An Essential Guide to Skills for Growth: the Workforce Development and Strategic Planning Program for Small and Medium Business
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Skills for Growth is the Victoria Government’s workforce development and strategic planning initiative that is designed to provide small and medium businesses based in Victoria with access to workforce planning and training experts and employee training specialists – for free The program’s objective is to help the owners of small and medium businesses attain higher levels of success by identifying the key objectives and goals of their businesses and assessing and addressing skills shortages in thier workforce.
Key benefits that the Skills for Growth program is meant to create for participating businesses include:
- Superior business performance and productivity
- Improved employee effectiveness and efficiency
- Increased capability to innovate
- Broader employee skill set
- Reduced overall costs
All of which, of course, lead to the realization of the ultimate benefit for businesses: improved profits.
Skills for Growth Program Background
Because the Government of Victoria recognised the fact that small and medium businesses are the key driver of the state’s economy – they make up about ninety nine percent of all businesses and employ around one milliion people – they decided to create and fund – to the tine of $52 million – the Skills for Growth program in an effort to ensure their continued competitiveness and growth.
Skills for Growth launched in April of 2009 with 25 Service Providers – working in partnership with independent workforce planning and training Specialists – approved to provide accredited training services to eligible businesses.
Structure of the Skills for Growth Program
After businesses register with the Skills for Growth initiative and select a Service Provider that best meets their needs, Service Providers assign independent workforce planning and training Specialists to content the business owner/manager and arrange for onsite meetings.
Workforce planning and training Specialists are required to have completed a Training and Assessment (TAA) course as well as well as an accredited course on Assess Informal Learning (AIL). Completion of a number of key units from Certificate IV is a prerequisite for AIL.
The Skills for Growth program basically goes through two phases.
Phase 1
In the first phase, a workforce planning and training Specialist conducts an onsite business review that concludes with the creation of a detailed plan for the development of the workforce. A workforce development plan details, among other things, opportunities for upskilling the workforce and makes recommendations for training.
Basic overview of the key steps to the first phase are:
- Completion of a high-level business analysis that looks at, among other things, the strategic direction of the business
- Assessment of the skills and training needs of employees as they relate to the business’ strategic direction
- The development of a Workforce Training and Action Plan that details the business and employee capability needs and that also provides recommendations for relevant training courses and learning opportunities
There are no costs associated with participating in the first phase.
Phase 2
The second phase of the program unfolds only if the business owner or manager decides to proceed with the training recommendations.
Following is a high-level overview of the key steps to phase two:
- Facilitation of staff placement into training with an accredited training organisation
- Completing a follow-up review following the completion of training (or following at least three months of training) and a Skills for Growth report which business owners/managers must review (and approve)
Phase two must be funded by the participating businesses, whose staff may be eligible for the Victorian Training Guarantee, which offers substantial subsidies for placements in recognised vocational training courses. Basic eligibility considerations include: citizenship, residency status, educational background, and age
The Skills for Growth program typically takes four weeks to complete, with the follow-up review generally completed after six months.
Skills for Growth Program Eligibility
The Skills for Growth program is open to all small and medium sized businesses that are based in Victoria. In addition, a business must:
- Have between 1 and 200 employees
- Have been in business for at least 12 months
- Be financially viable
Obvioulsy, the eligibility standards are designed to ensure that the Skills for Growth program is accessible to as many businesses as possible.
Key Numbers on the Uptake of Skills for Growth
As of the end of January 2010, the Skills for Growth program had hit the following milestones:
- 1,648 businesses had signed up for Skills for Growth
- 667 workforce action plans had been signed off on by businesses
- 17,934 employee training plans had been approved by businesses
- 10,488 approved employee training plans had met eligibility requirements for the Victorian Training Guarantee
Clearly uptake of the Skills for Growth program by Victorian businesses has been strong. So, too, have the results that many businesses have seen from their participation in the program, which you can read about in the case studies published on the Business Victoria website.
If you own or manage a small to medium business in the State of Victoria – and meet the eligibility requirements set out earlier in this article – do your business a favour and check out the Skills for Growth program.
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