Introduction

Historically, the retail sector has been recognised as a testing ground for new, less employee-friendly practices. The concentration of the growth of precarious employment in the service sector and especially the retail sector can be explained by the low hiring costs as the jobs are constructed to be rather low-skilled and, therefore, also low-cost (Gautié & Schmitt, 2010; Grugulis & Bozkurt, 2011). The retail sector has been claimed to ‘lead other industries in experimenting with changes that affect labour market and job quality’ (Carré et al., 2010) as with low-skilled low-paid unorganised workforce, it is easier to lower standards. Indeed, retail sector jobs have been constructed as low-skilled or experiencing deskilling in Europe since the 1990s (Cedefop, 2019a). Thus, the retail sector presents a good testing ground for the analysis of learning opportunities and challenges with precarious work. This begs a question: with the retail sector increasingly associated with precarious employment, how are early career workers supported in pursuing their learning projects?

To answer this question, this chapter presents results from a cross-country analysis of workplace learning opportunities amongst early career workers occupied in the retail sector, comparing retail organisations and their early career workers in Belgium, Denmark and Estonia. Despite the existence of rewarding managerial careers, the retail sector provides mainly low-skilled and routinised occupations, with an increasing proportion of part-time and fixed-term employments in overall low-wage positions (Duemmler & Caprani, 2017; Esbjerg et al., 2008; Nielsen et al., 2013). The non-specialised retail sector has even been claimed to be ‘one of the main entry gates to the labour market for young people and a re-entry point for those who had left the labour market for personal reasons’ employing roughly one in ten employees in the EU28 (Eurofound, 2012; Eurostat, 2021).

Options for workplace learning, continuous education and further career development are, however, often limited in relation to their workplace learning possibilities, future occupational intentions and well-being (Cedefop, 2019a; Fettes et al., 2020; Reegård, 2015; Roberts, 2013). Still, in order to become more productive and use more complex socio-technical arrangements, the retail sector is partly aiming to change its low-skill profile, demanding more skilled and agile employees and making workplace learning a more vital issue for retail organisations (Cedefop, 2019b). On the other hand, given retail’s role as a young people’s bridge into employment, it is particularly important that they can expand their skills, competences and educational levels while working in the sector, either if they decide to attain careers in other occupational fields or to change career tracks within retail (Fuller et al., 2012; Simpson et al., 2018).

This paper analyses the personal accounts of day-to-day workplace learning experiences amongst early career workers from five retailers: two in Belgium, one in Denmark, and two in Estonia. Young people’s perceptions of their learning opportunities are studied against the backdrop of the work organisation within the five supermarket chains and the practices deliberatively chosen to foster early career employees’ learning in the workplace. We have employed the integrative theoretical framework on organisational agency developed in the Enliven research project for the cross-country comparative analysis. This framework comprises the reciprocal interplay between individual, organisational and institutional factors to better explain and capture the circumstances of workplace learning and early professional socialisation of young adults in the early career phase of employment (Evans, 2017). A more complete and integrative understanding of the theoretical framework is explained in more depth in Chap. 10. For each organisation studied, organisational features have been captured mainly by a set of management-level interviews. Individual views of early career workers of the relevant organisations on their workplace learning and its embeddedness in their overall lives have been harvested in extended semi-structured interviews. Full accounts on the five organisational cases, methods employed and structured summaries of the early career workers are available in the Enliven reports (2020a, b); more details on organisations studied are provided in Appendix 2.

The chapter on retail cross-country comparative case study is organised as follows. First, a case study overview is presented, focusing on key sectoral and case study features. A special focus is placed on recounting attributes and characteristics of the Belgian, Danish and Estonian cases, aimed at forming a more general understanding of background and context. Second, based on the data that originates from country and cross-country reports produced in Enliven, the chapter accounts for main findings with reference to two recurrent themes emerging from the comparative analysis. Findings show how organisational agency shape early career workers learning opportunities in the workplace and beyond in the retail sector via everyday work, workplace design and formal, non-formal and informal learning opportunities and learner strategies. The chapter concludes by highlighting the main results from the comparative analysis of situations of workplace learning in the retail sector.

