Annex 8

Enhancing working performance with CompCard.Lab

A new experience towards an integrated system of human capital development

in the knowledge and lifelong learning society

Final Report

Gloria Zenari Project Manager & Researcher

Provincia di AlessandriaVocational Training Service - Area of Innovation

gloria.zenari@provincia.alessandria.it

PartnershipProvincia di Alessandria

Ente Scuola Edile di Alessandria

Regione Piemonte

Generalitat de Catalunya Universitatea “I Decembrie 1918” din Alba Iulia

Municipality of Alba Iulia

Plastics Academy

Ente scuola C.I.P.E.T

Scuola Edile di Cuneo

Istituto Statale per L’industria e L’artigianato “E. FERMI”

Boschetto Boschetto SrL

Francescato S.A.S di Francescato Vincenzo & C.

Sassone Costruzioni Edili s.r.l.

Formedil - Ente Nazionale per la Formazione e l’Addestramento professionale nell’Edilizia

Casa di Carità Arti e Mestieri di Tortona

Stakeholders who have taken part in the testing phase

Guala Dispensing

Guala Closures

Chemtex

Gruppo TÜV SÜD

ADECCO Training

Solvay

Solvin

Istitut Gaudí de la Costrucció

AMAG

FOR.AL

Tassullo Materiali

Centri per l’Impiego della Provincia di Alessandria

Knowledge economy

Present setting , marked by Knowledge Economy, therefore by Learning Organizations and Citizen

Lifelong learning, places the person at the heart of Education / Training and Work systems, introducing elements of strong

discontinuity compared to the past.

Competence Validation

The issue of competence validation takes a considerable importance in a system based on the possibility of validating not only degrees , but also previous experiences acquired no matter where.

Importance of non-formal situations

The European Council (recommendation 1437 / 2000) considers:

Non – formal education a fundamental part that comes together with formal education, what, by itself, cannot meet and cope with the quick social, economic and technological change in our society;

Moreover, it is written that “non-formal education is an integral part of the LIFELONG LEARNING concept, permitting youth and adults to acquire and preserve skills, capacities and perspectives necessary to adapt oneself to the steady environmental change ”.

Professional Identity Right

The right recognized to workersto be allowed to cross the different territories / systems during whole their life , without wasting those acquisitions / competences that account for their “professional identity”

Therefore, the right of a person to capitalize and spend his own professional competences turns into the obligation for every system to

make its choices compatible with those made by other systems , since this condition is the indispensable pre-requirement for the safeguard of such

right.

The Need

The problem Comp. Card wants to face is the non recognition of competences acquired in situations different from the formal ones by workers who want to re-skill , along training / education paths, or return to the labour world or simply enhance the value of their own professional path.

The shared problem A common problem for Comp.Card partner countries

concerns the progressive increase in situations of dependence due to demographic and socio-

economic changes ; therefore promotion of personal autonomy

through empowerment actions towards citizens represents one of the main challenges from

developed countries. .

This requires answers , supported by public authorities, aiming at providing instruments of active policies that :

foster citizen employment and mobility ;

make lifelong learning easier during the whole life span;

and promote social cohesion paying particular attention to those people for whom no professional qualification is recognized.

.

Objective

Project target is to enhance the value and highlight competences acquired also in non-formal and informal situations by adults, often lacking a recognized professional

qualification, who return to the training / education circuit to go back to the labour world

or to start professional development paths.

Sustainability

A further objective consists in providing the essential support to build a sustainable training and lifelong learning system, by means of validation of competences acquired in non formal situations, with a reduction in training times and a broader training offer that meets the needs of production world and workers.

Comp.Card is a European project of Transfer of Innovation that has systemized - through testing - experiences, good

practices and products, connected to “ Citizen Competence Portfolio”.

Comp.Card Lab

A tool to highlight the working performance, therefore competences acquired in every context ; it has been developed in Italy by transferring and adapting the following products:

“Portafolio de las Competencias del Ciudadano” created by Generalitat de Catalunya,

completing it with “Citizen Competence Portfolio ” devised by Regione Piemonte

together with “Formedil Competence Portfolio ” devised for the building sector.

The above-mentioned experiences have allowed partners a mutual learning useful to improve the respective products.

