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DigiVET

Digital Media for VET in SMEs

Digital media offers a new and effective way to engage employees who have low levels of qualifications in small SMEs in learning. In many countries the formal education level of employees is still weak and migration within and to Europe has led to an inflow of additional learners who lack the levels of language to engage in learning using traditional techniques. Digital media can help to overcome this barrier to learning by using more audio, video and visual material to support learning. However, many VET trainers and SMEs lack the competences needed to use digital media.

The objective of the project is to enhance the use of visual digital media in SMEs, to support the training of employees with low levels of qualifications. This will be done through the development of modular online learning programs about the use of visual digital media. The focus will be on visual material for the field of VET learning and shaped by guiding principles and concepts which were used, implemented and evaluated in Germany by ISOB and ‘SoWiBeFo e.V.’ (e.g. ‘Coaches for Digital Learning’ and ‘Media Pedagogy for Teachers’). The conceptual model for learning and the expertise generated from the projects will be used to develop similar material for VET trainers and facilitators of learning in small SMEs.

Objectives

VET trainers and facilitators in SMEs will acquire competences for digital learning in two steps:

acquiring basic skills in digital visual media use
using digital media in training of staff who have low levels of qualifications

A key feature of the project is the provision of support from trained coaches within the partner organizations, who will be available to support in-company trainers and facilitators as they introduce digital learning. In-company facilitators will work with the end recipients (low qualified staff as learners), digital and visual forms of workplace learning.
Final beneficiaries – Low qualified employees and employees with a lack of educational language skillsVisual media as instructional videos make learning independent, allow for repeating the content as needed, and can be designed to promote language proficiency at the same time.

Project Duration

November 2019 to June 2022

Project Partners

University of Gloucestershire– Coordination
Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung , Austria
Mednarodna Fakulteta, Slowenia
Fundatia Pentru Promovarea, Romania
ISOB Institut für Sozialwissenschaftliche Beratung, Germany
Gazi Universitesi, Turkey
Centro de Formacao Profissional, Portugal

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

SOCS

Introducing Strategic Organisation Counseling using Symbols for Visualization

SMEs (especially social enterprises), Start-Ups or young entrepreneurs are very often low budgeted and therefore do not have the financial means to develop and install tools and trainings to further develop their business and the competencies of their teams. It is usually impossible for them to hire an external counsellor to support them in their strategical plan.

Erasmus+ Programme has set the objective of fighting unemployment through training and education: “EU businesses need to become more competitive through talent and innovation”. The project SOCS promotes building up on this goal by improving the learning provision tailored to the specific needs of SMEs, Start-ups and entrepreneurs, short people who have HR and organizational development tasks.

“Overall, demand is growing for non-routine analytical skills and strategies involving creativity, problem-solving, communication, teamwork and entrepreneurship – all skills that help workers to maintain their employability and enterprises their resilience in the face of change.”
A Skilled Workforce for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth”, A G20 Training Strategy, INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE, GENEVA, NOVEMBER 2010

By focusing on developing the strategic, leadership, teamwork and HR management competences of the SME owners, managers and their teams, SOCS project will help them build competitiveness, grow and increase employment.

The aim of the SOCS project is to improve entrepreneurial practice by improving the skills of the responsible staff, especially those in charge in small organizations by the approach of symbol work. The innovation lies in visualization as a very precious technique to create new responses instead of only dealing and being pushed by day to day business. Symbols help to express preconscious attitudes and mental barriers, even blind spots and get more clearness about future actions.

During the two years project period, partners aim to identify the areas of interventions most needed by the targets (organizational counsellors, consultants, business owners, entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs, organizational and human resources managers and students, technicians for organizational development and HR decisions in organizations, start-up founders), by finding the existing tools most adequate for use, adapt them if needed or to develop new tools based on symbol work, especially for the online versions of the tools for free use.

Objectives

To develop leadership and HR skills of participants
To improve innovation management and innovation skills and adopting it as part of a day-to-day work to improve competitiveness
To improve managerial practice dealing with change and challenges
To develop self-assessment tools based on symbol work
To provide to the learners the possibility to choose between solutions for f2f training or online tools

Project duration

November 2019 till October 2021

Web

Homepage: www.socs-project.eu

Projekt Partners

Asociación Caminos (Spain)
Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung (Austria)
BIMEC (Bulgaria)
CSI Center for Social Innovation (Cyprus)
Instituto Politecnico do Porto (Portugal)

FYC

Career Guidance for a Modern Labour Market

Future-proof your Career aims to design, develop and implement a Future of Work Framework, focused on the identification -through a guidance process- of transversal skills which can be used to future-proof the careers of disadvantaged job seekers and enable sustainable future employment.