Case Study Overview

According to terminology used by Eurostat, retailing is the trade of new and used goods mainly to the public for personal or household utilisation (Eurostat, 2021). Sales may be made in stores, at stalls or markets, or through other forms such as remote selling (mail order or internet), vending machines or door-to-door salespersons. In the Enliven retail sector analysis, the selected case studies are centred on the retail sector for personal or household utilisation. The distributive trade sector is characterised by a large number of enterprises. In total, 6.171 million enterprises were classified into this sector in the EU-28 in 2018, making it the largest enterprise population among any of the NACE sections within the non-financial business economy (Eurostat, 2021). The total number of distributive trades enterprises in the EU-28 amounted to more than a quarter (26.4%) of all non-financial business economy enterprises.Footnote 1 Data shows a similar pattern for employment, as the 33 million persons employed within the EU-28’s distributive trades sector accounted for 24% of the non-financial business economy workforce. This cross-comparative analysis has been carried out in five large retail organisations with more than 250 employees each: two in Belgium (BE1 and BE2), one in Denmark (DK1) and two in Estonia (EE1 and EE2). General characteristics of the organisations and of the specific samples are presented in the following case descriptive analysis, comprising a general account of the organisational background for each country, followed by a more specific outline of the selected cases.

Belgium

As in many countries, retail plays an important part in the Belgian economy and labour market. With an estimated 200,000 employees, the majority of whom are white-collar workers, it represents a non-negligible share of the 3.96 million Belgian employees. On average, the Belgian retail sector employs more women, young employees and low-educated employees than other sectors. This makes the retail sector a potential low-threshold entryway job for early career workers. Between 2008 and 2017, the share of the temporary retail workers who are under 25 years old remained relatively constant and high at 51%. Also, half of the employees in retail who are under the age of 25 have a temporary contract (52.3%), and nearly half of these young employees have a part-time contract (46.3%). In Belgium, social partners, i.e. representatives of trade unions and employers’ organisations, come together at different levels to discuss and negotiate the terms of employment. At each level, agreements are made by social partners on the terms of employment, including remuneration, and are written down in a collective bargaining agreement.

Denmark

A general description of the features of the Danish labour market structure shows that the wholesale and trade industry has the second largest population of full-time employees and the highest number of enterprises in Denmark (Statistics Denmark, 2019). The Danish non-specialised food retail industry is characterised by the employment of a large proportion of part-time employees. Overall, the wholesale and retail trade sector is characterised by low educational attainment and relies on a large representation of young adult workers. Four types of young adult workers are identified in the Danish non-specialised retail sector: skilled workers and apprentices (skilled professionals), sabbatical workers (unskilled), student workers (unskilled) and lower secondary school dropouts (unskilled) (Nielsen et al., 2013).Footnote 2 The industrial relations in the retail sector are founded on collective bargaining agreements of different types. On the employer side, retailing is organised under the Danish Chamber of Commerce. On the employee side, most workers in the retail sector are organised in different types of trade unions representing the different occupations engaged in the retail sector. The collective agreements constitute the basic charter for wages and working conditions for employees in the retail sector.

Estonia

Since the 1990s, retail has become an important industry for the Estonian labour force, representing the country’s second largest industry by employment. In the early 1990s, during the years of the restructuring of the Estonian economy from industrial-agrarian (industry 60% and agriculture 20% of GDP accordingly) into a service economy, the retail sector experienced intensive hiring. In the 1990s, the workforce in retail was educated in the specialised VET programmes, there were continuous vocational education and training programmes in place for employees, and in the context of scarcity of consumer goods, working in the field was associated with privileges in accessing these. Over time, the pool of labour force for expanding retail sector started to overrepresent ‘casual workers’, e.g. students with short-term employment interests, school dropouts and socio-economically disadvantaged young people, including those with lesser knowledge of the Estonian language. Up until most recent times, and with the continuous increase of the relevance of the sector, retail jobs have been absorbing everyone, being the last resort sector, where jobs are available if everything else fails. The trained workforce from the 1990s is still active as well, so there are differences between those with specialised qualifications and those with none, doing the same jobs. At the time of our fieldwork, nearly 52,000 people work in food retail, accounting for more than 70% of the retail industry’s labour force and approximately 8% of the total labour force. Characterised by low-skill levels, routine work, low pay, and high volatility in job mobility, the sector now provides possibilities to start unskilled at the lower-level jobs and work one’s way up the career ladder with the support of on-the-job training and continuous vocational education and training courses. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the retail story is the relative absence of industrial relations institutions and collective agreements. Estonia has low trade union coverage and predominantly the labour relations are organised on the individual rather than organisational or sector level (Kall, 2020; Mrozowicki et al., 2013).

