Creating Sector Skills Strategies that Work

Workshop Programme

What is the Workshop About?

Many countries are exploring new and innovative strategies to boost competitiveness, help displaced and unskilled workers, attract foreign investments and address unemployment.
Sector Skills Strategies or Plans, if developed, implemented and monitored properly, are one of the few approaches to meeting these challenges.
There is a growing body of evidence drawn from international best practice to suggest that Sector Skills Strategies contribute to enhancing productivity, meeting business needs for skilled workers and workers needs for good jobs.
Sector Skills Strategies are “road maps” developed by business, labour, education providers, government departments, development agencies and community organisations within a single industry or economic sector to improve workforce skills, nurture talent pipe-lines, foster competitiveness, grow businesses and expand employment opportunities.
Sector Skills Strategies offer a mechanism to focus comprehensively on workforce skills, from entry level to advanced, required in a sector.
Businesses operate in economic regions that cross cities , provinces and national boundaries. Sector Skills Strategies work across these boundaries to identify and ad-dress specific workforce needs in almost every industry.
Sector Skills Strategies help to reduce inefficiencies and streamline efforts by coordinating various projects and braiding disparate funding streams intended for the same purpose.

What are the essentials of a winning Sector Skills Strategy? How do we develop a Sector Skills Strategy that works? Who are the key stakeholders? Why is it necessary to create smart constituent partnerships? How do we win sector-wide support. What forces are driving change? How do we align Skills Strategies to industry needs and national priorities? What are other sources to leverage funding? How do we analyse a sector labour market? What occupations and skills are in high demand? How do we monitor and evaluate progress?
Our workshop seeks to answer these and many more questions. We empower participants with a set of skills, tools, concepts and methods to develop winning Sector Skills Strategies.
This workshop is a must for people involved in skills development research, policy-making and planning, local, regional and national economic development, industry clusters and industry or economic sector initiatives.

What are the Workshop Outcomes?

At the end of the workshop participants will be able to:

Analyse a sector labour market.
Identify occupations and skills in high demand.
Create smart stakeholder partnerships.
Provide good data and sound industry insights.
Align projects and programmes in a sec-tor into a coherent whole.
Generate different sources of funding for strategy initiatives.

Who Should Attend the Workshop?

The workshop is ideal for Council members of Sector Skills Councils, policy-makers, planners, re-searchers, trade unionists, employer representatives, FET and HET Managers, consultants, municipal managers, NGO Managers, people involved in skills planning, national. regional and local economic development education officials.
Employees working in the following departments are encouraged to attend: national, provincial and local governments departments; public sector agencies and parastatals; SETAs; FET Colleges and HET institutions; trade unions; employer associations; companies; research institutes and NGOs.

What is the Learning Strategy?

This workshop is practice-based and practitioner-led. We focus on the practical application of theory.
At least 70% of learning time is used for participative learning and sharing experiences.
Our approach enables rapid implementation of new approaches, methods and techniques to the work environment.
We customise the programme to address the specific client needs. This involves pre-workshop discussions; mutual agreement on outcomes; implementation; and post-workshop analysis.
We also offer coaching and mentoring services to relevant staff post-training with a view to build strengths in this field for individuals and organisations. This is separate to the workshop intervention.

What are the Issues to be Addressed?

Economic sector or industry analysis
Occupations in high demand and skills gaps
Aligning policies. Projects and programmes
Creating smart partnerships
Strategy development and implementation
Forming industry clusters
Marketing the strategy
Sourcing funding
International best practices
Performance monitoring and evaluation

How Do I Book for the Programme?

Due to our commitment to customise the learning intervention for clients, we encourage group bookings of a minimum of 10 participants from an organisation.
The workshop is delivered either on-site or off-site depending on client preferences.

What Is The Cost Of The Workshop?

The cost of the workshop depends on whether it is delivered off-site or on-site. The cost is available on re-quest from FR Research Services. Corporate discounts are available for 10 or more participants per cohort.
Contact Prof Hoosen Rasool at +27 83 786 9329 or Dr Fathima Rasool +27 31 2629 329.

Who is the Key Facilitator?

The workshop is facilitated by Prof Hoosen Rasool, an international consultant in education and training systems development. Prof Rasool is a labour market re-searcher and analyst.
He brings cutting-edge knowledge, tools, applications and insights to the programme.

What is the Duration?

The programme is delivered over 2 days.

We Offer a Range of Workshops such as:

Labour market information and analysis
Aligning labour markets, skills strategies and industry policy
Measuring and analysing skills shortages and surpluses
Impact evaluation of policies, projects and programmes
Managing large-scale research projects
Analysing occupational labour markets