The cooperation work of SOCIEUX+ with public employment services (PES) all over the world has been a major focus of the Facility’s employment section since its inception in September 2016.  Recently, organizational capacity building continues to be the main subject of many requests, involving a wide range of partners. In this article we review recent cases and samples showcasing the range of partners, implementing methodologies, and outcomes. At the end we identify some new and emerging trends in the area based on our interactions with partner organizations.

Support to jobseekers

In the area of support for jobseekers, national partners from Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe requested Facility support to improve counselling services to young jobseekers, low-skill workers and specific vulnerable groups (NEET).

In Moldova, the SOCIEUX+ intervention was designed and implemented to support the National Agency for Employment (ANOFM) in outreach for NEET young people and their specific needs, delivering efficient and tailor-made supports to boost their labour insertion. Practical tools for NEET outreach and coordinating services providers were co-developed with the partner and key stakeholders.

The Togo experience aimed to support employment counsellors on the development of soft skills of job seekers. It focused on the implementation of on-the-job coaching of ANPE counsellors and other stakeholders (employers organizations, an association of people with disabilities) and the production of key documents such as a 130-page guide for trainers, based on the capitalization of good practices by the two experts.

Support to entrepreneurship or self-entrepreneurs

Regarding the support to entrepreneurship, we have been solicited by different categories of partners including public employment services (Nigeria), social partners (Mauritania), and government ministries (New Caledonia and Ukraine).

In Mauritania, collaboration with the Patronal Federation of Services and support of the Deyahi Foundation, started with the maping and assessment of the entrepreneurship support ecosystem and concluded with the design and formalization of a training course for young business creators as well as the establishment of a trainers association.

New Caledonia was an atypical request, since it dealt with the greening of competences and was closely related with rural self-employment and entrepreneurship. The purpose of the action was to develop job opportunities and activities for Kanak communities by encouraging traditional know-how and acquired skills of their members and leveraging on traineeship opportunities for women and youth.

Support to employers

In Ecuador, we worked with the Ministry of Labour and the public employment service Encuentra Empleo in the elaboration of a corrective action plan on services , a communication plan, and training on services for employers, as well as workshops on inclusive language, communication resources and tools.

One of the main challenges for public service providers is to gain legitimacy in PES by improving the visibility and quality of their services towards potential employers. Employer outreach and matching labour demand with labour supply are other recurrent challenges.

And in Niger, we benchmarked EU experiences on communication with employers. We worked with the teams on job definitions and identification of opportunities, as well as the needs analysis for ICT tools & digitalization. We also developed a communication strategy and tools for the outreach of employers.

Innovative pedagogical approaches to improve the peer-to-peer approach and to ensure real ownership of new practices and tools by stakeholders

Initially, we focused on providing a peer-to-peer approach with partner institutions through 3-stage actions: diagnosis and mapping of stakeholders; roadmaps; and, capacity building activities and tool development. Today, we also ensure appropriation of new practices and tools by implementation partners and key stakeholders through an additional phase dedicated to individual coaching and M&E of praxis and ownership. It has been observed that this initiative strengthens the ownership process and self-reliance, while reinforcing long-term sustainability.

Another recent trend is the development of evolutive pedagogical methods to optimize and sustain the construction and learning processes with partners. These methods rely on the combination of active pedagogies, professional training and group facilitation to ensure a climate of trust, boosting active participation and the horizontal exchange of knowledge, skills and attitudes between the training team and participants. In Cameroon for example, thanks to the participation of experts in educational engineering, the activities incorporated interactive training methods, including the learning-by-doing methodology, which were effectively appropriated by managers and counsellors of to better develop the transversal skills of young jobseekers. In Surinam, the SOCIEUX+ team of experts applied the 4D methodology, an innovative collaborative methodological approach based on design thinking to produce concrete tools.

Soft skills valorisation and development by the support services delivered by PES is undoubtedly another powerful driver to reduce inequality, boost the employability of low qualified and vulnerable workers, and promote decent work. Adequate soft skills management also improves matching supply /demand in the labour market. It is a transversal approach whose final beneficiaries are principally jobseekers and also entrepreneurs.

Conclusion

SOCIEUX+ is committed, with a diverse group of PES partners and other stakeholders, to deliver services to different categories of beneficiaries. Despite the great diversity of SOCIEUX+ responses in the field of intermediation services, they can be summarized as supporting public services to jobseekers, entrepreneurs, and employers, through mobilization of partner institutions with support from SOCIEUX+ experts to identify the main bottlenecks, to co-design strategies and roadmaps to address them, and to put in practice and assess the new knowledge, protocols and technical tools recently acquired.