Findings

Organisational Agency Shaping Workplace Learning Potential in the Retail Sector

The first comparative theme discusses how organisational agency shapes the learning potential of the studied workplaces. Focus is placed on the way institutional factors, job design and organisational structure lever the learning potential available for early career workers, based on the variety and complexity of task solutions.

In the Belgian case, analysis shows that BE1 is highly centralised and corresponds to Mintzberg’s (1980) machine bureaucracy: decision-making is centralised in the headquarters, for example hiring and formal training courses are all done at the level of the central HR department. Employees have concrete role descriptions. The company has a document with the role descriptions and the related competences and requirements (a ‘catalogue’). A typical store has a store manager, several assistant and divisional managers and the store clerks. The store manager has the final responsibility for accounting, administration, and people management and is in direct contact with the central management. BE2 corresponds more to a divisional organisation structure: while the central headquarters support the different divisions, each division still has autonomy in its HR decisions. At least at the level of non-managing functions, stores have full autonomy in their hiring and training decisions. Stores are organised according to six departments: front end (cash registers), fruit and vegetables, bakery, meat and fish counter, dairy and frozen, and the supermarket store. Each department has a team leader and an assistant team leader, who are responsible for stock orders, promotions, and the general functioning of the department.

At the sectoral level, minimal support exists for corporate training. Article 3 of the collective bargain agreement for the retail sector stipulates the provision of a training opportunity that is at least equivalent to a training opportunity of 2 days on average per year, per full-time equivalent. However, as this is an average, it does not mean that every employee category would receive 2 days of training. We have seen that—especially for company BE1—there is a very extensive internal training centre with in-house trainers. Concerning collaboration with the formal education system, we see a more structured approach in the programmes aimed at management functions. The Flemish education system recently introduced a system of dual learning in the initial vocational education and training system, inspired by the German vocational education system, with more apprenticeships for students. However, the employers’ federation notices a rather ambivalent stance by retailers in that not all companies that apply to these apprenticeships find (or foresee) staff within the company to coordinate the programme. The HR management of BE1 finds that the formal secondary education system does not adequately prepare young graduates for the labour market and would wish to see a more innovative and practical orientation in the school system, with a focus on soft skills, creativity and applied STEM skills. Besides accommodating apprenticeships, the company sometimes sends trainers to teach in schools in programmes in retail management.

From the interviews, DK1 is described as an enterprise with a chief focus on sales as the core activity and overall purpose behind all operating activities. The case organisation comprises an operating core, a strategic apex, middle line managers and a techno-structure (in the sense of Mintzberg). The division of labour and configuration of structure in the case organisation comprise overall a standardisation of work processes with some elements from the divisionalised form as described in Mintzberg’s work (1980). In the standardisation of work processes, employees follow pre-defined standards to guide the undertaking of the work itself in the form of work orders, rules and regulations. In DK1, formal and non-formal learning types in the retail sector are structured around two systems. The first system is the vocational education system, where all apprentices and future assistants and managers follow a curriculum before and during their engagement in an apprenticeship or trainee contract to become a ‘skilled professional’. The second system is the internal learning and training system. In the enterprise, all employees can apply for resources and can be compensated for formal and non-formal, internal and external, programmes and courses where predetermined knowledge, skills and competences are required.

Generally, DK1 provide and compensate for relevant formal and non-formal learning activities when needed. The case organisation has signed an agreement with the trade unions that makes them a self-governing body when it comes to the compensation and delivery of lifelong learning policies and resources. Thus, despite the enterprise not actively searching for lifelong learning compensation outside the organisation, the system and collective agreement make funding available for continuing vocational education and training for all employees. The case organisation does not need further support for formal and non-formal learning activities since it has been resolved by the trade union agreement with the industry.

