends for that cultural immersion!

(My thanks to Katya Fedotova for the correction on my note)