Multi-stakeholder Collaboration for Impactful Upskilling
The Pact for Skills, recently launched by the European Commission, highlights the need for public and private sector collaboration to make substantial progress in meeting Europe's skills needs.
At the European SDG Summit, companies, stakeholders, and policymakers dialogued on the next steps to take collectively to ensure a transition that is inclusive and leaves no-one behind.
Skills are central to Europe’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and for mastering the digital and green transitions. Yet, mismatches and shortages in skills are increasing, while many people are at risk of unemployment. To maximise the impact of investing in improving existing skills (upskilling) and training in new skills (reskilling), the European Commission has recently launched the Pact for Skills. The Pact calls on industry, employers, social partners, chambers of commerce, public authorities, education and training providers and employment agencies to work together and make a clear commitment to invest in training for all working age people across the Union. Nicolas Schmit, Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, invited companies to join the Pact:
“Today, most employers know that investing in skills needs to be a key issue in their strategy. They realise that they cannot only rely on governments to take the responsibility for education and training. There needs to be a strong private-public partnership in order to respond to the huge and urgent needs of investment in upskilling and reskilling. I count on commitment and concrete actions from all actors. We do not have time for half measures. We need to act now.”
Companies welcomed Commissioner Schmit’s approach at the plenary session of the European SDG Summit 2020 and centred on the future of work. Martina Macpherson, Senior Vice President, Strategic ESG Engagement at Moody’s, agreed with Commissioner Schmit and highlighted that to have an impact we should “first of all, determine the fundamentals, factors and criteria relevant for consideration, to then actually establish side by side the relevant instruments, and then put investment forward, for instance, through public-private partnerships that are needed in our communities.”
As jobs are expected to change rapidly, sometimes even several times during one’s career, the skill to learn, unlearn, and relearn (learnability) is crucial and companies are undertaking different initiatives to encourage it. Carlo Albini, Head of Innovability, People, and Organization at Enel, explained that their reskilling programme is, in a nutshell, “a blended mix of formal taught classes and shadowing with progressive autonomy.” BNP Paribas Polska focused instead on the creation of collaborative spaces, desk sharing, and the opportunity for employees to work on design thinking and to spend 10% of working hours on transversal projects.
In this skilling process, the role of Human Resources (HR) within companies is key. For this reason, in our project Upskill 4 Future, we are currently investigating how HR transformation can lead to an inclusive workforce transitions. Jan Laurijssen, Senior Managing Consultant, People and Organization at SD Worx, stressed the active role played by their HR departments in terms of digitization of processes, improving employee experience, and future skills and employability. For Julie Foulon, founder of the start-up Girleek and co-founder of MolenGeek, working with HR departments is necessary to help facilitating the access of young people to the job market.
For more information:
Project Manager