Nevertheless, the learning opportunities provided for employees working in a machine bureaucracy are distributed in different ways depending on where the single employee is positioned. For the studied group of early career workers, the design of work and division of labour delineate an organisation that employs a highly standardised description of required competences and skills to do the job based on simple rules and procedures. Work is highly routinised at the staff/employee level in that qualifications necessary to solve a task are defined in a narrow and simple sense and, in general, do not contain complex task solutions that require an explorative search for new skills and competences on a daily basis. The knowledge, skills and competences transferred from formal vocational qualifications and acquired through formal learning enrolment are in conflict with the routine nature of their day-to-day work in the eyes of the early career workers who were interviewed. The early career workers were all enrolled in a vocational educational programme, the so-called dual system. On the one hand, knowledge, skills and competences from the school programme and curriculum support the creation of positive intentions and open up the possibility for building new and mandatory formal qualifications relevant to their chosen profession for the early career workers. On the other hand, several of the early career workers underlined that newly acquired knowledge, skills and competences were rarely used or employed in their daily tasks and that this was often not addressed or linked to practice since the required practical qualifications lent themselves to simple and routinised work.

In both Estonian cases, work organisation is characterised by lower levels of employee discretion in setting work methods; however, this feature is more salient in EE1 than in EE2. The use of job rotation and teamwork is at a high level in EE1. These features point to a more structured or bureaucratic style of organisational learning that corresponds closely to the characteristics of the ‘Lean production’ model. Job rotation, which is heavily used by EE1, may have reduced monotony. At the same time, the tasks at the different workstations are quite similar and do not require many new skills, autonomy is not increasing and work pressure has increased as employee ‘down time’ has decreased.

‘Lack of staff with the right skills’ and ‘out of date’ vocational education were named by EE1 managers as two of their main concerns. The growing demand in the sector and the increasing lack of workforce also denies them the opportunity to choose from among skilled and experienced candidates. However, they also do not seem to prefer those with vocational education in the field or those with the right skills over others with no skills or education but attempt to integrate everyone. This partly explains why EE1 sometimes suggest to their early career workers the different training courses offered by public institutions. Still, even if these are free of charge, this is not a regular or systematic practice, and excuses of ‘this is out of date’ are voiced at some level. The solution to the problem is seen in the standardisation of the worker who comes into the workplace, which can be achieved through ‘in-house’ indoctrination and on-the-job training. Early career workers are regarded as ‘blank sheets’ or ‘empty vessels’. A universal, multi-tasking and interchangeable worker seems to be the ideal pursued. The kinds of training courses offered are thus also narrowly instrumental, focused on imparting specific practical skills or knowledge.

The relatively small role of trade union representation in both EE1 and EE2 needs to be mentioned here. The unions’ position did not come up during early career workers’ interviews and only occasionally during management interviews. One obvious assumption would be that, with the absence of trade union negotiations, the organisations have more agency and leeway to design workplace learning and development for early career worker as they see fit. While in both organisations, trade union membership does exist in general, its coverage and engagement is rather low, and if it is present at all, discussions happen at a sectoral level. Individual employees can also directly belong to sector-level trade unions and therefore, do not have to formalise their company-level trade union unit into an independent organisation.

In relation to the organisation of workplace learning processes in the Estonian cases, both organisations assume the role of early career workers as an apprentice under a master, who himself/herself learned the job earlier in the same way. Such work is generally referred to as craft. In both cases, on-the-job training includes coaching, mentoring, job rotation and ‘sitting by Nellie’ methods. Self-development and motivation are considered of most importance in both organisations, whilst moving up the career ladder step-by-step. Working time flexibility and (temporarily moving to) part-time contracts are the only support early career workers receive from the employing organisations for participating in formal learning. However, in EE2, we also noticed the supervisors’ willingness to accept that some of the individually pursued formal learning practises were also occasionally continued during working hours, as long as this did not interfere too much with work organisation.

The account in this section examines how organisational agency shapes learning potential in the workplace. Analysis shows critical uncertainties inhibiting the learning potential of the early career worker bound to standardised and narrow job design and tasks. Comparisons between the three countries show variations in the way that organisational agency shapes the learning potential in the sample cases as well as internally at a country level (see Table 11.1 for a summary).

