Public employment services’
contribution to EU 2020
Briefing note
Introduction
With Europe 2020 the European Commission has launched an offensive and ambitious
strategy for the future, which will encroach upon the current labour market policy of the
Member States. The actors in the labour market will play a prominent part in introducing the
Guidelines for the employment policy. Expectations are high, especially towards public
employment services with a view to achieving the central policy objectives. Public
employment services will also be important partners for the European Commission in the
debate on a new impetus for flexicurity.
Member States show huge differences as to the institutional embedding of public
employment services. There are for instance important dissimilarities in the fields of
influence, power, autonomy, means, political and legislative framework, etc. These
differences will have to be taken into account when defining the future positioning of public
employment services. Nevertheless European public employment services all have similar
objectives, mainly the realisation of the European employment strategy. Moreover, as all
public services, they are confronted with an ever more complex labour market and a
continuously changing environment. They will have to be able to present tangible results.
They will have to show that their organization models and structures are flexible enough to
respond to the changing needs of citizens, enterprises, partners and policy makers.
The European objectives and social challenges of the future transcend the typical national
context of public employment services and call for a common strategy. A thorough
cooperation between public employment services will indeed be crucial for a well functioning
European labour market.
This note consists of two parts. The first part focuses on the way in which public employment
services may organize in order to offer a surplus value in implementing the European
strategy 2020. We first outline which developments on the labour market and outside will
influence public employment services’ position on the labour market and the way in which
they will implement European Employment Guidelines. The second part concentrates on the
future positioning of public employment services with a view to a labour market in which
several other commercial and non-commercial actors are operating and which is
characterised by a large number of transitions. Heterogeneous institutional and political
configurations are taken into account, as are political context, legal and financial restrictions,
different labour market structures and other environment factors in the different Member
States. In conclusion, the note also looks into how public employment services will have to
develop their organization in order to be able to efficiently and effectively respond to internal
and external changes. Special attention is paid to ‘empowerment’ of PES personnel.
1. Changes everywhere
Public employment services are embedded in society and cannot escape social evolutions.
Due to the economic crisis PES were confronted in 2008 with an unprecedented labour
market U-turn. In less than one year time an historical workforce shortage and a profusion of
job offers turned into massive job loss and alarming unemployment figures. Public
employment services were expected to make an equally smooth switch to adapted services.
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Political and public pressure to offer ready-made solutions for the very pressing problems of
the day was high. On top of that, saving needs made it impossible to hire extra personnel to
take care of the crowd of new job seekers. In the meantime economic revival has set in,
against all odds. Already in the autumn of 2010 a decrease in unemployment was noticeable
and job creation took a new start. This sudden change makes it necessary for PES to adapt
their priorities in order to respond to the accelerating market demand. Again expectations are
often high. Reacting swiftly in the given circumstances calls for decisiveness, flexibility and
creativity.
Society also presents us with a number of challenges that will have an influence not to be
underestimated on public employment services’ organization and operations in the middle
and long term.
The bi-annual Demography Report 2008 of the European Commission states clearly that the
forthcoming retirement of the baby-boom cohorts will accelerate the process of population
ageing in Europe and shift the balance between people of working age and retirees. The
population in the EU will be slightly smaller, but much older, in 2050. Today's old age
dependency ratio is 0.25, meaning that for every person aged 65 or over, there are four
people of working age (15-64). In 2050, there will be only two people of working age for
every person aged 65 or over.
Only unrealistically large increases in net immigration or birth rates could curb this trend to a
noticeable extent, and this would imply very rapid population growth. By contrast, a shrinking
population resulting from very low birth rates and an unfavourable net migration balance can
seriously accelerate the ageing of the population.
The trend towards a very different age structure of the population is inevitable. Projections
show how the proportion of people of working age (15-64), will decline (from 61% in 2008 to
52% in 2050), while the proportion of ‘older people’ (65-79), will increase (from 13% in 2008
to 18% in 2050). The fastest growing age group, however, will be people aged 80 or over,
whose proportion in the population could almost triple from 4% to 11%.
The ‘sustainability’ concept is also becoming more relevant for the labour market. It is
obvious that ‘greening’ of the economy forces sectors to redirect and causes new
competency requirements to emerge (cf. NS4NJ). Job seekers and stakeholders attach more
importance to employers’ corporate social responsibility. But there is more. Also matching
supply and demand should as it were be done from an ecological point of view. Both
qualitative and quantitative shortages point out today that easily employable workers are
becoming scarce and expensive. Labour market actors can no longer afford not making use
of talent potential and thus waste ‘human resources’. In order to avoid talent going to waste
and workforce reserve getting exhausted, continuous (re)investments will have to be made in
human capital. This also implies that competencies need to be conserved and recycled
throughout career transitions and companies.
