The future of guidance is here: first BRIDGE+ outputs
06/08/2020
The gap between acquired and sought-after competences is increasing, and there is a high demand for more flexible and higher-level competences and skills of individuals. The COVID-19 outbreak has brought in new challenges to the labour market, and this gap is widening even more. Therefore, in the framework of the BRIDGE+ project (funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union), the participating municipalities, regions and partners are building up, testing and implementing new strategies of skills development at a regional level, supported by innovative technology.
A series of documents has already been published in the context of this project, coordinated by vhs Baden-Württemberg and with the participation of EARLALL, which is coming to an end in December 2020 after three years of intense work.
State-of-play
The starting point of Validation of Prior Learning (VPL) and Career Guidance (CG) is that initial training for a career no longer suffices. It is important to acknowledge that competences (knowledge, skills, attitude, aspirations) are constantly developing. In this context, a survey covering the state of play in national policies, framework conditions, main target groups and other general tendencies related to the use of competence balancing and skills management was carried out, gathering regional case studies.
Regional Skills Development Groups
The BRIDGE+ partners have developed the concept of Regional Skills Development Groups, as an instrument and an interactive platform to bring together and evaluate all existing information and insights on requirements and needs for knowledge, skills, competences for the world of work, for business, today and tomorrow. The Co-Co-Co principle (communication, cooperation, coordination) has been the base on which recommendations to start these regional skills development initiatives have been issued, including also pilot examples from the Basque Country (Spain), Jämtland (Sweden), Styria (Austria) and Baden-Württemberg (Germany).
Available here (2 documents)
Skills Supply and Management for SMEs
It is not common for SMEs to count on in-house Human Relations (HR) skills services. In order to support these companies, BRIDGE+ partner IUC Z-GROUP has implemented a development program from October 2019 to June 2020 in 5 Swedish companies, with the aim of creating a structure, a process in HR work, and also adding knowledge within the area of HR. Furthermore, a concept of company-based workshops and coaching sessions for SMEs has been developed with the aim to help them become aware of their short-, medium- and long-term human resource and skill needs.
Available here (2 documents)
Scenario for OLE training
A course has been designed for work/life guidance professionals so they can enrich their knowledge and develop competences in the following areas:
- Coping with the impact of new technologies on their work delivering work/life guidance within companies.
- Selecting and using new technology on processes, methods, and tools in their work.
- Approaching companies and building up cooperation on work/life guidance.
- Processes and methods linked to work/life guidance.
All documents are available on the BRIDGE+ project website (www.bridgeplusproject.com/useful-documents). For more information, visit www.bridgeplusproject.com.