This forward thinking career guidance framework will provide a way of working for guidance practitioners which facilitates quality future focused career plans for job seekers already marginalized in the labour market, so as to ensure their inclusion in a technological and digitalized world of work. It will support marginalized job seekers to understand and gain awareness of key competencies which are essential employability competences for a future labour market. These key competences underpin the ability to adapt and change to the demands of a technological workplace and are important in up-skilling in initial and continuous vocational, educational and training.

The project has three main objectives

to enable Individuals to become aware of their own skills for the future labour market particularly in relation to communication and interpersonal skills
to create awareness of future workplaces, their requirements, and associated VET progression routes
to create a culture of training and up-skilling of guidance practitioners in a fast changing labour market

The main outcomes of the project

The FYC online platform: develop an online e-learning like platform which will, through a series of interactive questions and animations, help the individual identify their human, social and psychological capital, and their connection to the current and longer-term labour market. It will identify areas where the individual could benefit from vocational or industry specific upskilling. It will provide the individual and their guidance practitioner with a report outlining existing capabilities and make suggestions as to how these could be built upon and utilized and thus enable the individual to prepare for a labour market which is driven by automation and digitization.

FYC Training Modules for Practitioners: Development of a training module for practitioners on the future of work, the types of jobs available, their make up in terms of hard and soft skills, and the career path options available to job seekers

Project duration

October 2019 to September 2021

Project Partners

Ballymun Job Centre (Irland) – Koordination
Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung (Österreich)
METROPOLISNET (Deutschland)
CIOFS – Formazione Professionale (Italien)
Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti (Bulgarien)
Headway Ireland CLG (Irland)
Fundacion Tomillo (Spanien)

TeBeISi

Partial Certification Information Security

The IT sector is characterized by short innovation and product cycles among developers and manufacturers. Due to constantly changing requirements in the IT sector, learning and recognition of informal skills is a decisive factor. The lack of certification opportunities leads to a lack of experts* in the field of information security. This is why the “Betriebswirtschaftliches Forschungszentrum für Fragen der mittelständischen Wirtschaft e. V.” (Business Management Research Centre for Questions of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses) was initiated. (BF/M Bayreuth) initiated this European joint project.

The Europe-wide uniform assessment and recognition of informally acquired skills has enormous potential for combating the shortage of skilled workers in the field of information security. Newly developed job profiles reflect the current needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. Based on this, a learning curriculum is being developed and previously acquired knowledge is recognised and validated.

Project duration

September 2018 to August 2021

Web

Homepage: www.tebeisi.eu
Facebook: www.facebook/tebeisi

Project Partners

BFM – Betriebswirtschaftliches Forschungszentrum Mittelstand (Germany)
Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung (Austria)
SCV – Studio Centro Veneto (Italy)
MRU – MYKOLAROMERIS UNIVERSITY (Lithuania)
WSBINOZ (Poland)

AISAB

Applied Innovation for Students and Business

The AISAB Project addresses the need within the EU to improve the level of innovation and its impact, particularly in SMEs. Building on the work of other innovation projects and materials, it will develop approaches to develop the skills that support SME innovation from an HEI context and through VET. These complementary streams of work will see implementation of initiatives to drive innovation, both during the project and also on a sustainable basis, by embedding the outcomes in the day-to-day activities of HEIs and organisations delivering VET to SMEs.

The project objectives are to develop learning materials aimed at enhancing student skills in assessing and implementing innovation, and build tools that students can use to facilitate their impact when consulting in SMEs. It will also develop a toolkit for SMEs to self-diagnose their innovation practice, as well as putting in place business intervention approaches that can be used to enhance innovation practices in SMEs.

Objectives

Develop a series of tools and techniques that leverage the work of previous projects, and established good practice, into a HE context for use with students to enhance their knowledge of innovation;
Create a handbook/process guide enabling HE students to work within SMEs to assess and develop innovation practice to enhance their skills in assessing and implementing innovation;
Design and develop a toolkit for SMEs to self-diagnose innovation practice and identify weaknesses;
Develop business intervention approaches to enhance innovation practices in SMEs;
Create case studies for use in a VET and HE context to support dissemination and exploitation of project results;
Write and present a research paper exploring reasons for weaknesses in the underlying culture and support infrastructure relating to innovation in SMEs.

