Continuous and flexible learning alongside work life has become the new norm. Maintaining one’s know-how and skills alongside life and work are growing and are easier to do as blogs, networks, forums, YouTube, and online courses etc. increase and expand.
For such competence development, the ICT4 project provides expertise as well as tools. It is also about equality and non-discrimination. In knowledge-intensive work, competence development is continuous and is done simultaneously and in parallel with work tasks. Learning is part of the job description.
Another challenge that the ICT4N project is tackling is the matching problem. It slows down business growth, skills development, and recruitment. The problem of matching is that companies cannot find the right people in the labor market to meet their needs and, on the other hand, job seekers do not know how to look for work with their strengths or potential, i.e. supply does not match demand. This problem has become visible in emerging industries such as the ICT industry. Cooperation between companies and universities should intensify towards a symbiotic ecosystem. In other words, out of a model where one is the service provider and the other the service subscriber.
The model for lifelong learning is reformed under the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The model responds throughout life to the constant need to develop and renew one’s competence, based on the reflection of one’s competence on the one hand, on the demand of the market, but the other hand also on the supply of education. This operating model relies heavily on mydata thinking, i.e. a person’s property has been verified as competence and so as he or she actively participates in the development of his or her competence. Mydata, or omadata in Finnish, is a matter of a person having the opportunity to use their study and work history and other information accumulated about them as part of their job search process or various services support it.
In the functioning of the labor market, it is crucial to have adequate and timely information available to the parties. In the ICT4N project, the problem is solved with the help of an artificial intelligence-based service. HeadAI’s Micro Competencies service (see https://www.headai.com/) has been implemented as part of the Tampere University Community’s labor market services palette. The main functions are to gather data for analysis of labor demand information and the labor demand analysis.
A skill needs profile will be built for the companies participating in the ICT4N project and a suitable trainee is sought based on it. This works for both parties, that the person involved in the project receives precise information on how their skills should be developed to improve their position in the labor market. Also, generic skills gaps are mapped for the following topics: language skills, working life culture and ICT content skills. Special needs are also mapped, and efforts are made to find suitable courses in Tampere Universities supply.
We will keep you up to date on how HeadAI succeeds in combing all the information and what experiences we gain during the project. In the Autumn 2020, the project will start with the first group and their experience as well as the experience of the participating companies will be an important part of the development work as the ICT4N project enables the labor market to function better and solve the labor market mismatch problem on a practical level.