Skills for Employability

Building the foundations of employability through the development of IT, technical and other employability-related skills, curriculum, support to job placement and mentoring is the main focus of this Laboratory.  Through partnerships between businesses and with national and local governments, this Laboratory will achieve enhancement of opportunities as well as improved social inclusion of the people who are deemed ‘at-risk'. The partnership is based on a specific "value chain" approach in which each partner experiments and brings its core competencies, expertise and programs. 

 Leaders        
 Microsoft  State Street   Cisco  Adecco 
Facilitators    
 CSR Europe  econet

Project Description

The European Alliance on Skills for Employability, launched in 2006, by Microsoft, Cisco, State Street and Randstad together with the ECDL Foundation, Exin and the eSCC, has the objective to contribute to build the foundations of employability. This Europe-wide campaign will help to enhance access to technology opportunities and the provision of basic and more advanced IT, technical and other complementary skills, curriculum, support to job placement and mentoring for Europeans underserved by technology (20 million people across Europe by 2010).

Activities are run and implemented at national level. Currently there are three active projects in France, Hungary, Poland, Luxembourg Belgium, Scotland and Germany.

Main Project Objectives and Targets

Objectives:

  • Distil key learnings on the basis of best practice exchange in the area of skills for employability
  • Develop joint operational projects to scale up industry contribution to skilling and employability
  • Establish broader partnerships that create pathways from skills training to better access to jobs
  • Expand from IT and finance to other industry's competencies to strengthen the pathway from training to jobs

Deliverables:

  • Creation and set up of the Skills for employability Alliance in at least six other countries; Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Italy and Finland over the next year.  The goal is to extend and scale up by building upon the current experiences in Germany, Scotland and Belgium.
  • Cross-sectoral expansion of the Skills for employability Alliance. The Lab aims to establish synergies with the automotive and telecommunications industries to further integrate and develop training on technical skills.  In addition, synergies could be found with the retail and service sectors to develop training aspects in soft skills and interpersonal life skills.
  • Raise awareness on the need for skills at the EU level and demonstrate how industry can support training programmes in collaboration with stakeholders. To this end, there will be cooperation with the EuroSkills initiative and conference in Rotterdam in September 2008, together with Toyota and to be further elaborated.

Lab Leaders

Microsoft, Cisco, State Street and Adecco

Facilitators

Co-ordination is undertaken by partners independently in the form of a Secretariat of the European Alliance and two national co-ordinators in Belgium and Germany supported by member companies (one in close co-ordination with Business in Society Belgium). Liaison and exchange with CSR Europe and Business in Society happens on a constant basis.

Company Participants

Participating companies welcome interest and engagement by other companies and national partner organisations wishing to get involved in the next phase of implementation.

Proposed by CSR Europe and Business Europe: Arcelor, KPMG, GDF SUEZ, Cannon, Intel, Telecom Italia, IBM, Volkswagen, Bayer, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bahn, Elefsis Shipbuilding & Industrial Enterprises, Ford-Werke, Randstad Germany, Randstad Belgium, Shell Hellas

Contact Information

Yanne Courcoux (Alliance Secretariat)
secretariat@employabilityalliance.eu

Milestones

Incubation Phase

  • January - December 2006: Project scoping, strategy definition and partnership building

Kick Off

  • 30 January 2007: Scottish Launch in Edinburgh.  European Commission's endorsement by Commissioner Verheugen at the Employability Alliance's one year anniversary
  • 27 March 2007: Launch of the German ‘IT fitness' project

Implementation/Extension

  • April 2007-March 2008: 5 June 2007, Luxembourg launch
  • November 2007: Poland launch
  • December 2007: Spain/Portugal launch
  • Winter 2007: Italy launch (other countries to follow)
  • 2008, Euro-skills competition in Rotterdam:  Supported by Microsoft, Toyota, Cisco, the European Commission - DG Education.

Evaluation

  • Ongoing: Started discussions with EABIS and other academic institutions to develop employability impact assessment.