Actions Supporting Restructuring

Carla Duarte & Mafalda Vicente

IEBA

With Financial support from the EU

With Financial support from the EU

1. SKILLS4JOBS > DEPARTURE The importance of labour market institutions

“Employment services and in particular Public Employment Services (PES) can act as transitions agencies by strengthening their service delivery. While their main role currently is to address the needs of the unemployed, employment services can play a more comprehensive role as lifelong service providers, delivering services in skills assessment, profiling, training delivery, individual career guidance and client counselling (workers and employers), matching people to job profiles, and offering services to employers, as well as catering for the challenges of those furthest away from the labour market. Employment services should also promote partnerships between and among services (public, private and third sector employment services), education and training providers, NGOs and welfare institutions.”

An Agenda for new skills and jobs: A European contribution towards full employment” European Commission - Brussels, COM(2010) 682/3, pp. 7

With Financial support from the EU

> Career guidance professionals should... ... be alert to the changes and needs that appear in order to adapt to them, ... must ensure that their professional development has quality to be competent, ... be committed with identifying new competences that enrich and improve their services.

With Financial support from the EU

PRESENT SITUATION IN EUROPEAN UNION CAREER GUIDANCE PROFESSIONALS COMMITMENT

High rate of unemployment and

underemployment.

> CEDEFOP, 2014: “Global financial and economic crisis

has led to an alarmingly high rate of unemployment and

underemployment in many European Union”

> Work, not only to improve the situation of the

unemployed, but also prevent further increasing

unemployment.

Employers are having difficulty filling

vacancies.

> European Company Survey 2013: “First findings,

launched in November 2013, show that despite the

recession, almost 40% of companies reported difficulty in

finding staff with the right skills. For innovative

companies, it is even more of a problem.”

> Provide advice for workers, knowing the most

demanded jobs offers and required competences,

proposing real alternatives to acquire/develop them

through appropriate training,

> Support employers in finding adequate workers for

their needs, identifying competences that have to be

acquired/developed, proposing adequate training plans

for companies

> Ensure the balance between labour market supply and

demand.

With Financial support from the EU

PRESENT SITUATION IN EUROPEAN UNION CAREER GUIDANCE PROFESSIONALS COMMITMENT

Restructuring is a crucial factor for

employment and for the competitiveness of

the European economy.

> Green Paper “Restructuring and anticipation of change:

what lessons from recent experience?” COM(2012) 7

Final: “This Green Paper aims to identify successful

practices and policies in the field of restructuring and

adaptation to change in order to promote employment,

growth and competitiveness (...).”

> Participate in the effort required to meet present

needs and challenges, helping to maintain strong

business networks, that enable job creation and local

development.

With Financial support from the EU

2. SKILLS4JOBS > ACTIONS

European Commission gives priority to create a “(...) a more skilled workforce, capable of contributing and adjusting to technological change with new patterns of work organization. This is a considerable challenge, given the rapidly-changing skills needed, and the persistent skills mismatches in EU labour market. Investment in education and training systems, anticipation of skills needs, matching and guidance services are the fundamentals to raise productivity, competitiveness, economic growth and ultimately employment”.

“An Agenda for new skills and jobs: A European contribution towards full employment” European Commission - Brussels, COM(2010) 682/3, pp. 2

With Financial support from the EU

As companies are at the core of Europe’ issues on restructuring, competitiveness and growth, career guidance professionals must be able to work with them in an integrated and close way, strengthening this relationship. To do so, they have to acquire, update, develop their competences as “game changers” - agents that enable and actively deal with present societal and economic challenges:

ADAPTABILITY

UNEMPLOYMENT

RESTRUCTURING

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

NEW JOBS

SYNERGIES

PREVISION

With Financial support from the EU

As “game changers”, career guidance professional have to: > identify new professional profiles – promoting work change and job creation > detect training needs – facilitating the adjustment and development of competences, favouring a more skilled labour force > reduce passive attitude and resistance to change – awareness raising on improvement needs to stimulate companies’ competitiveness

These are the 3 actions supporting restructuring (ASR) that, from career guidance services, can support the anticipation of change and facilitate labour market restructuring.

With Financial support from the EU

ACTION 1: Detect new professional profiles

> Supporting work transformation

“Although the risk of job polarization may not be as high for Europe as a whole, it could be more pronounced in those Member Stated still in transition from industry (or even agriculture) to service-based economies, since traditional manufacturing will be moved abroad and technology will replace many routine jobs. However, within all these occupational groups — including elementary occupations — there is a clear trend towards increasing requirements for high-educated people, and a decrease for those with low education.”

European Commission, New skills and jobs in Europe: Pathways towards full employment, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities, 2012

With Financial support from the EU

Major trends of work transformation are been studied and identified. This transformation has impact in economy and labour market macro level, and also in micro level in companies and workforce. In this context, career guidance services in their comprehensive role have to deliver services that support work transformation, namely by:

• detecting new professional profiles needed by companies, • delivering services such as:

• skills assessment, • profiling, • matching people to job profiles and • offering services to employers.

