Research projects

Funded research alliances

Competence Center RessourcE

Gruppenfoto der Projektbeteiligten

The RessourcE-NordWest region, consisting of Bremen, Bremerhaven, Oldenburg and Wilhelmshaven, has historically been characterized by trade and industry. Today, the service sector is becoming increasingly important. A significant proportion of jobs in this sector are in so-called simple work, i.e. jobs that do not require formal qualifications. This trend is particularly pronounced in the logistics sector and in health-related social services.


Simple work facilitates access to the labor market for people with low qualifications, but is often associated with limited development prospects and difficult working conditions. At the same time, the demands on employees are increasing due to the shortage of skilled workers and advancing digitalization. So far, however, there has been a lack of targeted innovations for work design and skills development that could create new prospects for employees, companies and the region.

The project aims to establish the competence center “Resource Development in Service Work” (RessourcE) in the region in cooperation between science and practice and to anchor it long term. The goal is to promote innovative approaches to improving work design, management and development opportunities in the field of simple work by establishing sustainable transfer structures between work research and practice.

 

RessourcE is initially focusing on the logistics sector and health-related social services. Among other things, technical innovations are being developed, such as an AI and sensor-supported exoskeleton that provides individual recommendations for action through continuous ergonomic analyses. In addition, concepts for health-promoting work design are being developed, which contribute to the mental stability of employees and enable the post-qualification of care assistants. A diversity-oriented approach to developing skills and qualifications in simple work will be continuously developed over the course of the project while also examining its transferability.

 

The RessourcE competence center will be established as a permanent physical and virtual service offering for consulting and innovation support in the simple work-intensive service sector. The solutions developed to improve working conditions will be made widely available and implemented in operational practice.


In addition, regional economic analyses and development dialogs are used to ensure sustainable networking with existing public and private initiatives for work design and skills development. A specially established competence advisory board with experts from associations, organizations, institutions and politics supports this process in order to ensure the long-term anchoring of the competence center in the region.

Project duration

The project will take place from 01.07.2023 to 30.06.2028.
 

Project partners

Involved in the project are:

  • Arbeiterwohlfahrt- Bezirksverband Weser- Ems e.V. (Workers' Welfare - District Association Weser-Ems e.V.)
  • BIBA - Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH (BIBA - Bremen Institute for Production and Logistics GmbH)
  • BLG Industrielogistik GmbH & Co. KG (BLG Industrial Logistics GmbH & Co. KG)
  • care pioneers GmbH
  • Initiative zur sozialen Rehabilitation e.V. (Initiative for Social Rehabilitation e.V.)
  • Jade Hochschule Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg/Elsfleth (Jade University of Applied Sciences Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg/Elsfleth)
  • Mensen GmbH
  • PTS Packing, Transport, Services & Logistics GmbH
  • Seifert Logistik Bremen GmbH
  • Universität Bremen (University of Bremen)
  • VACANCES mobiler Sozial- und Pflegedienst GmbH (VACANCES mobile social and care service GmbH)
  • Vollers Management Service GmbH
  • WearHealth UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
  • Wirtschafts- und Sozialakademie der Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen gGmbH (Economic and Social Academy of the Bremen Chamber of Employees gGmbH)

The “Qualification in Logistics” (QUALI-L) hub, which is coordinated by Dr. Julian Decius, aims to develop an AI-based tool that can reliably and unbiasedly identify the potential of low-skilled workers for a career as a specialist or manager. This tool is based on existing and yet-to-be-collected data sources from the logistics companies involved. The AI is trained using objective performance parameters as well as self-assessments by employees and external assessments by managers.

 

Current research topics

To date, little is known about the extent to which different strategies of informal workplace learning influence each other over time. In collaboration with an international medium-sized enterprise, diary studies and follow-up surveys will be used to find out more about the interactions between learning behavior and metacognitive processes that regulate and monitor learning.

The literature emphasizes the overwhelming benefits of informal workplace learning. However, there is also a "dark side" of informal learning, such as learning tricks to circumvent safety mechanisms in industrial workplaces through model learning or sharing experiences with colleagues. This potentially dangerous learning will be investigated in more detail using experimental research designs.

In this research project, experimental approaches will be used to determine the extent to which a leader's sense of humor influences informal learning and employees' personal development. Learning culture will also be considered. Primary target group of this research are nurses in hospitals.

People who are employed in algorithmic work contexts, for example web design freelancers or drivers of delivery and passenger transport services, have to reckon with negative effects of their work on well-being and health. Experimental methods will be used to examine the extent to which perceived work autonomy and well-being can be influenced by proactive behavior (job crafting) of working individuals.

Employability is becoming increasingly important in an ever-changing labor market. To what extent employability can be promoted by different forms of work-related learning is the central question of this research project. The project also takes into account contextual factors such as the appraisal of stress levels in one's job, as well as demographic characteristics of employees.

A person's ability to seek, recognize, and grasp learning opportunities is referred to as self-directed learning orientation (SDLO). SDLOis considered one of the most significant predictors of informal workplace learning. This research project will therefore develop and validate an economic scale to measure SDLO. For this purpose, associations with constructs of work-related learning will also be investigated.

Work-related learning encompasses various forms of learning, of which formal, informal, and self-regulated learning are the most popular. However, research lacks conceptual classifications that take these distinctions into account. Hence, it is also unclear how consequences and outcomes of learning might differ, for example, in institutionally controlled vs. learner-controlled learning processes, in on-the-job vs. off-the-job learning processes, or in online vs. offline learning processes. This will be examined in this research project.

This research project aims to sharpen the theoretical foundations of the concept of "New Learning", which has so far only been roughly outlined in science and is becoming increasingly significant in New Work research. For this purpose, an empirical test of a conceptual framework model will be conducted using questionnaire data with multiple measurement time points.