Skills Swap is aimed at upgrading the efficacy and relevance of contemporary VET in the hospitality sector by designing and integrating into sector-based VET provision an innovative 'skills swap' approach to employer-facilitated learning design in work-based learning (WBL) for employees and apprentices. ‘Skills Swap' initiatives focus on skills sharing within the sector for the mutual benefit of companies, VET participants and employees. By 'skills swap', we mean structured WBL opportunities where employees and apprentices are released from their roles with one employer for a fixed duration (typically half a day to 2 weeks) to learn skills provided by another employer. At the same time, employers benefit from the skills swap from the new skill(s) and/or fresh perspectives that their employees bring to their business as a result of the ‘swap’. In support of key Erasmus+ Horizontal and Sectoral Priorities, this project is developed between the companies and VET professionals; trainers and careers specialists who understand the needs of those who are their WBL trainees (apprentices and those in a C-VET context) - in a fast-changing sector that faces many challenges with recruitment, retention and keeping up to date. The project will facilitate, through transparent occupational profiling based on tasks, transparency in WBL objectives while also providing resources and guides to employers, and in particular 'clusters' of SMEs and micro enterprises in hospitality, who struggle to offer progression routes to their employees and find it hard to undertake successful apprenticeships or retain staff. By designing a new, structured WBL methodology the project aims to enhance the VET system to promote good practices and encourage peer learning amongst companies. The benefits envisaged by the project include a new WBL methodology that will improve access to opportunities for progression and promotion by increasing the skills range of employees and apprentices in the hospitality sector. This implementation of this methodology is supported by new pedagogical and digital tools, designed to be support the mutual recognition, transparency and validation of the skills that are acquired within the hospitality industry. It is designed specifically for VET in hospitality but is highly transferable to other WBL contexts, occupational sectors and European countries outside those participating in the project. EU VET policy encourages increasing involvement from employers in VET programme design and implementation, and for providers to demonstrate how their programmes are relevant to the current and anticipated needs of specific employment sectors. Yet practical examples and new ideas as to how to do this in a genuinely innovative way are sometimes lacking. Therefore Skills Swap is a novel attempt to create employer-led and employer-needed VET solutions in WBL.
Our overall aim was to harness the interest and energy of companies to tackle what many saw as ineffective VET provision in hospitality and enduring skills shortages, which were enduring despite raised standards, new occupations and better career pathways (EC DG for Internal Market, Industry and SMEs). The challenge was to engage employers – large and small – and other hospitality and sector stakeholders in a facilitated VET-related solution. Employer engagement has always been critical to effective VET. Employers are the ‘end-user’ destinations for VET learners and provide the on-the-job work experience that is required to make contemporary and relevant WBL a reality. Policy at the EU level was, and remains, to encourage ever-greater involvement from employers in VET (Bruges Communique, CEDEFOP) and for VET providers to demonstrate relevance to current and anticipated labour market needs e.g. New Skills Agenda for Europe; EQAVET evidence indicators 5 and 6). Hence, we designed resources to support testing novel ‘skills swapping’ with sector employers for the mutual benefit of hospitality sector companies, their employees and the VET practitioners that support them.
The project was developed in early 2020 in a context where the European hospitality sector is the largest part of Europe’s tourism industry, and Europe is the world’s number 1 tourist destination. This is of the utmost importance to the labour markets and economies of partners, particularly those based in London (Rinova), Dimitra (Greece), EdITC (Cyprus), Sextaplanta (Spain, Costa del Sol), CCIZ (Spain) and to new, sustainable tourism initiatives in Sweden (Folkuniversitetetet). In 2020 it was providing 25 million EU jobs with a further 5 million due over the coming decade (Eurostat). However, it was facing many challenges: a mismatch between the contemporary needs of the sector and VET offers, leading to major skills gaps and mismatched job-related competences (Next Generation Tourism EACEA,2019). It is characterised by extensive vacancies and labour shortages and suffers from a poor career image, with negative and often out of date perceptions of job quality (e.g. part-time, irregular hours, lower pay, fewer benefits, limited career prospects). ‘Skills Swap: sharing skills for WBL in VET for Europe’s hospitality sector’ was designed as an innovative European experiment to contribute new solutions for this enduring problem.