To conclude, a new generation is emerging who has a different view of work, who deals with
learning in a different manner, which has different competencies and soft skills than current
working age population. They are persons in their twenties who are entering into the labour
market now – the so-called generation Y – who have special requirements as to combining
work and private life, opportunities for personal development either in or outside the
company, mobility and variation throughout their career. Next, there are today’s children who
will be the customers and employees of tomorrow. These children are growing up in a world
that is permeated by technology and information, which they are dealing with in an intuitive,
clever way. Social networking, virtual competency development and multi tasking are clearly
part of their learning process.
The new generation will have other expectations towards public services and demand a
different approach from counsellors and instructors. They will be more critical, better
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informed, more self-directed. They will have competencies today’s policy makers are not very
familiar with.
When implementing European Employment Guidelines public employment services will have
to take full account of the above-mentioned and other social developments. They will indeed
determine in the forthcoming decade the shape of the labour market and public service
design. By taking into account today the environment factors that will be of overriding
importance for the future, public employment services will more easily manage to preserve
neutrality, continuity and stability in public space, determine political and public agenda
settings and support policy makers in designing a durable policy.
2. Impediments that remain
Not only changes in context, but also structural impediments of the labour market itself will
have massive influence on public employment services’ operations and on the way in which
they will implement national and European employment policies.
2.1 Mismatch between labour demand and labour supply
Already today many Member States are facing a mismatch between labour demand and
labour supply. For some occupations there is a purely quantitative lack of qualified job
seekers. For others, job seekers do not have the required competencies. Workforce reserve
has (temporarily) been growing due to the economic crisis, thus creating some breathing
space on the labour market. Nevertheless, as the economy is recovering, the prospect of a
large-scale war on talent and a real shortage economy is looming up again. The problem of
hard to fill vacancies is all the more acute as it is strengthened by two irreversible evolutions,
namely greying of the active population and new trends on the demand side.
Demographic evolutions will also cause a dramatic decrease in work force supply, leading to
a structural shortage in the nearby future. Although the overall employment rate of the EU is
projected to rise in the years to come (mainly as a result of the gradual replacement of older
women by younger women who have higher educational attainment and a stronger
attachment to the labour market), this can only provide a temporarily cushion, and eventually
the weight of demographic change will prevail.
According to a European Commission’s study on long-term sustainability of public finances in
the long term, three distinct time periods can be observed. Between 2004 and 2011, the size
of the European working-age population and overall employment levels will continue to rise,
and thus can be considered as a ‘window of opportunity’ when conditions will be relatively
favourable to undertake structural reforms. Between 2012 and 2017, rising employment rates
will offset the projected decline in the size of the working-age population. After 2018, the
trend towards higher female employment rates will have come to an end and the
employment rate of older workers will reach a steady state. Active working-age population
during this last period is projected to contract by almost 30 million, giving a reduction of 9
million over the entire 2004–50 time horizon.
2.2 Vulnerable disadvantaged groups
A second challenge for public employment services, especially in order to achieve the central
objective of increasing the participation rate of the population aged 20-64, is eliminating the
unacceptably low participation rate of some job seeker groups who score less well in the
labour market charts.
With an employment rate of 35.7 percent in 2009 for persons over 55, Flanders is situated at
the tail end of the European pack. Over 60s do even worse with an employment rate of 18
percent. Unless there is a change in policy, according to prospects, Flanders would be
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96,000 workers short in 2020 to reach the 75% objective. Extra efforts will have to be made if
we want to reach the EU 2020 objectives, mainly, though not exclusively for people over 55.
Retention of experienced staff also deserves our attention in this respect. On average
retirement in Europe is situated at the age of 61 (Eurostat, 2008).
“The job crisis in the EU has hit young people particularly hard. At 5.2 million, youth
unemployment is down by 154 000 (2.9 %) compared to October 2009, but still up by 31 %
(1.2 million) compared to the low of spring 2008. The youth unemployment rate has always
been a lot higher than the adult rate, but the relative situation of young people has become
even worse as a result of the recent downturn. While the unemployment rate for adults rose
by 2.7 pps from its low of 5.6 % in spring 2008 to 8.3 % in March-October 2010, the rate for
young people increased by a much sharper 6.1 pps from 14.7 % in March 2008 to its peak in
February-April this year. As a result of the marked deterioration in the labour market situation
for young people during the crisis, youth unemployment has become an even more serious
problem in many Member States. The youth unemployment rate is over 10 % in all but three
countries (Germany, the Netherlands and Austria) and is at or over 30 % in Ireland, Greece,
Latvia and Slovakia, and close to or over 40 % in Estonia, Lithuania and Spain. This is a
major cause of concern for Member States, since the youth unemployment rate has
particularly negative economic and psychological effects in the long term.”1
Furthermore the employment rate of other vulnerable groups in the labour market needs to
be drastically increased, think of the low-skilled, migrants and occupationally disabled
persons. They are a growing group in the job seekers population that even in times of a
blooming economy gets insufficient chances to professional integration.
