HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 13 NO 2, 2003 3 Putting skills to work: learning and employment at the start of the century Irena Grugulis, University of Salford Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 13 No 2, 2003, pages 3-12 Skills are central to employment, yet they are often poorly understood in theory and underdeveloped in practice. The articles in this issue of HRMJ were originally presented at an ESRC-funded seminar in Manchester in 2001 and show how working practices, control systems and regulation can have an impact on skills. This article introduces the special issue by considering the interrelationship between the individual expertise, job design and discretion that constitute skill. Drawing on data from the 2001 Skills Survey, it notes that developments in these areas are not necessarily compatible with one another, and reviews the implications for policymakers and practitioners. Contact: Irena Grugulis, School of Management, University of Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT. Email: Irena.Grugulis@salford.ac.uk F ew issues are as central to the analysis, control and practiceof HRM as skills and knowledge. Their possession and effective deployment can provide the basis for both national and organisational competitiveness (Skills Task Force, 1999). At the level of the ®rm they may be a key element of HR practiceand have been described as the `litmus test’ of HRM (Keep, 1989; see also Felstead and Ashton, 2000). When employees’ skills are developed, other `soft’ HR practices, such as employee involvement and performance-based pay, are both appropriate and effective since they encourage and reward staff for using their skills. In the absence of training, in organisations that do not develop individual skills or encourage individual contributions, such practices are less relevant (Keep and Mayhew, 1996). Skills may also bene®t employees. At the collective level occupational groups rise in stature and increase their bargaining power through developing and publicising the skills of their members. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, trade unions and professional groups have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of both training and accreditation in Britain (Keep, 1994). There are individual bene®ts, too. People can gain knowledge that is intrinsically valuable as well as portable credentials to facilitate their progress in the labour market. Yet, despite all of these potential bene®ts, much of the British labour market is still trapped in what Finegold and Soskice (1988) memorably described as a `low skills equilibrium’. As Felstead et al’s (2002) extensive survey of work skills in Britain has shown, most jobs in the UK do not require skilled people to carry them out. Even when we add the number of jobs that demand higher level quali®cations to those that require intermediate ones, they are still outnumbered by posts for people with few or no qualifications (11 million and 13.3 million respectively (Felstead et al, 2002: 104)). Clearly, quali®cations are neither the only, nor the most reliable, measure of workplace skills, and one of the great strengths of Felstead et al’s survey is the number of indicators of skill that it measures (some of which are discussed below). But this result does reveal what employers are, or are not, seeking in recruits and suggests that the much-hoped-for `knowledge economy’ may be some way distant. This is particularly worrying since skill, as exercised at work, is not simply the preserve of individuals but