digitalswitzerland supports IT-feuer

it-feuer.ch is a network of independent organizations that draws attention to the topic of young computer scientists and women/girls. With their partners, digitalswitzerland being one of them, it-feuer.ch provides an overview with exciting offers for computer science education. This way they help prepare the next generation, especially girls, for life and their professional future. It-feuer.ch was initiated by the European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI), which will be held in Switzerland for the first time in June 2021.

Learn more about it-feuer.ch.

Meet female role models in ICT

• Michelle Schär
• Anna Flurina Kälin
• Priska Steinebrunner
• Prof. Dr. Nathalie Weiler
• Georgette Weingärtner
• Livia Capol
• Belma Pudic
• Julia Chatain
• Larissa Laich

The prixhrnumeriquesuisse (Swiss Digital HR Award) is the benchmark for the Swiss HR ecosystem and recognizes HR professionals from public or private organizations that are making digital transformation a real lever for strategic transformation, improving working conditions and a factor for renewing HR practices.

Sébastien Kulling our Head of Suisse Romande & Deputy Managing Director, is president of the jury, awarding outstanding SMEs and corporations for innovative HR projects using that showcase emerging trends or disruptive practices (AI, blockchain, predictive analytics, Big Data, etc.).

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The digitalswitzerland «nextgeneration» initiative supports digital education offerings primarily for children and adolescents to foster curiosity and build fundamental skills early in life. Our role is to connect these existing platforms and provide reach and publicity via our channels and network. There are offerings in all language regions of Switzerland.

The generation of tomorrow, the talents and shapers of the future are central to Switzerland. For this reason, digitalswitzerland is committed to concrete projects to teach digital skills. On the «nextgeneration» page, you will find activities and camps for children and young people aged 5 to 19 as well as for adults, distributed throughout Switzerland, to immerse themselves in the fascination of the digital world.

Bern, March 16, 2021 – The application phase for the ICT Education & Training Award 2021 is open. The national association ICT-Berufsbildung Schweiz is calling on ICT training companies to apply by May 31, 2021. The Special Prize “Best ICT Vocational Trainer” will also be awarded for the third time.

From now on, training companies can apply to ICT-Berufsbildung Schweiz for this year’s ICT Education & Training Award. Since 2012, the national association has awarded the prize annually to organizations that are particularly committed to promoting young talent in the professional field of information and communications technology (ICT). Companies, administrations and non-profit organizations that train apprentices in the professions of IT specialist EFZ, media specialist EFZ and ICT specialist EFZ, but whose core business is not vocational training, are eligible to participate.

The categories

The three categories are based on the number of ICT employees in the organization: 1-20, 21-100 and over 100 ICT employees. For the third time, a special prize will be awarded to the best ICT vocational trainer. Learners or employees are invited to enter dedicated ICT vocational educators. An independent jury will nominate three finalists per category and for the Special Prize.

The Jury

The jury is composed of the following persons: Werner Scherrer, Jury President (Zürcher Lehrbetriebsverband ICT), Patrick Aebi (ICT Berufsbildungscenter AG), Moira Barbuti (UBS), Dr. Peter Heinrich (ZHAW School of Management and Law), Giancarlo Palmisani (Swico), Annalena Tosi (digitalswitzerland).

Propulsion Academy is an EdTech startup based in Zurich. In this blog, they explore how supporting and developing new skills for employees ensures long-term employability and success.

In a recent survey from PwC with 22,000 adults in 11 countries, 53% of respondents said they believe automation will significantly change or even make their job obsolete within the next 10 years.

Nevertheless, the majority with 61% of the respondents, were positive about the impact technology will have on their work. 77% of people said they would learn new skills now or completely retrain to ensure their future employability. 

For many people, upskilling and reskilling means learning how to code and leveraging technologies, like they do in our intensive Data Science and Web Development bootcamps. For others, especially for managers, it’s more about understanding what technology can do and learning how to work with or leading a tech team.

There are many benefits for employees, but also for companies, if they start upskilling employees. 

1. Employee retention

Engaged employees want to learn and have the support of their company to encourage active learning. 

Upskilling and retraining your current workforce will prevent skills from becoming redundant and reduce costs associated with turnover. 

2. Higher motivation

It’s proven that teams with various learning and development opportunities have higher workplace morale. Not only will employees feel more comfortable in their working environment, but it will also encourage them to feel happier in their roles and have a more positive outlook on their future within the company. 

3. Greater talent acquisition

Providing opportunities to upskill will help to establish brand image within the market. By supporting your employee’s learning and development, you will empower employees to be strong brand advocates for your company. This is also an attractive feature for highly-qualified applicants with extensive skills and experience.

Analyse current situations and identify missing skills: 

Companies should run strategic workforce simulations to identify mid and long-term talent gaps. Classify current skills needed for different jobs within the company and map them against future ones. Doing this will allow the opportunity to assess what kind of upskilling employees need. 

Choose the right programmes and courses:

After analysing the current situation and future needs, develop learning interventions to bridge the gaps. Added to this, you can customise best-practice learning methods to individual employees through resources like personalised learning platforms.