“Between the second quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2010, the unemployment
rate increased more dramatically for some groups than for the EU as a whole (up 2.7 pps):
young people (up 5.6 pps), migrants (up 5.9 pps), and the low-skilled (up 4.8 pps).”2
Yet exactly this heterogeneous workforce reserve will have to cushion the imminent
structural shortage.
At the same time long-term unemployment needs to be absolutely avoided, for the longer
one is unemployed, the more difficult it gets to find a job and escape structural
unemployment. “Moreover, long unemployment spells may lead to the permanent destruction
of human capital, as well as an irreversible rise in the non-accelerating wage rate of
unemployment (the so-called ‘hysteresis effect’) and further losses in potential output growth
in the medium-term.”3 In Europe 3% of working-age population is unemployed during more
than one year.
2.3 Widening educational gap
Next to increasing the employment rate, increasing the schooling rate is another central
objective of the EU-2020-strategy. Also as far as qualification and competency enhancement
are concerned public employment services are confronted with a number of causes for
concern.
Generally speaking, we learn from the most recent figures that the unemployment rate for
school leavers after 12 months fluctuated in the year 2000 between 4.4 percent in The
Netherlands and 52.8 percent in Slovakia.4 According to the same source of information the
share of job mismatches for the low-skilled (ISCED 3-4) was, however, significantly higher
than for high-skilled persons (ISCED 5-6): 44 versus 30 percent in Denmark, 40 versus 29
1
EU employment situation and social outlook, December 2010.
op.cit.
3 op.cit.
4 Eurostat, LFS ad-hoc module 2000 - Entry of young people into the labour market.
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percent in France, 43 versus 26 percent in Belgium, etc. It is known that those who enter into
the labour market being low-skilled or even without any qualifications have a much harder
time than those who got a (higher) degree. Indeed, the higher the schooling rate, the higher
the employment rate. According to Eurostat the employment rate for the low-skilled was
46.2% in 2009 (age 25-64 /EU-27), while it reached 82.9% for the high-skilled.
The share of school leavers who leave secondary education without starting qualifications
decreased in the European Union to 14.4% in 2009, but before reaching the central objective
of the Europe-2020-strategy (10%) there is still a long way to go. In some Member States up
to one third of 18-year-olds leave education early. Moreover, alternative analyses, based on
‘counting data’ for which the entire population is examined, suspect that Eurostat surveys
underestimate the problem of unskilled outflow. Instead of decreasing, the group of
youngsters leaving Flemish compulsory education without a diploma or certificate appears to
be systematically growing. In 2006 the rate amounted to 14.5 percent. Especially among
boys the rate is high, 18% or nearly 1 out of 5.
Furthermore, investments in lifelong learning is still showing a lack of ambition. They even
seem to deteriorate. Cedefop figure analyses show that European companies invested 27
percent less in staff training in 2005 than they did in 1999.5 On top of that, no less than 39
percent of companies in the European Union offered no training possibilities whatsoever to
their personnel in 2005. But also on the workers’ side there is much room for improvement in
the field of lifelong learning. European statistics show that in 2009 only 9.3% of workers
participated in any form of training or education during the month preceding the survey. The
Adult Education Survey pointed out that short-skilled persons participate least in formal and
informal education and training. The Netherlands (with 17%), the United Kingdom (with
20%), Sweden (with 22%) and especially Denmark (with 31.6%) however, prove that it is
possible to drastically increase participation in lifelong learning in the European Union.
The strategy that was designed to face current labour market weaknesses and future threats
for a prosperous Europe, may be summarized, as far as employment policy is concerned, in
the objective to increase the employment rate to 75 percent by 2020. In other words: more
people should have a job. The figures mentioned above show that a margin for growth in
employment rate is mainly to be found in those segments of the working population that are
proportionately underrepresented in the salaried population, like low-skilled youngsters,
migrants, occupationally disabled persons and older job seekers. Increasing the employment
rate of the so-called disadvantaged groups will in itself not be sufficient, though. It is equally
necessary to fight early career exit. Limiting early retirement from the labour market is a must
with a view to the ageing of the working population, the decreasing replacement ratio, the
historically high inactivity rate among people over 55 and the particularly difficult
(re)integration of older job seekers. A 75 percent employment rate implies that employment
in all age categories is brought to a comparable level. That will especially call for efforts
made during the last ten years preceding pensionable age. In short: it comes to making more
people work longer. However, nor professional integration of disadvantaged groups, nor
retention of the most experienced workers can be achieved with activation measures alone.
The current approach to work and the way in which careers are usually composed these
days, do not leave much room for encouraging more people to get to work and keep on
working longer. Work has to be put into a wider perspective, making it more compatible with
learning, care, volunteering, inactivity, leisure activities, etc. Careers need to be built in a
more sustainable way in order for them to offer more opportunities for mobility and talent
development. The central objective for labour market policy in the coming decade can be
concisely put as ‘more people working longer and differently’.