Table 11.1 Organisational agency and workplace learning potentials in retail sector: key features
Full size table

For the retail sector, analysis showed that some case study organisations create large numbers of narrowly defined jobs, requiring no initial vocational qualification and showing a clear-cut division of routine and non-routine activities. Overall, all five studied organisations had designed jobs for shop assistants where practically all non-routine activities are reserved for management-level employees, limiting both the need and the opportunities for learning from unforeseen events. In the Estonian cases, however, a lower degree of formalisation of job roles allows for more experiences with non-routine activities for early career workers, including access to middle-level managerial roles.

All five cases have little use for standardised vocational qualifications, as their preferred form of work organisation does not follow the broad job profile of vocational qualifications in retail or for the various occupations performed in a contemporary hypermarket. While a comparatively low importance placed on vocational qualifications in retail seems in line with the expectations of the Estonian vocational education system, it does not fit well with the Flemish and, particularly, the Danish traditions, which hold vocational education in high esteem.

In the Danish case, the organisation’s deviation from the institutional pattern established is particularly pronounced. On the one hand, the firm complies with the legal requirement that their early career workers must be included in formal vocational training, preparing them for broadly defined job roles. However, most apprentices do jobs, which are narrowly defined and barely apply the skills and competences provided by their vocational programmes. Analysis shows clear differences with regard to the breadth of jobs designed; BE1 clearly prefers broader job profiles and has a strong preference for multiskilling, both in line with a policy for long-term employment. BE2 and DK define narrower roles for the sales assistants. EE1 and EE2 show a leaning towards functional flexibility, even if only EE2 tends to maintain longer employment relations, while EE1 accepts short-term nature for early career workers’ contracts; however, company-based training provided cannot be recognised outside.

Among the enterprises in retail, the Danish organisation stands out for its mandated involvement in initial education and training; in order to be allowed to employ young people, the need to offer initial education is vital, even when the introduced form of work organisation makes only partial use of the knowledge and skills delivered by the initial vocational education and training program. The very same firm shows only a low commitment to further education, with courses provided mainly in-house: any policy supporting CVT is of relatively poor use for the company. Only for BE1 are comparably high levels of training activity reported, so that the company might be able to profit from public support. While interviewees in EE1 and EE2 are engaged in formal education, they do it outside of company HRD strategy, even though the strategy does involve cooperation with initial vocational education and training and continuous vocational education and training institutions.

Organisational Agency Shaping Early Career Pathways and Individual Agency in Workplace Learning in Retail Sector Jobs

In the following, we offer a breakdown of organisational approaches and employees’ voices on the day-to-day workplace learning (informal and/or incidental), non-formal education (training courses) and related support (such as one-to-one on-the-job training and tutoring) and formal education (e.g. apprenticeships) opportunities and experiences.

In both Belgian cases, we note that lack of time is a barrier to learning. In BE1, management utilises a combination of using the state-funded educational paid leave system and an individualised approach whereby employees need to take a personal leave day for external learning activities. In BE2, the problem is structural and is exacerbated by understaffing problems and large absentee rates. Secondly, we see that store management acts as an important gatekeeper to learning opportunities for employees. Access is largely influenced by the store manager’s ability to manage work schedules and the manager’s priorities in HRM issues. Thirdly, even when the learning environment is reified, such as through leaflets, online platforms or checklists, the actual use of these artefacts appears to be largely influenced by store management, both positively (encouraging staff to consult them) and negatively (omitting distribution).

Workplace learning opportunities are much more centralised in BE1 than in BE2, where they are currently still an afterthought more than a policy. In BE1, employees are encouraged to follow a learning pathway, have regular appraisal interviews, are appointed a mentor, and can follow a wide array of course modules, both in transferable and non-transferable skills. The catalogue of learning activities is easily consultable via an online platform. Some possible barriers are that many of the learning activities have to be taken on employees’ personal leave days, and that approval still needs to be granted by the store manager. Furthermore, the mentorship system is not perfect in reality and more senior employees notice that there used to be more time to properly mentor newcomers. These aspects risk being heavily influenced by specific store dynamics.

