PANEL 2b: Enterprise and jobs: Training for employability

Key messages:

There is a need for a long-term strategic vision to enhance the competences and skills of the overall workforce... This requires a collective effort of the public and private sectors and a new role for the governments and the social partners

Human potential is the only inexhaustible resource societies can rely on to bridge the gap between economic growth and equitable social progress on a sustainable basis

The content of training in the past was determined by the providers. In future, it should be shaped by industry, employers and unions

Major emphasis should be placed on entrepreneurial training to enable individuals to start their own businesses and to assist existing small/medium-scale entrepreneurs to expand their enterprises and through these, create jobs for others

Resource persons:

Mr. A.W.A. de Haas, Member of the Board, Netherlandse Philips Bedrijven B.V.
Mr. W. Mansfield, Assistant Secretary, Australian Council of Trade Unions
Ms. K. Hagen, Deputy Director-General, ILO
Mr. F. Trémeaud, Director of the International Training Center, Turin, and Assistant Director-General, ILO
Mr. I.E. Yamson, President, Ghana Employers' Association
Mr. F. Kales, General Manager, Global Education and Training, IBM International Education Centre (Europe)

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Summary of proceedings:

Training for employability

The concept of employability must focus on the need to equip people with the skills and competences they require to be employable or to create their own jobs, and to provide enterprises with the qualified, motivated and committed workforce they require to remain competitive and grow. The rapid transformation of the world of work is creating an ever increasing and more diversified need constantly to learn and adapt, for both enterprises and individuals. Moreover, in a globalized economy, the competitive advantages of every country depends increasingly on the deliberate and continuous formation and utilization of "intelligent labour", based on knowledge, practical skills, innovation and technology. Therefore, training is the key for employability.

Nevertheless, training alone will not necessarily result in employment. The notion of employability needs to be understood as a lever for restoring full employment, by involving, on the one hand, the development of life-long learning opportunities for all workers, and, on the other, job creation which gives the workforce employment. Investment in both areas, training and job creation, are essential in enhancing employability.

Enterprises have a key role in addressing the challenges of training. The question is, however, the extent to which enterprises are ready, able and willing to invest in the improvement of the qualification of their workers, and to go beyond their immediate interests by contributing to the development of the employability of the workforce in general. There is a need for a long-term strategic vision to enhance the competences and skills of the overall workforce as the basis for sustainable economic growth and social development. This requires a collective effort of the public and private sectors and a new role for the governments and the social partners.

Many governments are exploring ways to assume this new role by establishing partnerships with other actors, and by creating incentives to motivate enterprises and individuals to invest in training. Governments are confronted with a formidable new task for which they are compelled to innovate and become more entrepreneurial, involving and mobilizing other partners effectively. The social partners are compelled to participate more actively and at all levels of decision-making concerning training, and to strengthen dialogue to address these issues within the broader context of employment promotion, competitiveness and social equity. Within this new perspective, the role of individuals has increased: every person will need to assume a major responsibility in developing his or her own employability, which demands awareness of the changing labour market requirements and the individual's own needs and potential.

Finally, strategies and mechanisms are required that can address training for employability on the basis of open and innovative partnerships between all parties. Human potential is the only inexhaustible resource societies can rely on to bridge the gap between economic growth and equitable social progress on a sustainable basis. Training for employability is a priority concern to which the ILO is ready to extend its support and assistance.

Shifts in knowledge

Governments, employers and workers are trying to find ways to achieve full employment; the demands of the labour market are changing as a result of new technology, the globalization of the economy and ever more intense competition and pressure to innovate. This environment has called for an increasing amount of flexibility in employment contracts, working hours and remuneration. As the market forces increase, government control is diminishing and there are fewer social safety nets.

The quality and conditions of work in future will vary for different sectors of the population. This environment is characterized by increasing individualization, the demise of collective ideologies, the depolarization of labour relations and the loss of ideology as a socially structuring factor. The latest information and communication technology has resulted in shifts in work towards knowledge-intensive production and services requiring ongoing training. The shift is from "intelligent technology" to "technology that makes people intelligent".

Moreover, there is increasingly rapid reaction in the market, and a change from series of products to continual product innovation including customised production and tailor-made products. The emancipation of women in the labour market, particularly those in executive positions, has also influenced the labour market in changing company and organizational cultures such as management style and labour relations. The rapid development of information and communication technology (multimedia, networks) facilitates telecommunication between multinational organizations and creates growing possibilities for teleworking. As a result of market pull instead of technology push, functional methods of production are developing towards process-oriented production and teamwork, with knowledge being increasingly important to production and services.

