Page 16 - Learning-while-working-Success-stories-on-workplace-learning-in-Europe

Learning while working
10 Success stories on workplace learning in Europe

Further action needs to be developed to encourage training in SMEs,
acknowledging that they were the driver of employment creation and one of
the engines of economic growth before the economic crisis. Supporting SMEs
to transfer and adapt innovation and technology might raise their awareness
of training needs and benefits of skill updating.
Both the quality of the training provided to enterprises and the competences
of trainers need to be addressed by any policy on skill development to be
successful. This applies to national and sectoral initiatives to promote learning
opportunities in the workplace or to prepare the economic recovery through skill
development. In less formalised forms of training, such as on–the-job learning,
trainers may help transform the working organisation into one in which workers
can develop their competences further while working, and opportunities for
learning are embedded in working tasks and work organisation. The primary
role of trainers is no longer to convey vocational knowledge in all its breadth,
but to support workers in learning within work practice, aid learning processes
in a broad sense and stimulate learning capacities. In more formalised forms
of training, a different range of challenges has to be faced, since participants
in continuing training may have a clear picture of what they want to learn,
for what purposes, and how learning should be arranged. In a consumerist
approach to learning, they want value for money or for the time invested in
training. While this puts both training providers and trainers under pressure,
it can make training more effective and targeted.
The combination of different policy measures, incentives and services
for both employers and workers is essential to encourage participation in
learning and enterprise commitment to skill development. Only through better
coordination of existing resources would it be possible to customise skill
development initiatives to employer needs, while personalising services
according to the needs and circumstances of individuals. Improving the
relevance and responsiveness of continuing training and less formal on-the-job
learning require that diverse policy measures, sources of expertise, financial
incentives and learning services are combined, responsibilities shared and
partnerships expanded to devise and implement practical training measures
in enterprises. The ambition will also be to achieve strong synergies between
economic renewal strategies, innovation policies, and employment and skill
development agendas. The contributions of adult learning to key policy areas,
such as flexicurity, innovation in enterprises and age management policies
are widely acknowledged. There is still a need to improve cooperation and
complementariness between national policies, regional, sectoral and local
strategies, and actions and services that are connected to adult learning.