Individual training: 

For employees that need to learn specific skills, companies should find the right training. Take time to research courses on everything from courses on Python Programming, Artificial Intelligence or Machine learning to equip employees with the specific skills they need to succeed in their role. 

Internal training: 

Explore company-wide programmes or tailored group training that can be organised internally. Think about workshops for managers covering topics like Artificial Intelligence and to learn how to lead or work with a Data Science team. This helps to better manage and understand the role of developers within teams.

Establish a learning culture:

Training and development programmes have more chance of success if management promotes a learning culture and if the right incentives are in place for employees to learn. Best-in-class companies encourage employees to adopt a continuous-growth mindset and to learn on the job. This  provides opportunities for people to take time off for learning (ex: flexible time schedule or reducing workload to do a part-time programme or an unpaid leave to do a 3-month bootcamp). It is important for managers to embrace this approach and act as training coaches to employees.

Education is one of the world’s single largest industries, making up more than 6% of GDP. It is expected that total global expenditure from governments, companies, and consumers together will reach $7.3T by 2025. Based on a global education and expenditure study by the Wittgenstein Centre, there will be 2 billion more school, college, university and further education graduates in the world by 2050.

There is no way around upskilling at both the individual and company-level. Technology will change the way we work and subsequently the skills we need. 

Daniela Meier is CMO of Propulsion Academy

Covid-19 has accelerated digital transformation, changed working habits and threatened livelihoods. In fact, it has accelerated trends that were incipient and slow to take off before the pandemic. Now, more than ever, with scarce resources and threatened business models, companies should be building capabilities and a dynamic workforce. Lifelong education is an integral part of keeping people active and skilled.

There is a great business case to be made for re-skilling and upskilling people, or as one expert called it “retraining and redeploying” rather than firing. Beyond the humanist arguments that must be taken into account, as a rule of thumb it costs one-third of an annual salary to make a person redundant and manage the subsequent change process within the organisation. To recruit with headhunters can cost another 20% of an annual salary or more, depending on the position and the company. That is just cash out.

If the adage “Time Is Money” is worth anything then it is a no-brainer to try and retrain staff. Retraining and redeploying costs much less; no payouts, no runway needed to high performance. Employees that are retrained remain in the company and already have organisational knowledge, fit into the culture and can hit performance at speed. Particularly as online, mobile, short and long courses are widely available and not necessarily costly.

As technology is deployed, job functions tend to change. Whereas pre-Covid companies were implementing technology at a sedate pace, now this has accelerated dramatically as companies try to keep their business sustainable. This is having effects on each worker, as automation can deal with routine functions, whereas humans can respond to the more complex issues

In the job arena, one example of much faster processes in with artificial intelligence (AI), which can scan millions of job descriptions in a short time and is therefore able to change job taxonomies quickly. Before this, job experts took ten years to review and change job taxonomies. More and more companies are using AI to analyse and chart their employees’ progress through different job areas; not enough are using the know-how that AI could offer to transfer and upskill people.

While the discourse is that humans have to be at the centre, the pace of change is such that humans risk begin laid by the wayside. The only way for this not to happen is to ensure that every single person in the working world, employed or not, can have access to lifelong learning that is appropriate, accessible and adds value to a professional profile. Organisations must become more flexible in the way they move people across jobs to retain existing knowledge and create new applicable skills that serve both the individual and the organisation. It is only by a joint effort by all players that jobs will be retained and business supported.

The Boost Programme for SMEs aims to support the acquisition of digital skills by Swiss workers. The programme covers up to 50%, or a maximum of CHF 1,000 of the costs of digital training and lifelong learning per applicant. Apply today. This Programme is made possible by digitalswitzerland, the Gebert Rüf Foundation and the Hirschmann Foundation.

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Erasmus sounds universal and is almost part of everyday language. While many people imagine a study trip to a foreign university, few know that behind this name, lies a system and network of cooperation and mobility that’s unique and irreplaceable in Europe.

Its potential for the Swiss education system and its international attractiveness is massive.Why? International cooperation means access to networks and collaborative structures which enhance the education system and contribute to its development, attractiveness and level of excellence. Giving education an international dimension provides stakeholders at every level with significant value added – the students, the institutions and the education system as a whole.

While the momentum recently observed in the field of mobility and international cooperation has been curbed by the coronavirus pandemic, it’s important to keep our eyes on the bigger picture. The importance of exchange, mutual understanding and openness to the world is clearer than ever.

Switzerland has not been associated with Erasmus+ since 2014. The Swiss Programme for Erasmus+ was introduced at short notice to replace mobility activities in higher education, vocational, school, adult education and extracurricular youth work. This solution has facilitated the development of certain activities, while nevertheless limiting the possibilities for international cooperation. Today, this limitation penalises stakeholders in the education system and places Switzerland in jeopardy of becoming marginalised.