In this environment the accent is on employability rather than employment. This is because employment security is on the decline, giving way to training for employability, which implies the ability to obtain work. Increasing employability requires the individual to invest in developing broader and usable skills and to develop an insight into personal prospects within the labour market.

For enterprises this requires investment in the employability of employees, thus increasing flexibility in the workforce demanded by globalization and the new information and communication technology.

The current environment requires a complete reversal of the old arrangements. Up until now people depended on the security of full-time paid employment, which is now becoming less and less common. The new work environment requires a different approach by all parties. Before the industrial revolution, people were obliged to create their own employment. With the arrival of the industrial revolution, full-time paid employment came to dominate but in the future will likely be less common than informal forms of employment. In the new work environment, training will become increasingly important and will be required continuously throughout working life to enhance the employability of the individual and the flexibility of the workforce.

The message for the future is thus "keep learning". This entails change for all concerned. Employees and employers must develop appropriate instruments to put it into practice. While the trade unions must transform themselves into advisers on employability for their members, employers must inform their employees with regard to future employability outside their own company. Finally, governments must adapt their regulations accordingly, to create an environment conducive to continuous learning and enhancing employability.

Adaptable people

Rapid changes in the job market are also changing job content, and enterprises are looking for adaptable people with sound judgement and reasoning, able to solve problems, identify new opportunities, give customer specific services and learn new situations and, at the same time, possess in-depth technical knowledge. The challenge is in articulating future competences and in the recognition of these competences, for which employers can make an important contribution by identifying and assessing the changing requirements. This is particularly important in terms of changing demographic trends, such as the increasing participation of women, migrants and minorities in the labour force, and will depend upon the ability of the employers in the effective use of human capital. Training of employers as the users of human capital would require priority attention alongside the training of workers.

There now exists increasing inequality, unemployment and under-employment, as well as a widening income gap between groups of population and countries, consequently giving rise to increasing concern about the question of access to skills necessary to compete in getting and keeping work. Growing inequalities in the world of work, coupled with the inability of society to provide access to appropriate skills for work in the world today, have made it imperative to stimulate and commit substantial resources for investment in training across the board to enhance equity. Heavy investment in education and training for all sectors of society is required. In developing countries, structural adjustment must not mean that education budgets must be cut. There is growing recognition in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that resources devoted to education must be maintained and even increased. It is critical that efforts be made towards creating a less unequal society within and among countries.

The growing informalization of the workforce - more part-time, short-term core workers and sub-contracting arrangements and more work in the informal sector - means that emphasis must be put on encouraging entrepreneurial training rather than narrowly focusing on formal employment. Commitment to full employment policy should be reiterated, aiming at flexibility and emphasizing skills for income-producing activities.

The case of IBM

IBM is an example of enterprise training within the new business environment. IBM has 200,000 employees - half the number of just a few years ago - who have been trained, together with some of its customers. In recent years, budgetary constraints have forced the company to consider education and training as businesses and in the process, significant cost cuts were also made, most notably in real estate and human resources. Twenty-five per cent of total training expenditure was used to finance the cost of classrooms and buildings. The figure currently stands at 8 per cent. As regards human resources, the company has resorted to what it terms a "complementary workforce", whereby people are contracted as required. This ensures flexibility and enables a demand-driven process.

Technology is also a major factor, as the company has embraced distance and open learning through networks and multimedia systems. A major consideration in the change process is speed. In IBM's business environment, the conventional model of training trainers to train beneficiaries was found to be too slow. An organization can only go so far in making efficiency gains. Beyond a certain point, there is also need for a step change, which could be achieved with modern communication systems and technology. In this context, IBM identified six 'learning blueprints', outlined below:

Access: modern communications and technology can increase access to training. Workers find what they need, individually, to improve their skills easily and near to hand, without large obstacles.

Systems: Systems enable individuals and organizations to define and exchange skills and competences. Furthermore, a systems approach to training would allow all key actors - individuals, schools, companies and institutions - to speak the same language.

Connections: There is no longer need to move people. With a PC or a network computer and a variety of linkage options, people can work with others anywhere with market place information contained in the databases.

Distance - learning: Distance learning is now the standard, with knowledge presented in an entertaining and didactic way. Progress is measured against standards, using teamwork, tests and interviews. Remote tutors guide groups of students toward specific accomplishments.

No - duplication: Duplication is eliminated and replaced by variety. Investments are made in improving the content of training and information infrastructure and no longer in buildings or bureaucracy.

