From May 2018 to November 2019, a pilot project was carried out with the aim of anticipating the impacts of technological advances on jobs and to test (as a "proof of concept") the usefulness of supporting companies and their employees in the transformation of their work, jobs and skills.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the pilot project were as follows (click on the image below to enlarge) :
JOURNEY
The participating companies and employees went through the following key steps:
1. Workforce Planning
Following a quantitative and qualitative analysis (supported by innovative tools) of the impact of new technologies on the company, of the past mobility of the company’s workforce and a projection of the future workforce needs, the company has established a skills development plan identifying occupations at risk and skills development needs for future activities. These skills development plans have then been certified by the Economic Committee (Comité de conjoncture)
2. Profiling :
For the employees in the occupations identified as high-risk and participating in the program, the SkillsBridge personal coaches conducted an analysis of their competency profiles and preferences, supported by profiling tools. For this purpose, 25 individual advisers were trained and certified.
3. Matching :
The next step (carried out by the personal coaches and supported by AI-based tools) allowed to find internal or external job matches for the highly impacted employees (with a potential job loss), corresponding to their profile and preferences, and indicating the skills that remain to be developed for the job transition (skills gap). This led to the elaboration of an individual skills development plan for each participating employee. For the employees who stayed in the same position (but where the position was likely to change significantly), the future skills required for this position were taken as the basis for the individual skills development plan.
4. Training :
In this final and important step, each participating employee attended training (soft, digital and job-specific) in accordance with their individual skills development plan, and received advice on self-branding.
To cover this entire journey, the Ministry co-financed for each participating company: max. 12 days of technical assistance to the company for workforce analysis and planning, max. 1 day of personal coaching per employee, max. 35% of the training expenses and 90% of the salary expenses during the training period ("chômage partiel").
ADVANTAGES
The advantages for the companies were:
- Proactive anticipation of the impact of new technologies on workforce planning;
- Better understanding of the skills, motivations and interests of the employees;
- Implication of the employees in the transformation process;
- Methodological and technical expert assistance throughout the upskilling journey.
-> Increasing the competitiveness and innovation of the company
The advantages for the employees were:
- A comprehensive assessment of competencies, motivational drivers and interests;
- Identification of new opportunities (internal or external) in line with the results of the assessment;
- Acquisition of new professional skills, either soft, digital or job-specific.
-> Strengthening the future employability and facilitating the transition towards a new or transformed position
CONCLUSION
The main aim of this project or "proof of concept" was to test the usefulness of supporting companies and their employees in the transformation of work, jobs and skills resulting from technological disruptions. The experience gained and lessons learned will be used by ADEM to orient its future service offering and tools to best support affected companies in their workforce and skills planning initiatives in an aim to secure the employability of Luxembourg’s workforce.