And especially the Higher Education Institutions (Universities, Universities of Applied Sciences and Universities of Teacher Education). In this field, the Erasmus+ programme provides an invaluable framework within which universities from 34 countries create joint educational and research initiatives, promote innovation in teaching and learning, and carry out peer learning activities. The programme has been substantially shaping the European Higher Education Area for years and was significantly expanded in 2017 with the establishment of “European Universities”. Such an initiative provides new and transformative systemic impetus for European higher education and enhances the competitiveness of the entire European Higher Education Area.

Strategic networks shape the future university landscape. Student and staff mobility cements the intense cooperation between universities and is firmly anchored in the programme. Both in the current programme generation 2014-2020 and in the coming period 2021-2027, however, the promotion of systematic and strategic cooperation comes to the fore as a clear response to the needs of universities. In future, cross-border cooperation is to take place with a small number of high-quality partnerships between higher education institutions. This will strengthen university networks and enable more comprehensive cooperation across subjects, departments, education and research. Swiss institutions are in the midst of this development, but are dependent on access to important networks, which is linked to participation in international education and research programmes.

The Swiss solution has its limits and marginalises Switzerland. Without an association with Erasmus+, Switzerland has only limited opportunities to participate and its involvement in shaping the European Higher Education Area is very restricted. A clear indication of this is the low level of participation of Swiss institutions in multilateral Erasmus+ cooperation in the years 2014-2019: Austria with 174 and Switzerland with 24 projects.

The Swiss Programme for Erasmus+ has worked in the short term, but the gap with Europe is widening. The effects of non-association and the limited possibilities of the Swiss solution are becoming apparent. The growth in mobility figures has generally slowed, in some areas the figures have slumped, and programme maintenance has become more complex. As a comparison, Austria records 26% more mobility under Erasmus+. The planned digitisation of the Erasmus+ programme administration will further increase the gap.

The digitisation of Erasmus+ has been progressing rapidly since 2014.The “European Student Card Initiative” brings together all initiatives aimed at digitising the administrative processes of programme administration. These include the Erasmus+-funded cooperation projects for the digitisation of programme administration, such as Erasmus Without Paper (EWP), but also the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) projects, which ensure the online authentication of students.

The digitisation of the Erasmus+ administration is the great revolution of the next generation of programmes and a game changer.

If Switzerland stands apart, this increases the risk of Swiss institutions being marginalised and additionally excludes them.

With regard to Erasmus+, the Federal Council will carry out a careful analysis during the second half of the year, on the basis of which it will define the parameters of a possible negotiation mandate for association with the follow-up programme to Erasmus+.

The far-reaching impact of COVID-19 has had a profound impact on labour markets, such as: 

1. The number of jobs (which affects unemployment and underemployment),
2. The quality of work (which affects wages and access to social protection),
3. The impact on specific groups and target areas as supported through the SDG focus, which has a significant and disproportionate impact on women and youth

Recent research conducted by the Adecco Group in its report “Resetting Normal: Defining the New Era of Work” has highlighted a number of significant findings. Highlights include the changing attitudes towards the world of work as well as gaps that employers need to address to remain “an employer of choice in the emerging future era of work”. 

The report suggests a need to evolve in terms of management and leadership styles, the way we work, the way we relate to one another and the way we learn. Key report findings include:

• The future is flexible.
  Hybrid working is emerging as a key trend across countries, with a 50/50 split between office and remote working seen as the ideal.
•  Tracking results, not hours worked, is a clear trend.
  The shift to productivity instead of “clock-watching” is a significant shift from traditional management methods.
•  Leadership needs reinvention and requires more empathy and support towards employees and increasing focus on “soft skills”.
  But not all leaders have these skills, and the gap needs to be addressed.
•  There is a significant need for reskilling and upskilling with 69% of respondents indicating a need for digital skilling post-COVID-19.
•  Trust in companies is emerging as a significant factor, with at least 80% of the 8,000 individuals interviewed stating that “their employer is the most responsible for ensuring a better working world after the pandemic”.

The future of work is transforming the mix of skills required from the workforce and at the same time will require a significant shift in mainstream and vocational education. Traditional institutions and approaches to learning are increasingly becoming outdated and we need to engage more meaningfully with new policy advances and tools, particularly digital ones, to ensure relevance to new and emerging roles and the changing nature of work. The pandemic has shown us that those who can work remotely have fared better in adapting to the new normal. Investing in digital skills and technology has become a critical denominator in ensuring continuity for learning and training. 

GAN Global and its members and partners continue to champion work-based learning solutions, including apprenticeships and the importance of this strategy and approach is particularly amplified by the current disruptions of COVID-19. These times have further highlighted the necessity of agile workforces with flexible skills to respond to technological shifts in the world of work.

 The focus on apprenticeships and other forms of work-based learning, especially those that integrate digital learning, are key to offering viable and meaningful pathways for all segments of the workforce.  Building a strong skills strategy in a collaborative manner, with strong public-private partnerships will be a key element in ensuring that we are able to respond to the shocks of the current pandemic and stabilise economies and labour markets to restart and reset. Through the chaos and confusion, it is good to know that relevant and responsive skills development offers a sense of continuity and hope for the future!

Nazrene Mannie is Executive Director of GAN Global