Cedefop, “Employer-provided vocational training in Europe: Evaluation and interpretation of the third continuing
vocational training survey”, March 2010.
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3. Working differently
3.1 A transitional labour market
In order to tackle structural impediments on the labour market, conducting a separate
activation policy will not be sufficient anymore for the decade to come. There is a need for a
different labour market architecture, based on a new concept of activation and labour.
Indeed, nowadays careers are being approached far too one-sidedly, also by public
employment services. They usually aim at the fastest possible matching of supply and
demand on the labour market. Job seekers are looking for the shortest possible way to a job,
employers wish to fill their vacancies in the shortest possible lapse of time. Far too often this
approach only offers short-term solutions. From this point of view careers are too much
reduced to linear, isolated pathways that look and taste like lemons. They are characterised
by a productive peak period in mid-life, in the period between the ages of 25 and 50. The
edges before and after this period are pointed, as people work relatively little then. The
unbalanced distribution of work over the career has implications on workability too. These
careers taste sour far too often, as they are difficult to combine with private life, competency
enhancement, etc. In stead of starting from the lemon model, we need to begin with an
orange model, which will remain full and sweet during the entire career.
Lemon careers can become a reality if work is approached in a more holistic way and is
imbedded more strongly in general life. This opens a lot of perspectives. The employment
rate will rise as careers are longer and less ‘compressed’. Employers can recruit on a more
relaxed labour market. Turn-over quality improves. By matching on the basis of
competencies ‘the right person’ will end up ‘on the right seat’ and ‘the right seat’ will be found
‘for the right person’. The labour market will become more mobile. Citizens actively use their
talents and competencies and smoothly transfer their know how from one life domain to
another. The economy becomes efficient again. By permanently paying attention to
competency development, companies receive impulses for innovation in all fields.
Disadvantaged groups get more opportunities to participate. All heads and hands are needed
and welcome for a smooth functioning labour market. Workers who enjoy what they are
doing and do what they enjoy, will have careers that focus on lifelong and lifewide learning.
This ‘enjoyability’ will enhance their ‘employability’, exactly what is needed for the creation of
a future-proof labour market.
In order to reach a more holistic, integrated approach of careers, we need to abandon the
polarisation of working and not-working. ‘To work or not to work’, that is no longer the
question. A new vision is emerging, in which the labour market is looked at as more dynamic
and organic: the transitional labour market. In this model, which was introduced by professor
Günther Schmid, labour is still in the centre for its positive and enriching value. Also the idea
of activation holds. But ‘working’ and ‘not working’ are not seen as separate or opposite
domains: they are domains within and in between which transitions can regularly be made.
There may be different reasons for these transitions and they are taking place throughout the
entire career, throughout the entire life. The transitional labour market is, in other words, a
labour market where bridges facilitate the transitions from and to work.
According to Schmid the transitional labour market model is heralding a new era for labour
market policy in normative terms, based on the principles of ‘active security’ (investing in
people instead of doing good works and protecting people instead of jobs) and ‘life course
orientation’ (offer citizens development perspective instead of enforcing work-worktransitions without considering enjoyability).6 He also states that in this context “employment
Günther Schmid, “The Transitional Labour Market and Employment Services”, keynote speech on the
international conference on “The Transitional Labour Market and Employment Services”, Seoul, 26-27 August
2010.
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services have to develop a much richer set of support than just to pay unemployment
benefits and to help people finding a new job.”
A different approach to working goes along with a different approach to activation. Quickly
matching supply and demand should not be considered a goal in itself anymore, but needs to
be embedded in a sustainable perspective. Focusing on jobs is perfectly reconcilable with
focusing on careers. Fast, well-aimed and efficient mediation remains crucial, but preferably
in combination with attention for sustainable reintegration and career building. Not only job
seekers but also employers will benefit from the short-term solution if it offers enough
prospects to further career development. There is a shift, though, from a remedial
mechanism, in which intervention takes place only at the moment when citizens become
unemployed, to a more proactive approach, in which there is permanent anticipation to
potential career transitions.
Modern labour law and employment policy already contain many de facto building blocks to
shape the transitional labour market in practice. For example in Flanders combining learning
and working is stimulated as continuing education is financed through training cheques for
workers, pathway guidance for students in part time compulsory education, by offering
students free training credit, etc. Combining learning with care is simplified by financing
several systems of working time reduction, by reimbursing costs for child care to job seekers
who follow vocational training, etc. Transition from unemployment to work is improved by
aspiring to comprehensively reach non-working job seekers, by providing diversion to social
economy and by offering all sorts of employment measures. Transition from one job to
another, on the other hand, is cushioned by installing employment cells for workers who are
threatened with dismissal, by financing career guidance centres and setting up competency
pools. With this type of building blocks solid bridges can be built between the different
domains of active life and public employment services can use them to create room for every
citizen to fill in his/her own career to the maximum.