Overall, in BE1, early career workers described a positive learning climate with many opportunities for informal learning, with additional opportunities to cross boundaries of communities of practice through rotational shifts in other stores. It is even possible to be temporarily relocated to stores in the other language community with the intention of learning or improving a second language. This enriched other learning-by-doing, still an essential way to learn many technical and soft skills. BE1 also asks a certain responsibility in return; to adhere to the company’s core values and take charge of the learning process. However, there is a large amount of trust in the intrinsic willingness of people to be responsible. HR management sees learning activities more as an addition and improvement to the work practice than as an impediment to work schedules. In BE2, workplace learning seems more scattered and ad-hoc. Starting employees receive on-the-job training as a way to learn how to correctly do the required tasks in their job, usually by a more senior employee. However, this is very dependent on the available time and of available senior personnel in the store. In some departments, early career workers were left to learn by doing, watching, and making mistakes. One early career worker tried to minimise making mistakes in her first weeks by always keeping a small notebook on her where she copied instructions.

Workplace learning that is happening is almost purely job-related and focuses often on non-transferable skills. Employees that reported being interested in training for specific skills that are not 100% necessary for their job did not always find their needs met, e.g. learning about the stock order system. On the other hand, the part-time nature of the work in BE2 enables employees to pursue formal learning activities outside work hours. In fact, some of the interviewed early career workers explicitly mentioned working in the store because it fits with their educational activities, in preparation for, or alongside, another career path. The management of the store was also accommodating of their schedules. In that way, the work in BE2 is convenient for young people in a more transitional phase of their life. Working for BE1 requires a more deliberate choice.

DK1 employs a wide-ranging specific allocation of resources for formal, non-formal and informal learning activities, functioning as a standard for the structure and content of the learning system and learning strategies. The case study organisation labels it the ‘70-20-10 rule’ of workplace learning support and strategy, covering all employees in the enterprise. About 90% (70% + 20%) of all learning in the workplace originates from informal learning activities in some form, i.e. from daily task solutions (70%), collaboration and supervision from managers and with peers (20%) and finally, 10% is allocated for formal and non-formal learning activities. The ‘70-20-10’ rule emphasises that the informal learning dimension is an important arena, thus learning is not confined to being identified with ‘folklore’ understandings of learning as acquirement of knowledge.

As regards the 20% component, the early career workers themselves underline that the most important learning interaction is feedback from the appointed learning responsible person/supervisor. For some of the interviewed early career workers, the supervision and support from the learning responsible person was a positive and supportive arrangement. For the majority, supervision and support were lacking, resulting in the responsibility for competence development being placed on the shoulders of the individual young adult. The case study shows this difference as related to two explanatory factors: The first one was employee type—whether an individual is employed as a trainee or apprentice. The tendency, in this case, was to believe that the trainee had a stronger requirement for, and entitlement to, supervisory support than the apprentice, who was often left to his/her own devices. The second factor was occupational type. The case study observations showed that for some occupations and professional fields, the early career workers’ learning trajectory was structured and balanced in relation to supervisory support, while for others, learning basically became a matter of participation and acquiring the social and cultural codes of the community of practice, which created considerable frustration amongst the early career workers.

The case study shows different responses to this situation of lack of supervision for learning in the workplace. The early career worker, Eva, told a story about how she challenged the feeling of being stuck when it came to workplace learning opportunities in the enterprise by confronting her nearest manager and demanding that she needed new challenges and learn more. In addition, from accounts given by Sara, there was nothing else to learn about manufacturing bread products in the bakery section after a short period in employment. Early in her career trajectory, she felt that she had to administer her workplace learning by herself, with no management/organisational support and further competence development opportunities in sight, indicating that she felt ‘stuck’ in her learning.

Sara told a story about how she came to a halt in creating learning opportunities in the enterprise. In Eva and Sara’s view, the enterprise provided a restrictive learning environment characterised by highly routinised job tasks. In similarity to other early career workers’ accounts, Eva and Sara managed their workplace learning process mainly by themselves, and workplace learning was mainly self-directed, with minimum support from the nearest manager/supervisor. Learning opportunities in the enterprise remained tied to a highly routinised work practice, orientated towards control and following prescribed standards, thus both case illustrations show that they felt skilled and competent shortly after their employment, while it took much longer to gain access to, and feel part of, the community. Not all early career workers have the ability (and courage) to self-direct their learning process in retail and trade within the described conditions and organisational culture. Eva, however, positively took up the challenge, which resulted in her staying in her apprentice contract and fighting for her right to learn more about her profession and to continue her profession. Sara could not take up the challenge, which resulted in her ending her apprentice contract.

