A view from the top

Atotal of up to 105 delegations will make Dublin their destination this September for the WorldSkills General Assembly. This huge biennial event takes place a year out from Lyon where the next WorldSkills event will take place. David Hoey is CEO of WorldSkills International. Recently in town as part of the forward planning for this major event, he took time out to meet with CMi to consider skills training, future pathways - and the enormous Irish contribution to WorldSkills down through the years.

CMi: Hi David and welcome to Ireland. First off: what is WorldSkills?

DH: WorldSkills is a global movement made up of member organisations around the world. Our members are the body or agency within each country responsible for the promotion of vocational education and training (VET).

Paraphrasing that: WorldSkills is a direct link to every VET system in the world.

What we do, which is our Unique Value Proposition is we drive up skills performance and provide a global benchmarking for every VET system in the world and we focus on excellence and not just competence.

In a world that is competency-based you want to know the difference between competency and excellence.

That’s the output. The return is about industry in a global market –companies selling their products at the best price in that global market. A skilled workforce is critical.

The other piece is that around the world too many people think unless you have gone to university you have failed.

We constantly promote that a career in the skills trades and technologies is a very good first choice career option for young people and the process of skills competitions is proven to drive up performance towards excellence, increase enrolments in VET and provide a global benchmarking.

CMi: What about the dynamics of doing what you do on a global perspective? Some places are at different points on their journeys; with 85 countries some may be competing with each other. Where do you come to all of this in WorldSkills?

DH: We are a membership organisation which means we are very open and have a transparent approach to helping everyone and, as the phrase says: ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’.

You have different ways to look at it. You have those who are already leading countries and want to maintain that competitive edge.

If you look at VET, one way to describe it is ‘getting people workforce-ready’.

So, the moment when they leave their formal vocational educational and training they can hit the workforce and be ready to produce; as opposed to having to go through a lot more training in the workplace.

So leading countries are obviously looking at maintaining that edge and others are trying to drive up to that point.

And when you look at developing, emerging economies around the world they are looking to learn from those countries.

They may not be out to get a gold medal but to increase their performance and they have targeted goals – no different to an Olympic athlete where some will go to the Olympics never with the expectation to win a gold medal but they go there for a personal best and to drive up their performance.

And so, as a collective organisation of course, a lot of the leading economies will sell to the developing emerging economies and so it’s all about economic development at the community, company and country level.

CMi: It seems that there are fewer and fewer jobs now where you don’t need some training to begin – certainly fewer unskilled jobs, it occurs to us anyhow, than when a lot of us may have left school. Have you any observations on that?

DH: The need for skilled labour is everywhere around the world. Look at developing, emerging economies where young people may not go to university but can learn a skill and immediately, in micro economies, start generating an income.

A lot of developing economies are looking at micro development right, through to fully- fledged national vocational education systems.

You used to have the phrase, ‘a jack of all trades’, whereas today there is more and more specific technical knowledge required.

The tools that you use have more and more ‘smarts’ and more and more chips go into products.

WorldSkills has large, global corporations who work with us and they give us an insight into the demands of industry from a global perspective.

We created a model where those companies are ‘global partners’. They are linked in with our mission and vision and give us financial support to drive the mission globally.

(Also, we might have a couple of hundred companies who sponsor the event, say, when we run the competitions and they will be a combination of maybe domestic companies and our global partners. The sponsors could be, say, a leading hospitality company providing cutlery to Restaurant Services for example.)

They have two reasons. They are interested in showcasing their leading edge technology in their products and services.

Stanley Black & Decker, for example, are putting more and more ‘smarts’ into the tools.

Ray English on the WorldSkills General Assembly, Dublin, September 2023

WorldSkills Ireland is hosting the General Assembly of WorldSkills International in September of this year, explains Ray English.

This is clearly a hugely significant event on the international stage with serious players from right around the world set to take part.

It will take place in close proximity to the national event here and the Higher Options event, meaning enormous opportunities to capitalise on synergies created.

Biennial

The assembly, explains Ray – who is Head of Mechanical Engineering Apprenticeships, Technological University

Dublin and WorldSkills Ireland

Chair-Technical Delegate –is a biennial meeting of all of the members and regions and also the global partners.

‘WorldSkills partners with other global organzations like UNESCO, ILO, UNIDO, OECD, African Union, and European Commission and many will be in attendance,’ he notes.

‘I think we are hosting at a key moment,’ stresses Ray. He refers to how, in Ireland, we have seen key changes in the education system here and value being added to apprenticeship systems.

Registrations

There has been an increase in registrations from ten thousand to close to thirty thousand, he reminds us. And currently you can also go up to level ten – going from post-secondary education levels to PhD.

The range of offerings and the achievements are to be celebrated and this we will be doing as a nation.

‘It’s important’, says Ray, to ‘showcase to the other members how a system can transform itself.

‘There are now so many ways to progress. There is a large variety of apprenticeships. Of course there is still a bit of work to do.’

The statistics, however, look good. For example, looking at the post-show report from Higher Options in 2022, (the huge careers event that runs at the same time as the national skills competitions), Ray notes how attendance shows at 47% female.

