VOICE OF THE
WORKERS ISSUE 22 June 2014
Contents The Strategic Key
02
What is personal development? 03
The Joys of
Knowledge
Worker Training: What for?
04
Worker Training for a Flexible Workforce
05
Worker Training at European Level
06
Editor’s note josef Vella There is one constant in life, and that is change. However, change is sometimes treated as the way we treat fast food and health. We know that fast food may be dangerous to our health, but we still resort to it. We know that change is inevitable, but we are sometimes tempted not to do anything about it. With change being proactive is much better than being reactive. In a world that is changing, challenges can be turned into opportunities. However, these can only be achieved with the right skills, flexibility and attitude. This is the case for personal VOICE OF THE
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development and training. This includes activities aimed at improving awareness and identity, developing talent and potential, facilitating employability, and most important of all, increasing the person’s capacity to lead a full and happy life. In the world of work, this element is not important; it is vital. Improving self-knowledge, learning new skills, developing your self-confidence, and building on your strengths are effective ingredients for enhancing the workers’ quality of life, improving one’s health, building social abilities and fulfilling aspirations.
Continuous self development is very much linked with the notion of making work pay. However, for this to be achieved, attitude is key. Many attest to the fact that the more you know, the more you realize that you need to know more; the thirst for knowledge is itself a motivator that leads a person to persist in further development. The quest for knowledge becomes an attitude. We need a knowledge economy. This knowledge can only be successful if it originates from the individual. Taking a topdown approach can be counterproductive. This, I believe, 1
editorial/picture story
is the role of managements and government. It is not just a question of providing the knowledge; it is more of a question of encouraging workers to pursue development they think they need. Organisations need to invest more in identifying training needs for their employees, and reward those who get going. Continuous self development can be divided into formal and non-formal training. There is development that leads to qualification. Equally important, however, is the acquisition of vital soft skills such as emotional intelligence, self-confidence,
teamwork, communication skills and others. These are a fantastic resources for an individual to become proactive, positive, flexible, and ultimately successful. Worker training and self development provides a win-win situation for everyone: for the individual worker, for his or her co-workers, the organisation itself, as well as the country in general. Training and self development are the real tools by which we will me maximizing our only and best resource as a country: its people. The UHM’s philosophy is that the best guarantee for workers is their own development. All stand to gain.
Opportunities abound. European Union funded programmes, online courses, educational institutions, as well as individual sources of knowledge such as the internet, books, magazines and the media. The choice is staggering as it is exciting. Writer Carroll Bryant once said; “Know who you are, and be it. Know what you want, and go out and get it!” It is not just the availability of training opportunities that make the difference. It’s the attitude and quest for knowledge that makes the difference.
The Strategic Key Personal development and training are the keys to success as individuals, workplaces, families, society, and the country in general. Opportunities for development abound. It all depends on having the necessary space and attitude to keep on learning. The quest for knowledge is not the realm of the few. Training and personal development go hand in hand with success and a fulfilling and rewarding life. It provides the flexibility to become proactive to inevitable changes, and places the individual one step ahead of situations. It is one essential pre-requisite for Malta to succeed. Full speed ahead. VOICE OF THE
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Feature story
What is personal development? Personal development includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitate employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations At the level of the individual, personal development includes the following activities improving
self-awareness
improving
self-knowledge
improving or learning becoming a building or renewing developing
(taken from “The Empathic Communicator”, published in 1982)
new skills
self-leader identity/self-esteem
strengths or talents
improving
spiritual development building
potential
employability or human capital
enhancing
lifestyle or the quality of life improving fulfilling
initiating a
health
aspirations
life enterprise or personal autonomy
defining and executing
Unconscious incompetence This is the stage where you are not even aware that you do not have a particular competence. Conscious incompetence This is when you know that you want to learn how to do something but you are incompetent at doing it.
wealth
identifying or improving
The four stages of continuous personal development by W.S Howell
personal development
Conscious competence This is when you can achieve this particular task but you are very conscious about everything you do. Unconscious competence This is when you finally master it and you do not even think about what you have such as when you have learned to ride a bike very successfully”
plans improving
social abilities
What they said…
(Source: Wikipedia)
Continuous personal development helps you to achieve self-actualisation “… the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming” A bra ha m Ma s lo w ( 1908– 1970)
“You are your greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset.”
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
T o m H o p k ins ( Sal es G u r u )
Bruce Lee ( t h e f a t h er o f m ixed m a r t ia l a r t s)
Aristotle on Personal Development The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), In his “Nicomachean Ethics”, his best-known work on ethics, defines personal development as a category of “phronesis” or practical wisdom, where the practice of virtues leads to “eudaimonia” commonly translated as “happiness” but more accurately understood as “human flourishing” or “living well”. VOICE OF THE
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MEUSAC
Worker Training What for?
