White Paper

This study provided a systematic review of the academic and “grey” literature on “soft” skills in Canada. A key word search was used to pull a broad range of articles and papers which were coded and analysed to explore the ways in which “soft” skills are defined, developed and measured.

Digital skills are the foundation of a world-class digital economy. For more than two decades, there has been a great deal of discussion of Canada’s critical skills shortage, skill mismatches, and the digital divide. Canada’s last comprehensive digital strategy, developed by the Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC), was instituted over a decade ago (IHAC, 1998). Given the rapid pace of change in technology – and the skills needed to use this technology – Canada requires a new digital strategy. Digital skills are, arguably, the foundation upon which the other pillars of a national digital strategy are built. While the development of physical infrastructure is an important priority, advanced countries also recognize the need to develop their human skills infrastructure. This ensures the population is able to take full advantage of the physical infrastructure, access the government services and consume digital products and services. Digital skills are critical to companies developing infrastructure, companies requiring skilled workers to achieve their business objectives, companies creating new products and services, as well as small companies striving to rise to the next level. Research and innovation, fundamental to the growth of a world-class digital economy, are dependent on a skilled workforce. The focus of this project was to review the existing English and French language literature, both Canadian and International, which address the following themes: definitions of specific digital skills, including their similarities and differences; benchmarks used to assess digital skills; strategies related to information and communications technology (ICT) and digital economy skills, including operative definitions, components, and evaluations (if any); taxonomies of stakeholders as well as initiatives documented to promote digital skills, including goals, tactics, and impacts; and, potential models that may serve as a basis for further consultation with relevant stakeholders.

Canada’s public service has charted an ambitious information management and technology strategy, and talent is one of its pillars. Finding innovative approaches to attracting, developing, and retaining the best and brightest requires rethinking many traditional assumptions and harnessing new approaches. What can be done to attract a skilled and diverse workforce?

This paper provides guidance for developing country-specific policy recommendations from the broad policy principles of the new OECD Jobs Strategy. To this end, it identifies countries’ main policy challenges and develops broad policy packages to address them. It highlights the importance of considering countries' initial conditions – in terms of the state of the business cycle, fiscal and administrative capacity, past reforms, preferences and demography – for tailoring policy recommendations to country specific challenges, capabilities and needs. It also contains a checklist with key questions for each of the broad dimensions of labour market performance that should be considered when developing country-specific recommendations.

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills commissioned this policy review as part of the Collective Measures project, whose purpose is to identify and recommend policy levers which will stimulate employer investment in the skills of the workforce, to contribute to improved national economic performance and raising UK skill levels. The Policy Review is the third of four linked projects which provide the basis for the final Collective Measures report. Projects 1 and 2 provide the theoretical and empirical findings that model and document employer motivations and behaviour with respect to training investment. Project 3 reviews evidence to seek to establish the outcomes and effectiveness of policy options deployed in the UK and elsewhere to influence employer investment in training. Project 4 involved stakeholders subjecting policies proposed in Project 3 to a prioritisation exercise. The Policy Review was undertaken by reviewing the findings of a range of published and unpublished evaluations, reports and wider commentaries concerning the outcomes, strengths and weaknesses of different policy options. The review examined the following policy options in detail: levies, individual rights to training, Investors in People and quality standards, occupational licensing, tax incentives, subsidised training, and inter-employer collaboration methods (including supply chains and public procurement policies). Loan guarantees for training and improved social dialogue between managers and employees were also considered. The policy review identified that there was a shortage of high-quality evaluative literature capable of assessing the impact of policy levers on employer investment in skills. The scope of literature for inclusion in the review was kept broad to ensure that key messages about strengths and weaknesses of different policies were found.

[...] too is the rapidly growing phenomenon of the "sharing economy", a loose term describing digital platforms ranging from local time banks or swap schemes, through peer-to-peer financing and freelance employment websites, to giant companies such as Airbnb. [...]there has been declining investment in commercial real estate, a component of business investment and therefore GDP. In the chart below, the scale is logarithmic, so it shows the speed of decline in the price of computer processing is still exponential, in line with Moore's Law-based on an observation by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore in 1965, that the density of transistors in integrated circuits (and hence computing power) would roughly double every two years.

In April 2010 the UK Commission took strategic ownership of the Investors in People Standard from Investors in People UK. A key objective for the UK Commission is to encourage organisations to improve workforce skills and productivity. Investors in People (IiP) plays an important role in achieving this objective. This research is part of a wider two-year evaluation of IiP which will inform future policy and delivery arrangements for the Standard. It will help to measure the impact of IiP in order to demonstrate its value to organisations, exploring how and in what ways IiP impacts on businesses, and make future improvements to the Standard and its implementation. The overarching aim of the project is to develop a deeper understanding of the process of employer engagement with IiP and their views on the service delivery accompanying the IiP product and service offering. The objectives are to: understand how employers engage with and use Investors in People and implement organisational change; to identify any barriers or problems; to identify the impact of Investors in People on organisations; and to make suggestions for improving IiP delivery.

This research aims to develop a greater understanding of the design, implementation and impact on skills of employer networks in the UK to inform the delivery of investment projects. It seeks to understand how networks are organised and why, the kinds of activities delivered for employers and the outcomes and impacts which they achieved on employer growth and investment in skills. The study draws on a literature review, online mapping exercise, small scale online and telephone survey and a series of eight case studies investigating the role of employer networks in contributing to skills development and innovation in the UK. The objectives of the research were to: gain a clearer understanding of the employer networks that exist around the UK, with a particular focus on those with a skills or growth dimension; identify what the characteristics are of different networks and whether there are any patterns or prevalence of certain types; obtain a deeper picture of what employer network members feel they gain from participation in such networks.

In April 2010 the UK Commission took strategic ownership of the Investors in People Standard from Investors in People UK. A key objective for the UK Commission is to encourage organisations to improve workforce skills and productivity. Investors in People (IiP) plays an important role in achieving this objective. This evaluation completes a wider evaluation of IiP which will inform future policy and delivery arrangements for the Standard. It will help to measure the impact of IiP in order to demonstrate its value to organisations, exploring how and in what ways IiP impacts on businesses, and make future improvements to the Standard and its implementation. The overarching aim of the project is to develop a deeper understanding of the process of employer engagement with IiP and their views on the service delivery accompanying the IiP product and service offering. The objectives are to: understand how employers engage with and use Investors in People to implement organisational change; to identify any barriers or problems; to identify the impact of Investors in People on organisations; and to make suggestions for improving IiP delivery.