Skills for Growth is the Victoria Government’s workforce development and strategic planning initiative that is designed to provide small and medium businesses based in Victoria with access to workforce planning and training experts and employee training specialists – for free The goal of the program is to help small and medium business owners achieve greater levels of near-term and long-term success by mapping out their business’ key goals and priorities and evaluating – and closing – capability gaps in their workforce.
Key benefits that the Skills for Growth program is meant to create for participating businesses include:
- Enhanced business productivity and performance
- Heightened effectiveness and efficiency of the workforce
- Greater capacity to innovate
- Broader range of employee skills
- Reduced overall costs
Ultimately, all of the benefits listed above are meant to show up on the business’ bottom line in the form of increased profits.
Skills for Growth Background
In recognitiion of the fact that small and medium businesses represent about 99% of all businesses in the State of Victoria – and employ just under one million people – the State Government decided to commit $52 million in funding to the Skills for Growth program to help ensure their growth and competitiveness.
The program was launched in April of 2009 and has 25 Service Providers – who were appointed after an exhaustive and lengthy review process – across the State of Victoria that are approved to provide – in partnership with workforce planning and training Specialists – accredited training services to businesses that participate in the program.
Skills for Growth Structure
After businesses register with the Skills for Growth initiative and select a Service Provider that best meets their needs, Service Providers assign independent workforce planning and training Specialists to content the business owner/manager and arrange for onsite meetings.
Workforce planning and training Specialists are required to have completed a Training and Assessment (TAA) course as well as well as an accredited course on Assess Informal Learning (AIL). Completion of a number of key units from Certificate IV is a prerequisite for AIL.
There are basically two phases to the Skills for Growth program.
Phase 1
In Phase One, a workforce planning and training Specialists meets with the business owner/manager and carries out a business analysis that results in the creation of a workforce development plan. A workforce development plan details, among other things, opportunities for upskilling the workforce and makes recommendations for training.
Following are the steps to the first phase of the Skills for Growth program:
- Completing a top-level analysis of the business that maps out its strategic direction
- Assessment of the skills and training needs of employees as they relate to the business’ strategic direction
- Development of a Workforce Training and Action Plan that identifies business and employee skills needs and that recommends referrals to relevant training programs and learning opportunities
The first phase of the Skills for Growth program is free for businesses to take part in.
Phase 2
The second phase of the Skills for Growth program proceeds only if business owners/managers choose to move forward with the training recommendations made by the workforce planning and training Specialist.
Following are the steps to the second phase of the Skills for Growth program:
- The facilitation of the placement of staff into training courses with accredited training organisations
- The completion of a follow-up reivew after the completion of training (or after at least three months of training has been completed) and of a Skills for Growth report which is reviewed and approved by the owners and/or managers of the business
Phase two must be funded by the participating businesses, whose staff may be eligible for the Victorian Training Guarantee, which offers substantial subsidies for placements in recognised vocational training courses. Eligibility is determined by a number of different factors – including: age, educational background, citizenship, and residency status.
The program generally takes about 4 weeks to complete, with the followup review typically being completed after six months.
Skills for Growth Program Eligibility
The program is open to all Victoria-based small and medium businesses. In order to qualify, a business must::
- Employ between 1 to 200 staff
- Have been in business for at least 12 months
- Be financially viable (effective trading history and ability to meet debts when they fall due)
Clearly, the standards are set to encourage as many Victorian businesses to participate in the program as possible.
Key Numbers on the Uptake of Skills for Growth
By the end of January 2010, Skills for Growth had reached the following milestones:
- 1,648 businesses had registered for the program
- 667 workforce actions plans had been approved by business owners/managers
- 17,934 training plans for employees had been approved by businesses
- 10,488 approved training plans had met VictorianTraining Guarantee eligibility requirements
Obviously, business uptake of the Skills for Growth program has been strong. Businesses have also been getting strong results from teh Skills for Growth program, which you can read more about on Business Victoria’s website.
If you own or manage a Victoria-based business – and your business ticks the other “eligibility boxes” – you should really consider checking out the Skills for Growth program.