Project duration

September 2017 till April 2020

Web

www.aisab.eu

Project partners

Universität Gloucestershire (England) – Koordination
Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung (Österreich)
PROMPT-H Bildungs GmbH (Ungarn)
Universität Sopron, Wirtschaftsfakultät (Ungarn)
Universität Primorska, Fakultät für Management (Slowenien)
Korona plus d.o.o., Ljubljana (Slowenien)
Fondazione Instituto Tecnico Superiore, Bergamo (Italien)
Universidad de Granada (Spanien)

SymfoS

Symbols for Success

SymfoS – Symbols for Success project promotes an innovative education and career guidance method addressed to young disadvantaged people based on sets of symbols.

Very often the traditional counselling methods are aimed at young people who have advanced writing and reading skills and are already supported by a strong social system. These kinds of interventions can be ineffective with young people who, for various reasons, find difficulties in expressing in words their situation, their needs and their goals for the future. Working with symbols is an opportunity for them to use a universal language to do it.

SymfoS aims to support young people who encounter difficulties in finding their own pathway within the education system and labour market to set their own goals for their future. SymfoS further aims to provide educational guidance and professional operators a holistic method that improves the overall quality of counselling.

Project duration

September 2016 till February 2019

Web

Homepage: www.symfos-youth.eu
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SymfoS/

Project Partner

Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung (Austria) – Coordination
Asociacion Caminos (Spain)
BALLYMUN JOB CENTER (Ireland)
Sozialwerk Düren (Germany)
ZeMiT (Austria)
CESIE (Italy)

DAYPLOT

Diagnosis and actions for young people looking for a better future

This project aims to help disadvantaged young people by elucidating and interpreting the recent recommendation of the EU Parliament and Council which stresses the 8 key competencies for lifelong learning.

The direct target of the project is the group of professionals working with these young people such as: Practitioners in School, University and/or Labour guidance; Career Guidance Practitioners, Agencies and of the Employment Centers; trainers and teacher of the VET sector.
The indirect targetgroup are the young people with disadvantage condition (particularly the NEETs and the new arriving refugees, migrants or asylum seekers entering or looking for a VET opportunity), then all the organisations involved in the specific topic (VET schools and institutes; Public Administrations dealing directly with the young and with education, labour and reception policies; trade unions; enterprises, etc.)

The concrete aim of the project is to build with and to offer to the direct target a useful tool kit to help the young people with disadvantage condition aging from 18 to 29 years with specific training, education, on-the-job activities in order to facilitate their entrance in the more appropriate VET channel to strengthen their competencies and/or in the labour market.

Throughout the project’s lifecycle, a comparison of the existing best practices on the topic of key competencies development will be promoted and a specific MOOC platform (Massive Online Open Courses) will be planned, tested and launched to support competencies assessment and their development to enhance training and/or employment opportunities for the disadvantaged young. An original diagnosis tool kit based on innovative frameworks, including gamification and survey will allow the Practitioners and teachers to map the soft and professional skills of the young people and to assess their level.

At this stage the Practitioners and teachers will help young people to write their first EU curriculum, then, using the modules on the platform (also multimedia), they will help them to decide how to overcome the existing gaps selecting the right training or apprenticeship opportunity/ies. At the end the Practitioners and teachers will be able to assess again the skills and competences and, accordingly, to rewrite the CV. On the platform an innovative section will be targeted to match enterprises and workers, so the Practitioners will be able, with the young people, to point out the more promising working opportunities for the future professional inclusion.

Project duration

September 2016 till Oktober 2018

Web

Homepage: www.day-plot.eu

Project Partners

Antares – Rom (Italy) – Coordination
Eulab Consulting – Rom (Italy)
GEMS Northern Ireland – Belfast (North Ireland, UK)
Work Research Institute (AFI) – Oslo (Norway)
Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung – St. Pölten (Austria)
Centre Recursos d’Iniciatives i Autoocupació, sl (C.R.I.A.) – Madrid (Spain)

Dieses Projekt wurde mit Unterstützung der Europäischen Kommission finanziert. Die Verantwortung für den Inhalt dieser Veröffentlichung trägt allein die VerfasserIn; die Kommission haftet nicht für die weitere Verwendung der darin enthaltenen Angaben.

CISO

Certified Information Security Officer in SMEs!

Fast development of IT makes Information Security Issue a growing challenge for Small and Mediums companies (SMEs). more and more important in the world. Big companies have enough resources to invest in Information Security, while SMEs don not have much support in this area.

That’s why creating state of the art IS blended learning training course is important to meet the demand for such knowledge tailored to the needs of SMEs. For quality assurancethe training curriculum and blended learning tools will be certified with VCC. The course is a combination of face-to-face workshops and online.learning to provide utmost flexibility for the participants.