Teamwork: Companies and institutions need to define skill requirements. Individuals, employers and governments need to share in funding professional development beyond age 17 or 18 through savings, loans or taxes.

Vocational training reform

Levels of unemployment world-wide are unacceptable and the ILO's position on full employment is both achievable and worthy of support. Low levels of economic growth and job creation and accompanying economic policies may be the cause of the unemployment problem, not necessarily the new technologies. Proper social values are essential.

Assertions that trade unions defend the status quo, fail to be active or to adjust to change are not valid. In Australia, Italy, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and many other countries, unions work with government and employers on the need for change.

Ten key points provide a basis for vocational training reform; these need to be addressed jointly by the social partners:

i. The content of training in the past was determined by the providers. In future, it should be shaped by industry, employers and unions. Time-based training systems should, in future, give way to competency-based systems led by industry.

ii. Vocational training will need to be broader and made available to all school leavers. At present, only a small proportion of school leavers have access to structured vocational training in emerging employment areas. The equity issue in vocational training should be addressed in an economically viable way.

iii. Vocational training needs to be broad based and not only enterprise-specific. It should allow people to have access to jobs beyond specific enterprises in which they work. Training should provide flexibility and mobility, not restrict these.

iv. There should be no geographic barriers to the recognition of training, both at national and international levels. This would entail developing unified and coherent training systems at the national level and reaching international agreements to achieve mutual recognition of qualifications.

v. Training providers should be chosen by the users: employers and employees. Training should be available in a flexible manner through training markets.

vi. Vocational training should be available to students in their final years of schooling and enable them to achieve competences they will need to compete in the labour market, such as teamwork, communication skills, technology, etc.

vii. The level of bureaucracy in the administration, delivery and recognition of training should be reduced, but the quality of the system should be maintained.

viii. Increased attention should be paid to ensure that training opportunities are available to women, the unemployed and disadvantaged groups.

ix. Training should be delivered through a competency-based system within which people would advance once having demonstrated competency.

x. For those already in the workforce, a system enabling efficient and fair evaluation of prior learning should be available to recognize competences gained through experience.

Developed and developing countries: Africa

The concerns of developing countries, such as the issue of globalization in Sub-Saharan Africa, have different dimensions and social realities. In many African countries restructuring has been the primary concern; consequently, the capacity of enterprises to create jobs has been greatly reduced. This tendency goes against one of the major premises of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). Ghana could serve as an example, where some 350 enterprises were put on divestiture, with the resultant loss of about 300,000 jobs. The private sector has not yet managed to fill this gap.

The issue of training for employability needs to be looked at differently in Africa. However, any discourse on the employment crisis in Africa, and how to respond to it, should first address the fundamental issue of job creation. Training for employability suggests that jobs do exist and that what has to be done is to make the workforce more flexible through the development of skills and competences to take advantage of these employment opportunities. While this might be the case for developed and some transitional economies, it is not the case in Africa.

There are a number of fundamental issues in Africa that impact on training and employment which need to be defined and dealt with. First, there are high population growth rates - surpassing economic growth rates, in many countries - with no corresponding new jobs. Secondly, SAPs concentrate more on inflation and less on unemployment, which contrasts with the view gaining ground in Africa today which emphasizes full employment. Thirdly, there is need to define the skills that must be developed to enable the continent to participate effectively in the globalized economy. Against this background, there is the worrying trend of de-emphasizing tertiary education - another imposition on adjusting economies as part of educational reforms. Fourth, there is a need to define the role of government. In adjustment programmes in Africa, government roles have been reduced, while in the emerging economies of the Far East, there is a high level of State intervention in development.

As regards the role governments should play, many African countries have set up government agencies to assist would-be entrepreneurs. In Ghana, for example, the National Board for Small-Scale Industries will train over 5,000 entrepreneurs this year. However, training alone may not be sufficient. There is need for follow-up and other services, including access to finance for entrepreneurs, to render such agencies more effective.

Companies are naturally most interested in employee training. However, the survival of enterprises is of greater concern than skills provision in itself. The focus in training for employability should be, firstly, on school leavers. In Ghana, for example, over 250,000 new job seekers enter the labour market annually, generally with no skills and therefore very little hope of gaining employment. The fact that the female percentage of this number is rising causes understandable anxiety for policy-makers. There is thus a need to re-orient vocational and technical training systems to equip trainees with employable skills. At the same time, job training programmes for apprentices and school leavers need to be expanded. However, vocational training infrastructures have been run down because governments have been forced to cut back on public expenditure. There is also a growing phenomenon of graduate unemployment. For graduates, entrepreneurial training, both during and after university education, would enable them start their own businesses.