Governance

In relation to an idea of growth and community, Governance is based on the principles of participation, responsibility, effectiveness and coherence.

In the specific context of validation / enhancement , Governance is essential since:

it supports compliance with the needs, supplies opportunities to the people involved ; maintains the actual recognition and attribution of value supervises the system reliability and maintenance

decides on the system quality itself ( there is not a design good in itself, out of a context).

Training Company & Governance

The Business system, has been a fundamental stakeholder for the project

governance, that has taken advantage of it and will take advantage of

it since it will dispose of Standardized but flexible methodologies to recognize

worker competences acquired in different contexts, also with the purpose of quality certification

and human capital quotation and development of tacit knowledge awareness.

The value added at European level.

Greater attention to the necessity of reacting to the challenges coming from the European profession market and to worker mobility ,

and this requires:

System integration; Social cohesion of people;

Tool transparency.

Comp.Card has paid great attention to what concerns the European dimension

“youth, new employments / competences and mobility”, by transferring innovative methods / tools/ contents

useful to build together with the “ key actors” experimental professional profiles in line with the labour

world renewal, to favour transparency concerning the key problem of

validation of competences wherever acquired.

Recipients

Final recipients of testing actions have been , besides the bodies entrusted with the development of transferred products , also:

potential ( adult) students, over-eighteen, in a dependence condition on the labour market , who enter courses aiming at achieving a diploma or professional qualification;

unemployed workers or workers waiting for relocation ( main users of employment services);

employed workers along their professional development paths

Employers have now at their disposal a tested and shared tool useful for :

recognizing competences acquired by people who want to apply for a job in their company;

enhancing the working performance of both candidates and their own employees , starting from professional profiles in line with the labour world renewal.

Innovative results are connected to an

“empowerment” process on the user, since candidate himself can focus on his competences and

assess which are the strong and weak points of his career and therefore organize his own professional development path, by evaluating which skills and/or knowledge he has to fill to meet his targets, on the basis of a professional growth path.

advantages it cuts down the duration of interviews with assessors.

increases assessor productivity .

reduces assessment costs.

speeds up procedure.

improves the historical memory .

fosters empowerment in the users.

assures a standard tested approach also for the purpose of quality certification.

supplies a range of useful tests compatible with company safety and confidentiality procedures

favours transparency and passages through the Training / Education / Labour systems.

Main needs that these services can meet are:

Empowerment

The recognition pattern of competences acquired in different contexts has an impact on the ‘empowerment’ level. Empowerment as ‘increase in power’, where the meaning of power the Empowerment refers to concerns the development of potential, mastery, sense of responsibility and “ capacitation” of the person.

Favouring an increase in the empowerment perceived by people allows to influence their level of self-esteem, confidence, and capacity of actively intervening in different aspects of life.

Employability as ‘value’ of a person on the labour market coming from his training and working preparation and experience.

Learning

Recognition of competences acquired no matter how, allows a person to detect the ‘gap’ that exists between his actual knowledge and what is required by the labour market and/or by a specific professional profile.

The ‘gap’ can be turned into the involvement in training activities to acquire the absent competences and/or recognize credits and grant “ bonus” ( path shortening) in the access to formal paths taking into account previously acquired knowledge.

Professional profiles three main typologies of Assessor competencies: ‘people oriented’ competences: connected to the possess of

competences in managing people relationship and in giving a support to find out competences achieved through the experience analysis

‘process oriented’ competences: these are competences concerning management, co-ordination and supervision of the whole process implied in the service realization;

‘content oriented’ competences: concerning the technical /

professional expertise of the main processes Often proper reports / lists are created, by means of

procedures mainly of public evidence.

Contents concern the user experiences, critically analyzed

and evaluated, and the relevant knowledge; therefore, it is the person itself the main character of the structuring

construction process , of course under the assessor supervision

.

CONSTRUCTION Process for competence validation

Work Team Assessors + User

First guidance

Mutual agreement

interview

Evidence acquisition and organization

Competence examination by means of evidences and assessment

Portfolio construction

Back office

Competence record sheet

User Feed Back

Generally the service comes together with a support to the person available along all phases.

Max. duration: 5 hours