The tourism/wellness sector (one of Europe’s biggest markets) becomes more complex - it employs people with various educational backgrounds (from 1 to 3 years of training) and different qualifications (e.g. beauticians, therapists, hairdressers etc.). Keeping up with current developments requires increased levels of skills for people who are/will be working in the sector. The project Skills for Wellness aims at designing transnational sector-wide occupational standards for these professions and developing and assessing competences of employees. To manage this, it is necessary to cooperate with experienced partners to translate a sectoral growth strategy into an approach that adequately addresses skills needs. This project consists of VET providers, including further education and sector representatives from Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Cyprus working together to share experiences and identify occupational profile standards (in line with ECVET, EQF) to respond to sector’s needs. The standards will be described as learning outcomes to facilitate transparency and comparability, as well as to increase the recognition of qualifications at European and national level within the sector. It is planned to create training resources focusing on work-based learning activities in line with common profile standards to better equip (future) employees. The training resources will have a modular structure covering all relevant professional skills combined with transversal skills (e.g. communication, ICT, green skills). They will be available in all partner languages plus English. The project addresses the following target groups: (1) VET providers, managers and curriculum designers; (2) Tourism/Wellness sector employers; (3) Tourism/Wellness sector employees (or persons willing to work in this area). The envisaged total amount of participants will exceed 2600 people. Additionally, an assessment procedure with tools for the validation of competences defined in the professional profile will be created. The assessment will be two-fold: first, the (future) employee is tested on their basic theoretical knowledge of the sector. Second, there are work-based learning activities (e.g. simulation, job shadowing) relating to all modules covered within the training resources. To sum up, the project focuses on designing and delivering common occupational standards and training resources (with assessment) in all partner languages plus English. These activities will contribute to the achievement of the following results: - the occupational standards universal for the wellness sector contributing to more synergies and unified approach towards assessment of the skills of employees not only in participating countries but throughout Europe also. - improvement of vocational educational training paths in the context of skill demands on the wellness sector's labour market and matching with new trends/developments through implementation of common occupational standards; - improvement of the quality and achievement of vocational education trainings paths through more effective ways to train, re-train and upskill current and future employees of the wellness; - facilitation and promotion of assessment measures and recognition of professionals and transversal skills and competences to support mobility for work and learning; - strengthening cooperation between VET providers and representatives of the wellness sector (employers) including relevant stakeholders (associations, organisations working on promotion and sectoral development) through involvement in developing and achieving common results, including piloting activities. - increased capacities of employers in the wellness sector to extend their offers to the global market, which will contribute to increased workers’ skills and therefore extend their employability and key competences; - better understanding and recognition of skills and qualifications in Europe and beyond among respective target groups due to the use of common European transparency instruments (ECVET, EQF). - increased quality of wellness services with focus on clients' needs, expectations and current trends of the wellness.
The consortium aimed to design transnational sector-wide occupational standards for wellness sector to better respond to current developments and standardise the approaches to training of persons willing to work in wellness sector; to strengthen cooperation between VET sector and the world of work; to share good practices of VET and sector representatives to address skills gaps and respond to existing demands. The consortium aimed to improve current training paths in accordance with the needs of the labour market, newest standards and trends in wellness sector and to equip VET learners and employees with relevant professional and transversal skills. Another goal was to create more synergies and unified approaches to the assessment of skills of wellness employees not only in participating countries but throughout Europe too.
The overall growth of the wellness industry is indisputable, but the trends in the development of specific wellness sectors and their popularity among consumers differ greatly from country to country. This leads to the fact that the content of the training programmes for people willing to work in the wellness, as well as requirements to qualifications are quite different. One of the major trends that greatly affects the wellness sector is sustainability. It includes, but is not limited to, such aspects as thrifty use of resources, preference of environmentally friendly materials, recycling of waste, etc. Sustainable development also presupposes providing equal possibilities to various population groups, incl. people with special needs (seniors, persons with reduced mobility and others). Therefore, the Skills for Wellness partners decided to create occupational standards describing the key knowledge, skills and competences that wellness employees should possess to perform tasks in a specific area (e.g. tanning, massage or manicure); develop training materials to enable persons working in wellness to improve their competences and transversal skills and elaborate assessment tools so that they could evaluate own level of proficiency.