Looking at the trainees, a different account is presented. The trainees perceive the workplace learning context as more balanced between the expansive and restrictive types. For example, Morten found that the enterprise provided a learning environment that included management support, which helped the development of necessary competences for a sales assistant trainee. Nevertheless, interpretation shows that even for the trainees, the predominant learning opportunities provided in the enterprise are tied to a highly routinised work practice orientated towards control and following prescribed standards.

The 70% component within the informal learning type covers learning as an essential part of everyday work, sending the message that individuals learn through experiences provided and mediated by the affordance of both organisational and individual agency. For the early career workers, it became evident that informal learning contributed to the creation of motivation and learning opportunities were seen as key factors for their development and intentions to continue in their job. The organisational agency played a significant role in creating the foundation for learning in the workplace. Here, analysis of collected data showed that the learning environment created by the case study organisation was, in general, of the restrictive type in the restrictive-expansive continuum.

In the case data, the three trainees (Morten, Peter and Rasmus) perceived the workplace learning environment as expansive. One apprentice (Christina) was in a mixed position in the expansive-restrictive workplace learning continuum, while four early career workers (Lotte, Eva, Solveig and Sara) experienced the workplace learning environment as restricted. Only a few identified their job as unsustainable in relation to future intentions and career aspirations, and amongst them, it was mainly early career workers engaged in a production and manufacturing profession. Thus, the chosen profession, reflecting institutional and organisational agency, has a key influence on learning opportunities in the workplace.

For example, in the food departments (e.g. butchery and bakery) it seems as if it takes longer to participate and be granted access to core competences and to become a member of the community of practice. This type of social learning process involves more than mere knowledge acquisition. The focus for this type of workplace learning environment is placed on how to learn the dominant cultural codes, language, jargon and rituals. In addition, a recurrent theme throughout the data is that the career orientation amongst the trainees is to stay and evolve in a managerial position, while the career orientation and goal intention for the five remaining early career workers was more open. Almost all interviewed early career workers had as their foremost career intention to become a manager within the non-specialised food sector. However, the actualisation of this career intention is expected for the trainees while it is not expected for the apprentices, which makes their future ties to the enterprise of a more fragile and uncertain type.

In EE1 and EE2, the jobs at the shop floor were designed to encourage functional flexibility and thus, career advancement by horizontal as well as vertical mobility would be supported by internal career development mechanisms. However, early career workers were not presented with these career plans in a systematic way upon the start of their employment with the organisations. Instead, they were given access to basic training for their narrowly defined jobs, and and only later in their employment would the early career workers be given new tasks and skills requirements. Early career workers we interviewed, planned their further careers with the organisation, and generally, they did see more or less ambiguous pathways. In fact, even if the early career workers had landed the job accidentally, with little planning, they started to see options for staying with the company for a longer term. This was especially the case for the EE1, which has a larger organisation with foreign exchange possibilities. Still, early career workers in managerial track positions who were not certain about their plans to stay with the organisation (e.g. Siiri and Inga in EE1), as well as some in positions requiring lower levels of qualification (Robert, Markus and Maria in EE1, Liisa and Mirtel in EE2).

Analysis of both EE1 and EE2 also outlined several learner-directed learning opportunities that were designed as taking up formal learning opportunities outside of organisations’ HRD practices, ranging from acquiring general higher education (Robert and Markus in EE1, Mirtel in EE2) to participating in graduate studies (Siiri in EE1, Tarmo and Liisa in EE2). We do not assume these to be representative cases across the sector, as the managers had mediated the interview requests with them; however, it was illustrative that although the studies were up to individual agency, the workplaces were informed about their studies outside of the organisation. Both in the cases of EE1 and EE2, it was those in jobs with lower qualification requirements as well as those in office or managerial tracks who used these opportunities, and in some cases, they needed additional flexibility from the employers while in others they had chosen or even moved to the more positions with more time flexibility and easier substitutions of missed shifts. Since EE1 and EE2 managers mostly assumed early career workers were not interested in staying with the company, their training and learning aspirations were supported not necessarily as strategic HR investments but rather as additional motivation strategy—especially considering the relatively low pay level in the sector.