3.2 Transitional careers
A transitional labour market model is evolving, not only on a macro level, but also on the
level of the individual citizen. Workers’ careers will not fit any longer in simple linear charts
consisting of school- work- retirement, but will include far more transitions, combination
formulas and professional transformations. PES need to take that into account by
approaching job seekers not merely with remedial purposes, with a view to a movement from
unemployment to work, but by starting from the long-term perspective of a career, which
presents not only transitions from unemployment to work, but also from work to work, from
care to work, from work to education, etc.
These transitions widen the contexts in which competencies are being acquired and
enhanced. Competencies citizens acquire in household, in clubs and societies, during leisure
activities or voluntary work, may offer a surplus value on the labour market and should
therefore be recognized as such with a view to activation and mediation. Every cluster of
competencies that a person develops in one of the roles (s)he plays in life, influences other
competency clusters and generates cross-pollination between the roles. A temporary
transition to a different domain of life does therefore not necessarily mean a loss for the
labour market. On the contrary, such transitions may even be very enriching, on condition
that previously acquired competencies are effectively made transferable.
In this respect, we may refer to the ‘Capability Approach’ of Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner
in Economics and professor at Harvard University. With his ‘Capability Approach’ professor
Sen offers the perfect framework for a value linked foundation of the transitional labour
market and, even more widely, of a new social labour organization. In his view, the
development of personal abilities and possibilities is crucial. He asks to design public and
related facilities in such a way that they enable citizens to exploit their competencies to the
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maximum. Labour should be organized in a way that it structurally contributes to a boost for
workers’ ‘capabilities’. Getting a suitable job should be within every person’s reach. We could
call Sen’s theory a plea for ’empowerment’. For the labour market, this means an
entanglement of ’employability’ and ’enjoyability’. Making citizens employable is not enough.
Work should be ’enjoyable’, link up with individual competencies and talents and offer all
citizens a chance to blossom.
4. From employment service to labour market conductor
4.1 From job security to career security
The task of PES comprises much more than guiding the unemployed to a job. Other
transitions from, to and on the labour market can indeed entail the need for support by public
employment services. PES may function as a type of GPS which guides citizens and
enterprises through job changes, career analyses, periods of unemployment, competency
enhancing initiatives and other crucial points. These transitions can take place in a smoother
and more efficient way thanks to public employment services’ and their partners’
interventions to the benefit of citizens and enterprises.
Citizens constantly come across changes in their careers. On the one hand, they show more
mobility themselves, but on the other hand they need to be flexible, whether they like it or
not. Employers, for their part, are confronted with a high turnover, early retirement, systems
of working time reduction, etc. They also need to show the necessary flexibility as far as
HRM is concerned. Sometimes (labour market related) transitions are conscious and
predictable, sometimes unwanted and unexpected, but they always presume that a transition
is made, either within the same area of life or across life domains. Many citizens and
enterprises need support in making this type of transitions, both structural, by providing
adapted measures on the macro level (cf. the above-mentioned building blocks of the
transitional labour market), and individual, through guaranteed tailor-made service offered by
the government.
In a labour market in which the certainty of life-long, uninterrupted, permanent employment is
evaporating as well as the certainty of long-term worker loyalty, it comes down for PES to
offering new certainties. Starting from the idea that transitions are a reality on the labour
market and even a must , they need to offer people ‘securibility’. The concept of ‘career
security’ was introduced to the European Heads of PES meeting of Prague in June 2009 and
adopted by the Employment Committee in its opinion on “Making transitions pay”.
By supporting citizens and enterprises facing a career change, public employment services
take away initial hesitation and doubts that way allowing the positive potential of the change
to predominate and to be used more emphatically. This way PES not only contribute to more
flexibility on the labour market, also to more security. Bottom line: they strengthen flexicurity
dynamics.
The main idea is to enhance the ability of citizens and enterprises to design their careers
self-directedly. Public employment services need to aim at giving people confidence and
placing them at the steering wheel of their careers themselves. In order for citizens to feel
more confident when making career transitions, it is crucial for them to be aware of their
competencies, acquired either in a formal or an informal setting. They also need to be
stimulated to enhance these competencies with a view to the demand side of the labour
market. Therefore, sufficient information needs to be provided on employment and training
opportunities. Employers too should be able to rely on PES when setting up a sustainable
personnel policy in which individual workers’ development paths are reconciled with
company strategy. This goes in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises. As every
career and every company are unique, public employment services will have to provide
tailor-made itineraries, quickly adapting to citizens’ or companies’ choices or to unexpected
obstacles that may turn up along the way.