With Financial support from the EU

ACTION 2: Identify training needs within companies

> Favouring a qualified workforce based on competence and avoiding mismatches

“Long-term prospects also emphasize the importance of skills. Jobs occupied by highly-qualified people are expected to rise by 16 million between now and 2020 in the EU, while those held by low-skilled workers will decline by around 12 million. Too many people do not have the competences needed to succeed in the labour market; adults with low educational attainment are seven times less likely to be involved in continuing education and training than those with high attainment levels, and as a result face increasing difficulty in adapting to newly-emerging and evolving skills needs. Serious deficits in qualified professionals, in management and technical, job-specific skills are hampering Europe’s sustainable, growth objectives. This is also the case for shortages in areas critical for innovation.”

With Financial support from the EU

The shift towards competence - and skills-based approaches is already leading to a significant change in education systems, labour markets, and their interaction. This in turn has important implications for the work of employment services in the area of skills assessment, profiling processes, training delivery, cooperation with training providers, career guidance and client (including employers) counselling. Cooperation between employment services and guidance centres in the education field must be reinforced, so that the latter can provide advice directly relevant to the labour market. Counselling, incentives and assistance to companies, including SMEs, is also essential to help them develop and make the best use of competences in the work place. Employers should be encouraged to co-invest and participate in the activities of education and training institutions (...).

An Agenda for new skills and jobs: A European contribution towards full employment”, European Commission - Brussels, COM(2010) 682/3, pp.9,11

With Financial support from the EU

Education and training are among the most important processes that have positive and direct impact on better performance and motivation of employees, thus on companies’ productivity and competitiveness. Currently, companies, organizations and governments value education and training as necessary investments and as continuous lifelong processes. That's why Europe and Member States give funding to provide training for companies and workers. Nevertheless there are still companies that fail to benefit from these training resources. Numerous reports show that one of the factors that justifies it is because companies do not detect their competence needs and, in most cases, training activities are implemented reactively, ie, in response only to immediate needs. Companies should consider training as a continuous and proactive process by detecting the necessary competences they have to acquire or develop to anticipate, face up and adapt to present fast-changing environment. Identifying training needs within companies is a crucial factor to deal with restructuring challenges. In this framework, career guidance services must be able to identify training needs not only with unemployed, but also with workers within companies, give guidance and provide and training opportunities.

With Financial support from the EU

ACTION 3-Reducing attitudes and passive resistance to change > Overcoming the resistance that limits workers and therefore companies

competitiveness

In present crisis context, companies need to adapt and restructure. Both employers and employees need to learn and adapt to this dynamic reality, but at the same time resistance to change is a natural reaction for both. Change can be uncomfortable and requires new ways of thinking and acting. Career guidance services need to be able to help companies in adapting to this context and manage change in a productive and constructive manner, supporting them in identifying and overcoming barriers, recognize situations, in which certain strengths of the past have become competitive weaknesses, manage conflicts constructively and, ultimately, develop the competences to increase the active attitudes and adaptation to change, supporting companies and workers in dealing with change and acting on internal resistance factors. This action is an innovative way of supporting companies’ growth and competitiveness and is intended to safeguard jobs, preventing the need for additional hires or layoffs.

With Financial support from the EU

3. SKILLS4JOBS > PROCESS

For each action, partners identified and described a set of good practices in the field of career guidance services, existing in their countries. The achieved best practices collection is not an exhaustive gathering of all information available in each country, but a selection made by each partner based on its experience and knowledge about this theme. In this collection, the identified practices have been described paying special attention to: > activities and services that are being offered to companies;

From WHERE is developed each action Description of HOW is developed each action (methodological techniques, methodological tools, etc)

> description of the PROFESSIONAL PROFILE/COMPETENCES of the agents that implement each practice, including:

• academic background, • technical skills and social competences/soft skills.

With Financial support from the EU

Best practices collection overview enabled us to: > know the starting point where career guidance services are in the different partner countries; > identify the experiences in which ASR are already being implemented; > identify the necessary competences to implement ASR by career guidance professionals. Also, we conclude that: > in very few of the identified best practices, ASR are being implemented from career guidance services, i.e., > ASR are especially being implemented from outside career guidance services.

With Financial support from the EU

4. SKILLS4JOBS > ARRIVAL > Career guidance professionals have ...

... restructured or redefined their professional profiles as agents of change

... identified new competences that are necessary to deal with present fast changing socio-economic environment and consequent job challenges.

With Financial support from the EU

Go deep on the S4J study results!

Read more on:

Carla Duarte & Mafalda Vicente

carla.duarte@ieba.org.pt – mafalda.vicente@ieba.org.pt

skills4jobs.org