Secondly, for those already in employment, the main issue is job security. Here, there is a need for people to become more flexible by learning new skills on the job to enhance their chances of relocation. Emphasis should be placed on work-based training programmes oriented towards multi-skilling.

The third category is workers who have been retrenched. As part of the divestiture deal, employees to be retrenched must be guaranteed training in employable skills.

Finally, major emphasis should be placed on entrepreneurial training to enable individuals to start their own businesses and to assist existing small/medium-scale entrepreneurs to expand their enterprises and through these, create jobs for others. This area received the greatest attention in Sub-Saharan Africa, since, in the short term, employment growth should come from the small and medium-scale enterprise (SME) sector. In Ghana, for example, employment in the formal sector has shrunk from about half a million to 186,000, and the informal sector has grown five times over the same period to account for 1.3 million jobs.

In the context of entrepreneurial development, the ILO Improve Your Business (IYB) Programme has contributed much and requires further support. Efforts are needed to build linkages between the formal and informal sectors, as well as to establish linkages between large companies and SMEs, through sub-contracting for example.

The responsibility for training for employability will rest with all the social partners including, in Africa, the church. All of these could act together to determine training needs and ensure that training is relevant. It must be emphasized, however, that training alone may not be sufficient to secure jobs for the jobless and to allow people to set up businesses. Additional services may be necessary, such as job search and placement services, labour market information, credit and marketing advice.

In summary, globalization is irreversible and, for Sub-Saharan Africa, carries as many disadvantages as advantages. The balance at present seems to be tilted more in favour of developed countries, with Africa in danger of being marginalized. Structural adjustment programmes, with their serious limitations, are not helping matters, with public sector job losses unfilled by the private sector. How to integrate the development of Africa into the rest of the world is a crucial and key issue. The first step for Africa is to strengthen its regional groupings.

Training for employability assumes that new jobs emerge to succeed redundant jobs, hence the need for employable skills. Since in Africa the private sector has failed to absorb jobs shed by the public sector, training must concentrate on providing skills for self-employment. To this end, there is an urgent need for entrepreneurial skills training for self-employment and job creation, in which the State and all the social partners must be actively involved.

If unemployment is to be contained, population growth rates must be curbed. Equally, if training for employability is to be meaningful, then sustainable job creation policies must be pursued relentlessly.

Job finding and job keeping

The concept of training for employability must aim at enabling the worker to find and keep employment or create his or her own job. Training for employability requires interaction between the various actors and partners including the worker. Training provides a means for the worker not only of finding a job but also of keeping it, changing it and creating his or her own employment.

Much of the activities and services of the ILO International Training Centre in Turin are concerned with training for employability. The Turin Centre is presently co-operating with one of the so-called "learning organizations", namely the Rover Group in the UK, in programme development and delivery. With the establishment of the UN Staff College Project, the ILO Turin Centre has been asked to become the training centre for the entire UN system.

In training for employability, particular attention has to be paid to SMEs, because of their employment creation ability. In the USA, some 80 per cent of new jobs are created by SMEs. The picture is not much different in developing countries, where the informal sector accounts for the majority of jobs. In this context, it is noteworthy that in 1996 the ILO Turin Centre will organize about 25 training activities in this sector, which probably makes it one of the largest providers of international training programmes on SME development in the world today. These programmes assist policy-makers and institutions supporting SMEs, as well as training of trainers and advisers.

Besides enterprises, the Centre also conducts training programmes for employers, workers, labour-market specialists, employment planners and vocational training experts. These activities involve defining policies and familiarization with the policy environment, improving institutional support to SMEs, and training of trainers. Because of the necessity to involve the social partners, specific programmes directed to employers' and workers' organizations define their respective roles and promote their active participation.

Given the global economy and other challenges facing the world today, an important area is the seeking of innovative methods for training. In particular, programme delivery must include distance learning in order to reach people en masse and quickly, for example open learning centres which would give flexibility in coping with a rapidly changing job market and environment. To be effective, however, such training would have to be supported by other methods of learning and development, in particular coaching, mentoring, counselling, job exchange programmes, secondments and study visits.

In other words, it is necessary to give individuals what they need to help ensure their employability. To this end, multi-skilling and the use of technology are worthwhile pursuits. All of this requires a close dialogue between the social partners, a balancing of enterprising needs versus social responsibility, and convergence of individual preoccupations with collective interests. In this context, the ILO provides a good mechanism for tripartite and international dialogue, while the Turin Centre serves as a practical training ground and observatory.

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