According to the Survey on Access to Finance for Enterprises (SAFE, 2018), one of the most relevant challenges for 25% of Europe’s SMEs is limited availability of skilled workforce. In front of increased competition from developing countries, unpredictable global crisis, internal production process changes caused by digitalization, access to skilled labour is pivotal in helping SMEs to adjust to changes, to boost innovations and to remain competitive at global market. However, SMEs experience problems in hiring skilled workers due to competition from large companies and financial conditions. An alternative is upgrading skills of existing staff through in-house or external training that is considered as a crucial factor to improving companies’ performance. Many statistics reveal that EU SMEs do not invest enough in staff training. The reasons are lack of awareness of managerial staff of company’s benefits from skilled workforce, but also mismatch between training formats/methods offered by SMEs trainers, and real needs of SMEs staff. SMEs prefer informal workplace-based training supported with social interactions between employees that stimulates creativity, participation, critical abilities and innovation spirit. SMEs trainers indicate that they urgently need access to innovative professional development services in order to boost their initiative, taking responsibility for the task, social competences, communication and presentation skills. The fact is, there is a lack of such training offers for SMEs trainers, or company trainers are unaware of them, or they are not attractive enough. Based on these observations, THENOVA aims at exploring potentials of creative industry for their integration into professional development of companies’ trainers and training services for SMEs staff. Nowadays, professional artists are successfully discovering new markets towards providing training services to companies (i.e. in personnel development) and are incrementally recognized as innovation drivers for other branches. The impact of organizational theatre towards supporting innovation processes in enterprises was also investigated at research level and successfully demonstrated through a few cooperation initiatives. THENOVA partnership also considers performance techniques and approaches used by professional actors as a powerful tool for creating thought-provoking and inspiring training for SMEs staff. Therefore, the project’s main objectives are: 1. To boost skills and competences of SMEs trainers towards designing and delivering theater-based staff training; 2. To raise awareness of SMEs employees and managerial staff for theater-based training; 3. To diversify access to training services for SMEs trainers and Europe’s SMEs. 4. To promote an innovative cooperation model between SMEs, training providers, and creative industries. Under SMEs trainers we understand both, internal specialists who work for companies, and external trainers who provide training to companies’ staff outside of it To achieve these objectives, 3 core outputs will be designed and tested during the project’s lifetime: 1. theater-based training program for SMEs trainers: 1 training program will be designed in English that will aim at enabling SMEs trainers to use theater-based techniques when designing and delivering their training sessions to companies’ employees, validated in terms of its pilot delivery to 15 SMEs trainers from participating institutions, translated into partners’ languages DE, EL, PL, and made available to other training institutions for adoption and further use; 2. theater-based training courses for SMEs staff: 25 theater-based training sessions will be designed by trained trainers, delivered to approx. 250 SMEs’ employees from participating countries, and evaluated in terms of employees’ satisfaction with the innovative theater-based format and trainers’ skills; 3. sample of theater-based OER: 30 theater-based training sessions will be performed by trained trainers in front of camera, recorded, edited, and made freely accessible to wider audience in terms of OER. Envisaged short-term project impact is: - improved professional and transversal competences of SMEs trainers; - access to an innovative theater-based training program for SMEs trainers; - increased opportunities for work place learning and training for all: in enterprises, training institutions but also to general public; - increased professional and transversal competences of SMEs employees. Long-term, the project has greater potentials to contribute to modernizing training services for trainers and staff employees at regional, national and EU level, improving companies’ performance and innovation potentials, reinforcing cooperation between SMEs, creative industries and training providers, increasing investments from managerial staff into staff training.
Based on the identified needs of both, SME trainers and SME staff and companies, THENOVA aimed at modernizing the company training. This had to be achieved through leveraging potentials of creative industry and their integration into professional development of companies’ trainers as well as into the training services for SMEs staff. The techniques and methods practiced by professional artists, such as (scripted) role playing, improvisation, storytelling, movement and nonverbal performance, invisible theatre, ensemble exercises were considered as a powerful tool for creating thought-provoking and inspiring training for SMEs staff. Specific project’s objectives were: 1. To boost skills and competences of SMEs trainers towards designing and delivering theater-based training; 2. To raise awareness of SMEs employees and managerial staff for theater-based training; 3. To diversify access to training services for SMEs trainers and Europe’s SMEs; 4. To promote an innovative cooperation model between SMEs, training providers, and creative industries.
According to the Survey on Access to Finance for Enterprises (2018), one of the most relevant challenges for 25% of Europe’s SMEs was limited availability of skilled workforce. In front of the increased competition from developing countries, digital transformation, and unpredictable global (health) crisis, the access to skilled labour was pivotal in helping SMEs boost innovations and remain competitive at the global market. Considering that SMEs had limited financial conditions to hire top quality workforce, an effective in-house or external company training was considered a crucial factor to improving companies’ performance. Many statistics revealed that EU SMEs did not invest enough in staff training. The reasons were lack of awareness of managerial staff of benefits that a strong company training would bring, but also a mismatch between traditional training formats and methods offered by SMEs trainers, and real needs of SMEs staff and companies focusing on the activation of creativity, critical abilities and innovation spirit. CEDEFOP survey (2015) on the needs of company trainers reported about missing competences of SME trainers and claimed the lack of innovative professional development services for them.