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Public employment services are expected to enhance career security. This career orientation
does not, however, replace their traditional tasks. On the contrary, a service starting from
competencies and directed towards sustainable career building, will initially refine and
deepen the existing modi operandi for filling vacancies, placing and guiding job seekers. A
striking example in this respect is the (automatic) matching of vacancies and CVs. At the
moment occupation names and diploma data are mainly used to search for matches
between job seekers aspirations and profiles sought after by employers. If, however,
competencies connected with occupations and diplomas can be taken into account, as well
as competencies that have been acquired throughout the career, then the (automatic)
matching will produce far more effective and qualitative results. Taking into account
competencies in the matching process will enable employers to describe vacancies based on
typical company activities and required competencies. It will also allow immediate, tangible
feedback on the ‘matchability’ of job aspirations and profiles. It will be possible to enlarge the
search radius as diploma- or occupation-based selections are abandonned. It will be possible
to draw up a personal development plan based on an analysis of competencies already
acquired and still missing competencies. It will be possible to make the training offer more
modular and demand-oriented, etc. All of this on condition that a common competency
language is available, in the form of a central competency management system with
occupational competency profiles and standards for certificates of professional experience,
validated by the social partners.
4.2 Career conducting
Due to the fact that the transitional labour market is multifaceted and due to the complexity
that goes along with the realization of a future-oriented labour market organization based on
flexicurity, it is clear that public or private services can no longer operate in spread battle
array. Social, economic and demographic challenges are of this nature that cooperation
between all actors is indispensable. In order to shape an efficient career policy the
government needs to set up partnerships with commercial and non-commercial third parties
on a scale and with an intensity never experienced before. Moreover, there is a need for a
coherent approach transcending all labour market actors in order to effectively reach a
thoroughly redesigned labour market architecture. Starting from the Member States’ policy
options and the Europe 2020 strategy a common course needs to be set out.
With a view to a coordinated execution of the labour market and career policy and an
efficient operationalization of the European Employment Guidelines there is need for a stable
labour market conductor. This conductor has a number of clear tasks.
The labour market conductor provides a set of instruments that guarantee a transparent and
well-functioning labour market. Representative and reliable information is offered, both
concerning the vacancy offer and the workforce potential. This information is continuously
and accessibly made available by exploiting stable virtual platforms.
Furthermore the conductor, who also has career conducting responsibilities, ensures a
universal frontline service for all citizens (job seekers and working people) and companies.
This basic service entails on the one hand opening up in a neutral fashion concrete labour
market information and information on available services for employers and citizens. On the
other hand it should provide insight in functions, jobs, sectors and employment opportunities
with a view to optimally linking individual competencies with labour market needs.
Using its knowledge of the labour market and socio-economic evolutions and with its set of
instruments the conductor can stimulate the market and direct the actors on the market
through a permanent, open dialogue towards a certain direction. The conductor sees to it
that the niches for which no quality market supply is available or could be found are being
filled. The conductor will be responsible for quality assurance of the market supply.
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To finish, the career conductor stimulates partnerships on the labour market with a view to
market development and reaching policy objectives together. Partnerships may be initiated
with and between education institutions, public and private intermediaries, sectors, separate
companies etc. Also with actors and directors of other policy areas partnerships may be set
up, giving rise to a kind of relay direction, a truly lifewide and lifelong career policy.
4.3 Public employment services as conductors
A career policy needs a solid social basis and therefore needs to be supported by
professional authorities. They have to see to it that services are not only based on market
demand, but equally on a number of ethical principles: equal opportunities (at outcome),
proportional participation of different groups, the need for tailor-made solutions, enhancing
people’s capabilities, etc. Less fortunate citizens and companies should equally be able to
function on the labour market and build a quality career. Especially in the public sector
general interest comes first. Maximizing profit or gaining a larger market share are not the
final objectives, but the largest possible outcome for every citizen and enterprise is. That is
why the role of career conductor should ideally be taken up by a public institution, while
rendering services should be done by both public and private actors, as much as possible in
cooperation. Services should reflect labour market policy, be coherent and accessible and
efficiently managed and financed.
Public employment services hold a number of trump cards to take on the future role of career
conductor:
- The important role public employment services have to play within the “Making
Transitions Pay’ approach of the Employment Committee has been recognised by
EPSCO on 21 October 2010.
- Many public employment services are acting as a labour market conductor already
today. Thanks to years of experience with public-private partnerships they are in
contact with a multitude of labour market actors and service rendering partners in
several labour market domains.
- On a daily basis public employment services receive thousands of job seekers for
‘transitional career contact’.
- Public employment services usually have a good channel mix at their disposal
through which they are in (interactive) contact with the citizen: website services, call
centre, face-to-face services, ….
- Through data exchange with other public services and administrative databanks
public employment services possess a wealth of career data.
