Graduates on the property ladder: skills, work and employment in a ‘graduatising’ industry

Graduates on the property ladder:skills, work and employment in a ‘graduatising’ industry Susan James, Gerbrand Tholen, Chris Warhurst and Jo Commander 1st November 2011

How the research came about • Globalising frames • A fortuitous circumstance • ESRC small grants award • Colleagues: Prof. Chris Warhurst, Ms Jo Commander, Dr Gerbrand Tholen

Context • Government across the UK has expanded higher education in pursuit of a high skills economy (Leitch, 2005, 2006) • More graduates in the labour market: target 50% • Assumption: WD OD BD; good for employers, good for the country • Recognition that supply important but not sufficient, skill a ‘derived demand’ • Concern though that demand not present and graduates over-qualified and/or underemployed.

Why does it matter? • Public policy issues: • £££ on HE – is it being well spent? • User payment – are they getting return on investment? Issue about wages but for us: are they getting graduate jobs? • Avoiding untapped potential • High skills: a route to national competitiveness; currently a route out of economic downturn

Why does getting it right matter? • Employer issues: • Positives: • Wider and better pool of talent • Improved products and processes • More productive employees, more competitive and innovative firms • Negatives: • Dissatisfied employees; high retention costs • High labour turnover; graduates on stepping stones • Increased R&S training costs

What do we know about graduatisation? • Growing number of graduates moving into traditionally non-graduate occupations i.e. ‘trickle down’ • e.g. physiotherapy, IT support workers, leisure centre managers, estate agents • Skills mismatch: 30-40% overqualified for job • Professionalisation projects • Multiple matching: new graduate jobs + new pathways = tight coupling

What don’t we know? • Need new/better accounts but have limited evidence base: • Is there an overlooked distinction between graduate skills and the skills of graduates? • What skills are being offered? • What skills do employers want? • Do graduates use their skills in jobs? • Do graduates’ skills change the job, the firm and/or the occupation? • Do employers use graduates differently to non-graduates?

Two analytical distinctions First distinction: between skills development and skills supply 1. The skills that graduates possess are not always the same skills they present to employers 2. The skills possessed might not necessarily be formed at university but are supplied as graduates

Two analytical distinctions Second distinction: Between two types of employer demand • Type 1: skills demanded for entry to occupation – labour market ticket 2. Type 2: skills demanded to perform the job – labour process feature (deployment or utilisation)

The project • Subsidiary objectives • To better understand what skills graduates are supplying and how and where these skills are formed. • To better understand what skills are demanded of graduates, differentiating between those skills that are needed to get the job and do the job. • To explore the relationship between occupational graduatisation and occupational professionalisation. • To understand the impact of the trickle down effect on non-graduate jobs. • To make the findings relevant to government and practitioners. Overarching objectives • To better understand the development, supply, demand, and deployment in jobs that are being ‘graduatised’; and • To develop a new way of thinking about analysing the development, supply, demand, and deployment of graduate skills in relation to economic performance.

Research questions • What skills and knowledge are required to become an estate agent? • What skills and knowledge are required to undertake the work of an estate agent? • In both cases, have these skills and knowledge requirements changed in recent years? • Are any changes in these requirements resulting in the employment of graduates in preference to non-graduates?

Research Design Mixed methods, comparative research Comparison between countries, ownership type and product markets Web-based documentary data Industry-wide national employer survey Interviews with key stakeholders: Asset Skills NFOPP NAEA SPCs Law Society Higher Education Non-HE industry training providers Adjacent professional bodies Trade unions – Unite & ACCORD Organisational case studies

Property Industry: concerns and needs • Longstanding push to professionalise. But does it mean: occupational closure or better working practices? • Issue is ensuring appropriate standard of service for most people’s largest purchase • Two concerns: and

Addressing the situation Current situation: regulation light, i.e. through consumer rights and financial services requirements Debate on if change is needed through either: • Regulation, e.g. through LtP; or • Education, e.g. industry-relevant apprenticeships/degrees.

Initial findings Type 1 demand: increasing – employers indicate that a degree is appealing at the point of recruitment Why increasing? Because they can, because it helps employer branding. In reality, demand centres on the skills of graduates not graduate skills. Raises the issue of what skills are supplied by graduates.

Type 2 demand (deployment): patchy - centring on ‘soft’ skills such as communication and self-presentation. • Why patchy? Because these are skills possessed by graduates but not necessarily graduate skills. • What is graduateness i.e. what is being supplied? • What is developed at HE and what is developed elsewhere?

Graduate skills v. skills of graduates • Estate agents do not regard their occupation as a graduate occupation nor as a high skilled job • No codified or abstract knowledge but experiential knowledge, i.e. money laundering, local knowledge • Yet graduates can do well if they build on their graduateness to get and do the job Meaning of graduateness to these employers: Over and above soft skills it is a collective reference to generic skills such as time management, commitment and organisation

Country comparison • England: • wholly estate agents • increasing use of graduates • no professional regulation or mandatory professional training • sales focus • Perception of being sales people • Scotland: • dominated by solicitor estate agents • graduates already • professional regulation • differentiation between sales and service • Perception of being educated and regulated

Ownership comparison • Corporate: • offer a range of financial services • more formal recruitment policies • more structured training • internal labour market • career opportunity flows • More… • Independent: • limited range of services with financial referrals • informal recruitment policies • ad hoc training • little internal labour market • internal stagnation v. external leakage • More…

Product market comparison • Mid-market: • state school • shorter induction training • little CPD • fewer career opportunities in independents • high turnover • redundancies more prevalent • work intensification • diversification of business • Working harder and business broader • Upper market: • public school • longer induction training • more formalised in- house, firm-specific CPD training in larger firms • lower turnover • more career opportunities • fewer redundancies • work intensification • improving quality of service • Working harder and better

What does this say for the industry? Light Full-strength

Issues with 1st and 3rd quadrant proposition • Light regulation + full-strength education • Constrained by perceived lack of need and lack of desire • Tension between sub-sector interests and industry interests

What does this say about the expansion of HE in the UK? • Increase share of graduates labour market • But not creating more high skilled jobs • With the exception of solicitors not using traditionally-perceived graduate skills but… • Are drawing on graduateness and in that sense still utilise many of their skills. • Graduates helping to professionalise the job in terms of doing it better but not in terms of occupational closure

Conclusion Higher education as the trigger for WD OD BD • Indirect and partial contributor to WD; • Mixed impact on OD; and • No trigger for BD. This affirms the utility of going beyond supply and demand and differentiating between: • Where the skills are developed; • What skills are being supplied; • What skills are being demanded; and • What skills are being deployed… in jobs which are graduatising

Graduates on the property ladder: skills, work and employment in a ‘graduatising’ industry