The rapid changes in the labour market, confronted with the challenges of unemployment, an ageing workforce and shrinking cohorts of young people highlight the increasing importance of the need for changes in occupational structure and the organisation of work, and the updating and broadening of workers’ skills and key competences for the knowledge economy and society In the EU, the need for a skilled and adaptable workforce is explicitly supported in the Europe 2020 Strategy. Particularly through the flagship initiative, ‘Agenda for New Skills and Jobs’, the EU and its Member States are committed to implement a set of concrete actions to address these challenges, namely by: • Stepping up reforms to improve flexibility and security in the labour market; • Equipping people with the right skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow; • Improving the quality of jobs and ensuring better working conditions; • Improving the conditions for job creation.
industries where skills are in demand. • Encouraging more active career management, in particular helping people to recognise their future career needs and plan for these, often through lifelong learning programmes. Training schemes help workers acquire the skills to work in new sectors. • Modernising the institutions that deal with employment and education to change their
focus away from reacting to company closures and job losses and moving towards longer-term planning for the anticipation of change in labour market demands. These actions are intended to help Europe’s workforce to adapt to an environment where change is normal and which envisages workers and companies to become more flexible and to learn to anticipate, manage and live with change.
Through the support of the European Social Fund, the EU and its Member States are taking a variety of active employment measures: • Workers are offered training opportunities that give them the skills the evolving jobs market needs. Where unemployment threatens, training also helps re-orient those threatened into growing
MEUSAC 280 Republic Street, Valletta VLT 1112 Tel: +356 2200 3315 • Fax: +356 2200 3329 • Email: info.meusac@gov.mt www.meusac.gov.mt VOICE OF THE
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MEUSAC MCESD
Worker Training for a Flexible Workforce Employment and the adaptability of the workforce have been subjects of interest to all social partners within MCESD in the past years and various discussions within the Council have taken place on this issue. Training is becoming a driver of economic growth and prosperity. In fact, one can notice that vocational training can also assist individuals to make the transition from unemployment to employment, hence contributing to the improvement of the local economy. A competitive labour force means a competitive economy hence encouraging foreign investment in the country. Training can take various facets including academic training and job shadowing experiences abroad.
Employees need further encouragement to diversify their skills especially in the dynamic socio economic scenarios we are currently living in and in order to ensure that one is able to compete in the new scenarios of the international economy. Policies need to focus on ensuring that training is directed towards economic needs and cooperation projects with European counterparts are to be encouraged since exchange of best practices will assist in this regard. The EU has taken various initiatives to ensure that employees are continuously trained through Lifelong Learning Programmes which give support to mobile learners within the EU from young students to adults as it
has recognised worker training as essential for Europe’s future. Training needs to adapt it as well and training providers need to provide interactive training which is accessible to all and caters for the specific needs of employees. Continuous improvement programmes need to be further encouraged. Human resources in Malta are the only resource and it is essential that we have a workforce which can easily adapt to change and change jobs if needs be. Furthermore, more training means that the same individual is capable of carrying out various tasks within a company or organisation. The employment market has become very competitive and it is essential that employees have a set of diversified skills which they can use in numerous employment scenarios.
MCESD 280/3, Republic Street, Valletta, VLT1112 Tel: (+356) 2200 3300 www.mcesd.org.mt VOICE OF THE
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CIA
Worker Training at European level
Call for proposal
Partnership Programme on European Youth Worker Training (next deadline: 15th of June 2014) The Partnership Programme between the European Commission and the Council of Europe is a training programme promoting common values such as human rights, pluralist democracy, active citizenship and European co-operation. Both institutions are active in the field of youth worker training in different ways and using different tools. The courses are run in co-operation with the SALTO TR RC and they will be implemented by the network of National Agencies of the Erasmus+ Youth In Action Programme. More information are available here: http://tinyurl.com/q4aju4l Call for Proposals VP/2014/002 on Information and training measures for workers’ organisations The deadline for the submission of applications is 6 June 2014 for actions commencing no later than 31 December 2014.
Conference ‘From active inclusion to social investment’ The European Economic and Social Committee and Eurofound are jointly organising a conference in Brussels on 16 June 2014 on the measures taken at European level to step up active inclusion and social investments. More information are available here: http://tinyurl.com/paql9g7 Job creation incentives: how to better integrate policies to create sustainable jobs On 25 June 2014, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the European Commission will host a Thematic Event of the Mutual Learning Programme that will focus on the role of job creation incentives (hiring, self-employment and entrepreneurship subsidies) to stimulate labour demand, besides supply-side measures. It will reflect on how these subsidies are being designed and their complementarity with other policies. More information are available here: http://tinyurl.com/pwsaug5
Objectives of this call include measures and initiatives to strengthen the capacity of workers’ organisations to address, at EU/ transnational level, changes in employment, work and social dialogue related challenges, such as modernisation of the labour market, quality of work, anticipation, preparation and management of change and restructuring, the greening of the economy, flexicurity, skills, mobility and migration, youth employment, health and safety at work, reconciliation of work and family life, gender equality, action in the field of anti-discrimination, active ageing, healthier and longer working lives, active inclusion and decent work. Measures which contribute to addressing the employment and social dimensions of EU priorities relating to the recovery from the crisis, taking into account increasing inequalities within and between Member States, and to reaching the objectives and targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy and its flagship initiatives, will be particularly welcome. http://tinyurl.com/p7l2vvt VOICE OF THE
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Events
News
Worker training is important for the success of member countries, as well as the European Union in General. The Brussels Office of the Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori has gathered a sample of initiatives at European level on this subject.
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Operational Programme II - Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 Empowering People for More Jobs and a Better Quality of Life Project part-financed by the European Union European Social Fund (ESF) Co-financing rate: 72.25% EU, 12.75 MT, 15% Private Funds Investing in your future VOICE OF THE
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