- Cooperation with education, welfare, training agencies, private and non-governmental
organizations and other public employment services within the European Union,
permits public employment services to cross institutional and geographical borders.
- Policy makers, as well as social partners need to support the management of the
public employment services and can provide a framework through their own
responsibilities on the labour market. Also other stakeholders, like the disadvantaged
groups, are to be taken into account and need to have a say in the way public
employment services are governed.
4.4 Instruments for the public career conductor
In order to make the idea of the career conductor more concrete, we will give a short
overview of how the Flemish Employment and Vocational Training Service (VDAB) is filling
this part today.
Since 2009 the VDAB has ensured free career related information for working citizens in 25
of our local job shops across Flanders. They get an answer to their career questions, are
shown their way around in the fields of career guidance and competency enhancement and if
necessary they are referred to a network of partners who offer specialized services.
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At the same time the VDAB offers career guidance and that way supports the citizen in
making career choices. In order to guarantee the highest possible quality in career guidance,
we have unique public-private cooperation with 19 recognized career guidance centres. The
central idea of career guidance is discovering and developing one’s own career
competencies and the focus on self-management and independence. Actions that need to be
taken are mentioned in a PDP, a personal development plan. The VDAB does not only
concentrate on career guidance for disadvantaged groups, it also pays attention to employed
niches that are having a hard time on the labour market, e.g. because of the economic crisis.
The VDAB is also preparing to launch very soon the new extensive information platform “Mijn
loopbaan” (my career) where citizens and enterprises can find neutral, up-to-date and
accessible information on the labour market and adjacent areas. Next to general career
information, this information platform also includes an e-portfolio in which users will be able
to save their individual data. Starting from there they will be able to prepare a career
transition, for example by drawing up a CV and posting it to the employers. Competencies
will also be made visible, Accreditation of Prior Learning and lifelong learning will be
supported. This way, the e-portfolio will act as an instrument for career reflection and will link
up with drawing up a personal development plan.
The principle of every citizen having the opportunity to work on a Personal Development Plan
(PDP) was determined in the Flemish government agreement. In a PDP the person
describes his/her objectives as far as knowledge, skills and competencies are concerned.
With a PDP citizens can be proactively supported in order to make smoother transitions in
their career. With a PDP people can (re)direct efficiently. In a company context a PDP can
deliver a surplus value as it may support future-oriented development of workers’
competencies.
In order to react faster and more efficiently to specific training needs the VDAB has started to
transform its vocational training sites into “excellent centres”. In this approach looking for
optimally mixed training pathways carried out together with partners is the main aim.
Partners may be education actors, other (public and private) training actors, sectors and
companies. From programming and organising the offer up to management and
infrastructure, everything is prepared in a stakeholders approach and carried out within a
strong partnership. Larger partnerships are essential to swiftly respond to labour market
training needs, to efficiently organize training, to, especially for shortage training courses,
attract qualified trainers and bring them into action, flexibly responding to the needs.
5. Reinventing public employment services
This last chapter is about the internal change process brought along by the repositioning of
public employment services as conductors and career service providers. The evolution
towards the transitional labour market implies an adequate organisation structure, which
allows to bring new tasks to a good end and to achieve ambitious goals and at the same time
allows permanent learning, creating, innovating. The impact on public employment services’
business operations and company model will not be small, as will be the complexity of the
pathway of change which will be initiated and will have to be managed. The largest
requirement for a renewed structure will undoubtedly be adaptability. Finally, due to
diminishing available means we need to work as efficiently and effectively as possible. That
is also a question of corporate governance.
5.1 From vision to change
The organisation of our public employment services of the future will have to answer to the
formula i³x a³. ‘I’ stands for ‘innovation’, ‘integration’ and ‘inspiration’. For the public sector
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innovation is indeed as vital as it is for the private sector. Only by innovating public services
can keep up with changing needs in society and that way keep on offering surplus value. An
inspiring vision of the future stirs innovation, yet innovation only emerges where
organizations are inspired by their clients and stakeholders. Innovation originates from the
creative interaction with the environment and from the integration of insights and expertise
domains. It goes without saying that innovative products, methods and processes need to be
integrated in services. That way services emerge that inspire for themselves as they
guarantee efficiency
An organization that excel in innovation, integration and inspiration, will be able to deliver
flexible services, in any manner, at any place, at any moment (‘anyhow, anywhere, anytime’).
Citizens and enterprises are expecting new services, with a 24/7 availability. That is why
investments need to be made in modern and adapted call centre activities and web based
services. By intelligently applying technology, public employment services will not only be
able to respond more swiftly, but also to offer better tailor-made services, even at times when
unemployment peaks or vacancy volumes grow. Citizens and enterprises can be reached in
an efficient and differentiated way through an intelligent mix of channels, tuned to up-to-date
communication trends and tools (social media, digital television, mobile telephone, etc.).