It is he agrees, a really positive indicator.

Positive

‘Our next job is to grow our own range of competitions and reflect more the emerging sectors,’ Ray adds. Indeed, Ireland has been no slouch when it comes to pushing the envelope along the way. ‘We would have been first to do Cloud Computing and BIM for example’, Ray notes.

‘Others have introduced new sectors also and people should look within their economies to see where the gaps are; where are those emerging trends and gaps?’

WorldSkills Ireland 2022

16,000 registered Over 80 exhibitors

86% likely to visit WSI again 233 schools attended 98% of exhitors were satisfied with event

WorldSkills Ireland 2023 will take place the week before the WorldSkills International biennial General Assembly linking the members and regions in the European Year of Skills.

Dates for WorldSkills

Ireland 2023 are 20-22 September. The General Assembly will be held from 25 to 28 September.

In older times maybe two people would do a job; now it can be done with one person. And some ‘smarts’ on the product which might come back to your phone or whatever.

The other thing is, as they go globally and they have manufacturing facilities around the world, they need workers in those factories, for everything from initial set up and commissioning to ongoing maintenance and production increases.

And if you work in products that are fast moving consumer goods you’re changing your product range every 6 months to two years. So, you have to have people who can flexibly fix etc.

So yes, there is this trend around the world that people are getting more and more specific knowledge.

But the other thing you are seeing around the world is that transversal skills are more and more important.

The ability to troubleshoot, communicate and problem-solve – whether you are in construction, engineering, the services sector or whatever, a lot of these skills are common.

This is a key skill that employers are looking for, as, when you are trouble- shooting you have to be able to talk to people, to be able to describe what’s happening and work that through.

The other thing is sustainability. In one of our competitions in the past we had a sector called ‘Green Skills’.

But we dropped it because we recognised that now, every sector has

‘greening’ going on and it is something that is very important to us all.

So you are seeing this total, holistic look at skills development around the world – the technical skills, the transversal skills, sustainability etc. And ultimately that is what companies are looking for.

CMi: How is the trip going in preparation for the big event in September – and how are you finding your trip to Ireland generally?

DH: I love Ireland. I love the people; there’s a spirt there. And Ireland is a key player in WorldSkills.

In fact, Ireland was one of the first members to join in Europe as it was growing, in the 1950s.

We have a project – ‘The WorldSkills Museum’ – and we have been able to come to Ireland and dragnet some amazing stuff from the past!

I caught up with a close friend from the building materials and construction industry (on this trip) and saw how, in Ireland there is a high and urgent need for skilled workers coming into the industries, the building industry, industrial, commercial.

To me, what I see in Ireland is common around the world. The opportunities and jobs are there.

Companies have the potential to turn that into business; they just don’t have the labour force to be able to capitalise on it.

So, you come back to grassroots which is that, when people are going through school and thinking about what they are going to do afterwards, we have to showcase that a career in skills, trades and technologies is a really good first choice career option.

It is a rewarding career. You can make a lot of money. It will open doors. You will develop skills that will set you up for life.

Apprenticeships are a great programme as you can earn while you learn.

There is a place for everyone. We have to develop a culture that sees VET as a very good alternative, a very good first choice option to a university pathway.

We have to change the paradigm thinking of parents too. We find that, often, they may be basing their imagery on, say, twenty years ago.

CMi: What would you like to see happen for WorldSkills in future?

DH: I think there are two aspects. Our organisational development and our competition development.

The WorldSkills competition today is globally renowned. It is a showcase for skills excellence, an ability for the counties to benchmark VET systems, and gives individuals the chance to show how good they are.

Wouldn’t it be great if they had the same recognition as a sports star? Because everyone has this opportunity.

Globally I’d like to see the organisation continue to grow our respect and position in the global VET landscape.

We are really good at the moment as we are seen as a key player.

We have partnerships with major organisations but I would still love to be a household name.

Wouldn’t it be great if, when a young person says: ‘I’m going to become a plumber or carpenter, people go, ‘wow, that is a fantastic career option’.

Instead of that thinking that is still residual that says: ‘oh…you didn’t get to go to university’.

The General Assembly will be held from 25 to 28 September.

David Hoey, CEO WorldSkills International

Recruited in November 2004 ‘to provide professional management of the organization including strategic, operational and administrative responsibility’, David has progressively developed WorldSkills International to be a global organisation capitalising on its unique and very important role in the showcasing and development of skills excellence.

David has a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering (Mech), Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and a Masters of Business Administration.

He is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Recent studies include Strategic Perspectives for Non-profit Management at Harvard Business School and Performance Measurement of Non-profit Organizations at Harvard Kennedy School.

He worked as a Project/Systems Engineer, Sales Consultant, Technical and Sales Support, Training Consultant, National Training Manager, National Manager, and Owner/Manager of a consulting business prior to joining WorldSkills International.

David initially specialised in industrial automation and control technology and then focused on training and consulting, business development, and productivity solutions.

He has worked for and consulted to large Multi-National Corporations as well as small businesses.