A Holistic Approach for Upskilling Competences of SMEs, VET Institutions and VET Providers for Preparing the Future Works in the Digital Era Erasmus Project

Project Title

A Holistic Approach for Upskilling Competences of SMEs, VET Institutions and VET Providers for Preparing the Future Works in the Digital Era

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Cooperation between educational institutions and business

Project Summary

In 2019, the International Labour Organization published a report which points that in almost every country SMEs are an important actor of job development and account for an increasing share of employment. Digital innovation has the capacity to transform practices, raise performance and increase growth across all industry sectors. Digital change wants that individuals need the necessary skills to adapt. This will necessitate changes to educational systems and an increased need for on the job training to understand the benefits of digital change. The Hol Up Project aims to upskill competences of SMEs, VET Institutions and VET Providers in a holistic way in order to prepare them to the future works in the digital era. The project will do this by focusing on these two issues: (1) What kind of jobs will the market need in the next few years? (2) What kind of competence does the educational organizations need to teach? For the first question, It can be said that forthcoming employment needs a high level of knowledge and skills and constant assets in education is required in order to deal with the rate of change brought about by developments in digital technology. Hol Up project will work not only with SMEs to help them develop their future workforce, meeting their current and future needs, but also with VET institutions and VET providers to mitigate their inefficiencies on shaping the future workforce in SMEs.

The Hol Up project primary target groups can be defined under two groups:
-The first group are the SMEs or owners of the SMEs and managers or human resources managers of the SMEs that aim to shape their future work and employment process.
-The second group are the VET institutions and VET providers, universities, professional organizations, Chambers, research centers, policy makers, public authorities and other stakeholders who specifically focus on the needs of SMEs in the age of the digital era.

In addition to this, the project will help SMEs in the partner countries understand and navigate the future workforce through project’s Intellectual Outputs. In this regard the Hol Up Project will support the development of key competences, including basic skills of digital era. This will include a critical thinking methodology in accordance with the fast changing world. Besides Hol Up project will provide a holistic view to VET institutions and VET providers which introduce systematic approaches in work based settings (including creation of workforce skills plan), as well as through the requirements of the digital era. This will enable to build a strategic partnership between micro, small and medium sized companies and VET Institutions/VET providers aimed at developing joint competences of future workforce and continuing VET. In this regard the project firstly, will help the SMEs to integrate their skills and internal employment policy to ensure it is aligned with demand and responsive to changing patterns of digital era’s employment process. Secondly, it will ensure that employers are able to recruit and retain the diverse skills and talent they need to thrive from within and beyond their region. Thirdly, the project will help VET institutions and VET
providers to design their training contents for today’s and tomorrow’s jobs.

In this regard, the expected results of this project are below:
-The holistic approach will provide the gap analysis between existing competences and future competences of SMEs and VET institutions/providers for future jobs and competences in partner countries.
-The holistic approach, which includes tracking and developing skills governance model for shaping the future of work force, will provide good workforce planning for SMEs and VET institutions/providers.
– The holistic approach will provide a guide included how SMEs and VET institutions/providers can deal with shaping the future of work in their organisations via upskilling competences of both existing employees and future employees.
-The holistic approach will provide how VET Institutions and VET Providers can build a dual side relationship and communication which not only increase the competences of the workers but also upskilling the employers and SMEs.
-The holistic approach will provide how SMEs of the project can develop “Hol Up Self-paced Open Online Course” and how VET Institutions and VET Providers can meet the requirements of the digital era.

Finally, Hol Up will will create an awareness on upskilling policy as an increasingly popular approach taken by forward-thinking SMEs, help SMEs overcome barriers to growth and competitiveness not only in private sector but also in the public sector, provide easy access/preparation to future workforce community, which allows to exchange experiences from different European Countries, provide a road map for SMEs and VET institutions/providers in order to fill the unemployment gap and contribute to build the future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 138535 Eur

Project Coordinator

MUGLA SITKI KOCMAN UNIVERSITY & Country: TR

Project Partners

• ASOCIATIA PENTRU SPRIJINIREA INITIATIVELOR EDUCATIONALE
• LIMERICK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• EIA – ENSINO E INVESTIGACAO E ADMINISTRACAO SA
• CENTRO SUPERIOR DE FORMACION EUROPA SUR
• ProEduca z.s.
• Archivio della Memoria