Technology in itself will not suffice in order to provide more integration. The organization’s
structure will need to be arranged in a more functional way. The bureaucracy of a
compartmentalized hierarchy, involving many procedures and long decision lines, needs to
be abandoned. Instead we should opt for a division of roles and tasks based on processes,
emphasising project operation, a rather decentral accountability and thorough, result-oriented
teamwork. Working in a team allows for consultation and the combination of expertise.
Working this way will enable collaborators to tackle the growing complexity of questions and
problems they will come across. It also improves synergy between the solutions offered to
citizens on the one and to enterprises on the other hand. By aiming at more self-steering
teams decisions can be taken on the workfloor, close to the public that needs the service,
instead of at distant headquarters. This stimulates the collaborators’ ownership and
motivation, as they are getting room to negotiate with citizens and enterprises themselves, to
determine how they will reach set objectives. Networking between teams allows flexible
action on the corporate level.
As career service providers public employment services need to help citizens build on
existing competencies and strengths. The fact that ‘empowerment’ is gaining more and more
importance7, requires method renewal. It is no longer sufficient to leave the initiative for
taking contact only to citizens and enterprises. There is need for more ‘outreaching’
interventions if it becomes clear that they are not up to that. Such interventions can for
instance be spreading push communication, but also going to citizens and enterprises
ourselves (‘outreach pilots’).
By methodologically focussing on coaching, instead of guidance, less fortunate citizens get
more opportunities to maximally take their development in their own hands. On the demand
side of the labour market employers are fighting for talent. PES need to coach them too,
support them in their search for talent and make them aware of the diversity of available
talent. Where demand and supply meet, citizens and enterprises can be supported in
sustainable growth and development. Coaching becoming the crucial connotation in contacts
with citizens and enterprises, also means that public employment services themselves
transform into coaching organizations, in which everyone is coaching and being coached.
That way career coaches may be called in to boost internal job rotation, or crea coaches to
Günther Schmid, op.cit.: “A third intention is empowerment of individuals to be able to change from one work
situation to another as both the economy and the individual’s preferences are changing over the life course.
Citizens should have the right to transitions in and between works.”
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enhance innovative power. Only by introducing coaching leadership the coaching skills of
consultants in contact services may be sharpened.
A coaching approach offers the talent present in the organization the opportunity to come out
of its shell. It then comes, however, to providing real freedom to move for the collaborators’
self-fulfilment and the necessary instruments for capturing, valorisation and the display of
talent (cf. talent bank, certification of acquired competencies, career planning, appraisal
policy, etc.). Creativity and innovation need to be encouraged and channeled.
Large-scale changes in task setting, structures and methods also bring along changes to
underlying value paradigms. The standards and values on which PES are based and which
act as binding factors, like warmth, respect, social justice, social responsibility and
engagement, need to become more explicit and need to be reconfirmed. However, they also
need to reflect in practice. At the same time shared standards and values provide stability
and continuity throughout the process of change public employment services are facing at
the moment.
5.2 From altering to anchoring
Through altering pathways a cultural U-turn is taking place which needs to be anchored in
our way of working. The external and internal challenges public employment services are
being confronted with call for strong leadership. At all levels of the organization, managers
need to be sensitized. They need to become team coaches, capable of forming, inspiring and
coaching teams. As such they will no longer work top-down in a task-oriented way, but they
delegate responsibilities in a rather relation-directed way and radiate willingness to
cooperate. In order to optimally support management in PES a supportive learning path is
ideally worked out, linked to a well-based leadership model.
The VDAB has developed its own leadership model, which concentrates on the different
roles a manager should be able to play in order to manage change pathways within the
organization. The parts of Manager, Entrepreneur and Leader have been defined. The
coaching skills are the leitmotiv and refer to the way the VDAB wants to play these parts as a
public employment service.
The executive in the Leader role: where work is done on the new communication culture and
attention is paid to consciously working with talents, attention is paid to teamwork too.
The executive in the Manager role: starts from the PES vision, supports the strategy by
setting out measurable objectives, quality assurance, internal control and cooperation with
other service providers. In other words: the accent here lies on professional management of
the organization by incorporating ideas from the New Public Management ideas.8
The executive in the Entrepreneurial role: sees opportunities and has the guts to cease them,
allows innovation, is open and dares to take calculated risks.
Experience teaches us that reforming public employment services into fully-fledged career
conductors implies a slow growing process, both inside and outside the organization. It is,
however, the appropriate method to reach a new company model for public employment
services that is adapted to future market needs and will also in the long run deliver a surplus
value for the realisation of the EU strategy 2020.
8
For a clear exposition on the evolution European public employment services have experienced in this respect
and on the underlying motives, see J. Timo Weishaupt, “A silent revolution? New management ideas and the
reinvention of European public employment services”, Socio-Economic Review, nr. 8 (2010), pp. 461-486.
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