The 7 C's of Workforce Development

The 7 C's of Workforce Development

1) Consensus is the extent to which the major stakeholders, government, employers and trade unions are signed up to a commitment to upgrade the skills of the workforce.

2) Competitive Capacity.-Refers to the competitive capacity for productive innovation and change. A high skills economy depends on a high level of entrepreneurial and risk-taking activities, whether in terms of new business ventures or through innovation within existing enterprises, linked to new technologies, R&D and the upgrading of skills. This is best achieved in a context of 'value added' rivalry between companies rather than its 'zero-sum' variety that leads to cost cutting, down sizing and lose of competitive innovation.

3) Capability refers to the dominant model of human capability that informs the way people think about their abilities and those of others. In Western nations this has been premised on a scepticism towards intelligence that assumes that only a minority are capable of high skilled work and that the education system must be organized in order to identify and cultivate this limited pool of talent.An alternative view is that the development of a high skills economy clearly depends on a model of human capability based on an assertion that all have the potential to benefit from skills upgrading and lifelong learning. It depends on an inclusive system of education and training that achieves comparatively high standards for all social groups irrespective of social class, gender, race or ethnicity. It also depends on teaching generic skills to all.

4) Coordination This refers to the coordination of the supply and demand for labor. It recognizes that there is often an over-emphasis on supply-side issues of education, training and employability. This ignores the need to foster the demand for skilled employment that cannot be left solely to market forces. A key issue here is how national governments try to tailor their education and training systems to the perceived 'needs' of the economy, and how they seek to incorporate the expanding numbers in higher education into high skilled jobs.

5) Circulation focuses our attention on the way nations, regions and industrial clusters diffuse skills upgrading beyond 'beacon' companies, R&D institutes, research centers and universities. In a high skills society we would expect to find a high level of circulation or diffusion of knowledge and skills throughout the workforce.

6) Cooperation is a feature of all forms of economic organization on a large scale. The more productivity depends on 'brains' rather than 'brawn', the more important cooperation based on high trust becomes. The extent to which high trust relations are woven into the fabric of society will tell us a great deal about the degree of individual discretion and individual empowerment as well as collective commitment to skills upgrading.

7) Closure addresses social inclusion and exclusion in education, training and the labour market. In a high skills society we would expect to find inclusive skill formation policies aimed at reducing the social exclusion? e that has traditionally confronted women, ethnic minorities and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. It highlights the problem of developing policies for a high skills society that are socially inclusive as it is relatively easy for all of the advanced nations to develop a elite of high skills workers.

Manage and recruit Swedish workforce for current and future strategies

Leigh (2000) suggested '20 creative ways to find the right people' which are adapted from his book, "Keeping the people who keep you in business." Some of the tips are able to apply to the Garo's HR challenge such as: 1) Begin internship or apprenticeship programs for University students - by this way, Garo will certainly create higher education people right after school for working with Garo. 2) Hire part-time workers for jobs where they were previously only hired full-timers - this is widely known in HR field, in many work fields such as nurses, doctors, teachers, substitutes are hired part-time to solve the problem of the workforce deficiency. 3) Begin or increase usage of job postings on the internet - since people are looking for jobs on the internet in Sweden becomes greater common now a day. 4) Interview applicants who may lack traditional qualifications, such as degrees or years of experience, but have the right abilities and can be trained - interestingly this tip can be as well applied by training the employees that already work with Garo to increase their competences and even educations. 5) Begin an employee-referral-and-reward program 6) Host an open house and tour. 7) Recruit from among clients, customers and suppliers - in this way, the applicants are already in the business and assumingly they know how the business works. 8) Set up own training center and pick from among the best graduates. 9) List open positions with outplacement firms where can hire talented individuals from a variety of fields and functions. 10) Hire and train entry-level workers through the federal 'welfare-to-work' program. 11) Hold on-site job and career fairs. Provide childcare during interviews if possible. 12) Let it be known in help wanted ads that the company values older workers. 13) To recruit entry-level service workers, stop in at community centers, introduce the company and says 'we are looking for workers.' 14) Create a first-name relationship with state welfare and job service officials so they will remember to refer candidates to the company. 15) Create a public-private partnership with local transit officials to subsidize a bus that will pick up employees where they will live and bring them across town to the work site. 16) Ask new hires which people they would recruit from their former companies and colleges, because talented people tend to recognize other talented people. 17) Stay in touch with talented people who leave and use them as sources for new talent leads. 18) Invite prospective employees to chat by phone or by email with current satisfied employees to find out what they like about working in the company. 19) Consider recruiting from other countries through visa programme. 20) Consider relaxing company policies that forbid hiring relatives and ask employees to refer them for jobs in other departments.Some of the recommendations are not relevant to the Swedish context for instance childcare service and full payment during vacation since Sweden has already those kinds of service consisted in the country welfare policy.

Fisher, Cynthia and