Victorian Governments Skills for Growth Program: A Guide to the Small and Medium Business Workforce Development and Strategic Planning Program

Skills for Growth is a strategic workforce planning and development initiative offered by the Victorian Government that gives Victorian-based small and medium businesses the opportunity to access employee training resources and expert business management consultants. The program’s objective is to help the owners of small and medium businesses attain higher levels of success by identifying the key objectives and goals of their businesses and assessing and addressing skills shortages in thier 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

- Enhanced capacity for innovation

- Broader employee skill set

- Reduced costs

Ultimately, all of the above-noted benefits lead to the one benefit important to all businesses: increased profits.

Skills for Growth Program 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.

Skills for Growth launched in April of 2009 with 25 Service Providers - working in partnership with independent workforce planning and training Specialists - approved to provide accredited training services to eligible businesses.

Skills for Growth Program Structure

Once a business registers for Skills for Growth and chooses a Service Provider that will best meet its needs, the Service Provider assigns a workforce planning and training Specialist to get the process underway.

It’s necessary for workforce planning and training Specialists to have completed a Training and Assessment (TAA) course, as well as an accredited training course in Assess Informal Learning (AIL), a prerequisite for which is the completion of several units from Certificate IV.

There are basically two phases to the Skills for Growth program.

Phase 1

In the first phase, a workforce planning and training Specialist conducts an onsite business review that concludes with the creation of a detailed plan for the development of the workforce. A workforce development plan details, among other things, opportunities for upskilling the workforce and makes recommendations for training.

Following is a high-level overview of the key steps to phase one:

- 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

Other than the time of the business owner/manager and staff, there is no cost to participate in the first phase of the Skills for Growth program.

Phase 2

The second phase of the program unfolds only if the business owner or manager decides to proceed with the training recommendations.

Following are the steps to the second phase of the Skills for Growth program:

- Facilitation of staff placement into training with an accredited training organisation

- Completing a follow-up review following the completion of training (or following at least three months of training) and a Skills for Growth report which business owners/managers must review (and approve)

Businesses are required to fund the second phase of the Skills for Growth program, but costs to the business can be reduced significantly if their staff qualify for subsidies under the Victorian Training Guarantee. Basic eligibility considerations include: citizenship, residency status, educational background, and age

The Skills for Growth program typically takes four weeks to complete, with the follow-up review generally 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 and 200 people

- Have been in business for at least 12 months

- Be financially stable

Obvioulsy, the eligibility standards are designed to ensure that the Skills for Growth program is accessible to as many businesses as possible.

Skills for Growth Program Statistics

As of the end of January 2010, the Skills for Growth program had hit the following milestones:

- 1,648 businesses had signed up for Skills for Growth

- 667 workforce actions plans had been approved by business owners/managers

- 17,934 employee training plans had been approved by businesses

- 10,488 approved training plans had met VictorianTraining Guarantee eligibility requirements

Clearly uptake of the Skills for Growth program by Victorian businesses 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.