Results

Development of the e-learning platform, tools and online assessment for tutors
Transfer Vocational Certification System certifying competences of both trainers and trainees.
Pilot trainings in Poland, Greece and Bulgaria
Lomg-term improvement of competitiveness of companies through Know How in Information Security

Project duration

October 2013 till September 2015

Web

Homepage: cisoinsmes.syntea.pl

Project partners

Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung – Innsbruck (Austria)
Syntea S.A. – Lublin (Poland)
CONFORM Consulenza Formazione e Management S.c.a.r.l. – Avellino (Italy)
IDEC S.A. – Piraeus (Greece)
Association Generations – Sofia (Bulgaria)
INNOVACION DESARROLLO Y NUEVAS TECNOLOGIAS S.l – Albacete (Spain)

2inno

Do innovation now!

Innovation is frequently marketed as a driver of growth for the whole economy as well as the key issue for enterprises seeking to enhance their competitiveness. But why is it often so difficult for a business to successfully put innovation in to practice?

The principal reason is that it´s always a risk finding the right ideas, developing them into products and services before attempting a success launch into the market. If you run a small or medium sized business, you know that you must constantly renew but you do not always have the resources, the know-how or the willingness to take this risk.

2inno.eu has been developed to address this problem. The programme has been designed for the owner/manager or management teams of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and enables even the smallest businesses to introduce and implement practical innovation processes. The 2inno methodology – outlined below – has been jointly developed by 6 project partner institutions across Europe:-

A business that participates in the 2Inno programme will be assigned their own dedicated 2Inno coach. The business will participate in two inital ‘Innovation Audit‘ workshops at which an in-depth review of its competitiveness will be completed to determine how well positioned it is to respond to marketplace challenges and to develop appropriate solutions.

Following these workhops, innovative transfer projects will be defined, implemented and monitored. Short training modules will be delivered to key management personnel throughout the process. This provides the basis for the creation of an innovation strategy that will help build a long-term competitive advantage for the business.

Results

Multilingual innovation web-platform:
Toolbox ‘2inno innovation tools’
Training sessions in ‘Innovation Management‘

Project duration

October 2013 till September 2015

Web

Homepage: www.2inno.eu
Facebook: www.facebook.com/2inno/
Twitter: twitter.com/2innoeu

Project Partners

Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung – Innsbruck (Austria)
Instituto de Formación y Estudios Sociales – Madrid (Spain)
PROMPT-Ltd. – Gödöllő (Hungary)
Local Enterprise Office Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (LEO DLR) – Dublin (Ireland)
Camporlecchio Educational Srl – Bergamo (Italy)
Institute for Innovation and Technology (Korona plus d.o.o.) – Ljubljana (Slovenia)

INSEMOT SME

Information Security Modular Training for SME

The general aim of this project is to provide owners of SMEs/MEs and their staff with understandable and efficient information and a modular training on Information Security (IS) in order to meet their obligations under the terms of the legislation and to ensure their compliance. The cross-border development of IS activities is important, as several rights and approaches in the EU vary considerably in terms of privacy, data-security, consumer rights and liabilities.

Therefore we offer:

a multi-national information and training portal, aiming to facilitate an enriched and speeded-up learning process by sharing, structuring and modelling a huge critical mass of informal expertise and tacit knowledge, e.g. to develop the understanding of legislation concerning data protection throughout the EU with focus on the 6 partner countries and our defined target groups.
a tailored blended learning program in the field of IS for SMEs/MEs and their employees, address the demand-supply mismatch identified, clarify their specific needs and to encourage them to adopt better and more advanced security services. The concrete outcome will be a modular training of about 40 training units: we plan 16 classroom units & 24 e-learning/self-study units in order to provide the target group with a flexible but efficient way of learning, which is not too time consuming.

Project duration

October 2011 till September 2013

Web

Homepage: www.insemot.eu (not active, copy from Internet Archive web.archive.org)

Project Partners

Hafelekar Unternehmensberatung – Innsbruck (Austria) – Coordination
VIA ALTA a.s – Trebitsch (Czech Republic)
Handwerkskammer Münster – Münster (Germany)
Centro Europeo de Empresas e Innovación – Albacete (Spain)
Innovacion Desarrollo Y Nuevas Tecnologias S.l – Albacete (Spain)
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Enterprise Board – Dublin (Ireland)
CONFORM-Consorzio Formazione Manageriale – Avellino (Italy)