The cross-country comparison shows diversity, analysing the interplay between organisational and individual agency in relation to workplace learning opportunities. In BE1, interviews and case data indicated a positive learning climate with many opportunities for informal learning, with additional opportunities to cross boundaries of communities of practice by rotational shifts in other stores. It was even possible to be temporarily relocated to stores in the other language community with the intention of learning or improving a second language. This enriched other learning-by-doing, still an essential way to learn many technical and soft skills. In BE1, which is characterised by an expansive learning environment, employees are encouraged to follow a learning pathway, have regular appraisal interviews, are appointed a mentor, and can follow a wide array of course modules, both on transferable and non-transferable skills.

In BE2, workplace learning is more scattered and ad-hoc, reflecting a more restrictive learning type and environment. New employees receive on-the-job training as a way to learn how to correctly do the required tasks in their job, usually by a more senior employee. However, this is very dependent on the time available and of available senior personnel in the store. In some departments, early career workers were left to learn by doing, watching, and making mistakes. DK1 and the Estonian cases are characterised by a restrictive learning environment, including limited opportunities for growth and for job mobility (horizontal and vertical), unless the individual is employed on a trainee contract, foreseeing a managerial career path after engagement as an apprentice. All early career workers underlined that they had experienced a rapid competence development as work was primarily routinised, thus core professional functions could be mastered within the first 3–4 months of employment. In addition, they all underlined the importance of their closest manager’s supervision and support in creating expansive workplace learning opportunities in the early stages of their professional life. The cross-country comparative analysis thus shows variety; internally, within the specific country case studies, in relation to workplace learning opportunities and in terms of future goals in life.

Conclusion

Throughout Europe, the retail sector allows early career workers a first entry into gainful employment while also employing a large proportion of young adults on a part-time and/or temporary basis. This chapter presented findings on workplace learning opportunities in the retail sector, comparing cases from Belgium, Denmark and Estonia. Conditions for workplace learning as experienced by early career workers were analysed and discussed, to reveal if these can substitute for generally poor pay and career opportunities in the sector while supporting individual career advancement.

For early career workers, what is required is experienced as easily learned and rather narrow in content range since work in the retail sector can be highly standardised and routinised. The learning potential in the workplace contains uncertainties and is viewed as inhibiting the learning potential of the early career workers from a standardised and narrow job design despite the formal compulsory acquisition of a broad vocational qualification. Our analysis illustrates that the case organisations provide and compensate for relevant formal and non-formal learning activities when they are needed. All five organisations predominantly provide narrowly defined jobs for early career entrants, with limited opportunities for learning from non-routine activities, but there remained an important variation within and across the studied cases. Only by various degrees of job rotation between similar types of jobs and some functional flexibility, a broader range of skills was applied in day-to-day work. In contrast, workers selected into managerial career pathways or into specialised roles demonstrated that learning opportunities in the workplace were more readily available.

Our comparative analysis shows that early career workers across case studies respond in different ways in their behaviour to the limitations for meaningful learning and career development in the workplace set by the retail organisation. Their ways of responding to the (lack of) learning opportunities are shaped by their evolving life structures and organisational settings, where retail work might be the right thing to do for the time being, even though it creates, overall, restrictive workplace learning opportunities for the early career workers. Given their size and dominant role in society, retailers enjoy considerable leeway in deviating from the standards expected in the employment system of a given country; this also allows for a better understanding of the role of organisational agency.

Given the outlined organisational structures for each workplace in the retail sector, early career workers have only limited options for breaking out of the limitations set by the job design, with a change between career tracks as the most promising one and vertical mobility a possibility. Beyond that, many early career workers in the retail sector channel their attention away from gainful work to other areas of personal development and learning. For some early career workers, a need for a less demanding—less ‘greedy’—job that allows pursuing formal education or other personal projects has motivated them to try the retail sector in the first place. For others, while the learning at work is limited, balancing the needs of work and their personal needs and interests in other parts of their life structure represents an important developmental task on its own. Finally, the experienced lack of learning opportunities can become a driver for change in its own right, with early career workers planning on returning to education or at least combining self-selected educational projects with an ongoing retail engagement.