How to Succeed as a Reskilled : A qualitative case study of the relationship between organisational environments, integration and lifelong learning

Abstract: The labour market is currently experiencing a growing skills gap due to the digitalisation of society. The consequences of the skills gap are a scarcity of competent workers and upcoming challenges due to changed market demands. One solution to this is reskilling programs or bootcamps that in a short time frame reskill attendees to enable them to change their occupation. As reskilled individuals finalise the reskilling programs and change occupations questions rise of what parameters in the organisational environment that help them in their integration and competence development. This study has the purpose to investigate this issue by examining the research question: What is the role of the organisational environment when integrating a reskilled person into their new occupation to continue lifelong learning?. The results are given by a thematic analysis of qualitative data gathered through semi-structured interviews of respondents that have attended a reskilling bootcamp called the Software Development Academy. Moreover, a theoretical framework containing Communities of Practice is applied in the analysis to categorise the organisational environments. The findings highlight that the organisational environment has a significant role on the reskilled employee’s success in their new occupation. Organisational environments that have tendencies of communities of practice and a positive attitude towards interactions among co-workers have a positive effect on the reskilled employee. Finally, the study provides a list of managerial recommendations that can help the reskilled employee to succeed in their new workplace.