Skills gap in Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) in Europe

The B-Wise Project report on work integration social enterprise sector is the first European report that charted skills gaps for employees in the WISE sector. It report identified three target groups: enablers, supporters and workers with support needs(WSN).

Who are the people working in the Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs)?

1. Enablers – CEOs, CHROs, CFOs, staff managers, area coordinators, project managers, and ICT specialists;
2. Supporters – include professionals, like job coaches, tutors, and mentors, who help WSNs in carrying out their work tasks;
3. Workers with support needs (WSNs) – people with physical and/or sensory disabilities; people with intellectual and/or learning disabilities; people with psycho-social disabilities and/or mental illnesses; people with substance use disorders; convicts and ex-convicts; people in long-term unemployment; homeless people; asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants; NEETs; women survivors of violence; members of ethnic minorities and people with low qualification.

What are the main findings related to skills gap in WISEs?

Mapping the skills needed to perform the jobs and fill the skills gaps in the WISE sector and anticipate the sector’s future needs

› from 409 face-to-face interview (of which 89 enablers, 145 supporters and 169 WSNs).

Most important skills for Enablers

• most of the skills that emerged as the most relevant are traced back to management skills;
• 4 most important management skills: developing objectives and strategies for WISEs, organizing and scheduling work activities, leading and motivating staff and stakeholders, and making decisions;
• enablers of the recently established WISEs consider the skills for building a team to be highly relevant, while the enablers of the more structured WISEs prioritized skills related to the development of organizational strategies and decision making.

Most important skills for Supporters

• teaching and training workers with support need;
• monitoring the development of WSNs;
• management skills are viewed as highly important by 59.3% of the supporters;
• a mix of hard and soft skills is required, the balance of which also varies according to the specific role assumed by a supporter within an organization.

Most important skills for Workers with support needs (WSNs)

• skills that allow for the carrying out of their work autonomously and help them to meet the objectives and deadlines set by their organizations;
• 2 most relevant skills: handling and moving (perceived as highly important by 42% of respondents) and working with machinery and specialised equipment (27.8% consider this skill as highly important).

Causes to skills gap

• No. 1 reason for skills gap is lack of economic resources preventing them to upgrade their skills.
• Labour shortages of workers with the needed job profile and lack of time to learn new things emerged as important key issues.
• The least relevant reason is lack of motivation.

The report highlighted that workers are, on the one hand, willing to fill their skills gaps but, on the other hand, some of them find it difficult to attend training courses with success. WSNs may be not motivated to address their own skills gaps because educational/training activities are not considered adequate.

The impact of skills gap. How supporters and enablers perceive the effects of skills gap?

Top 3 effects for enablers

1. Higher operating costs challenging economic sustainability (78.6%)
2. Other effects (51.7%)
3. Limited capacity to assist current or additional workers with support needs in their work integration processes (20%)

Top 3 effects for supporters

1. Other effects (33.7%)
2. Limited capacity to assist current or additional workers with support needs in their work integration processes (32.6%)
3. Increase workload for other staff (31.5%

Solutions to the skills gap

When it comes to addressing skill gaps, training is considered the top priority, while hiring new staff or reorganizing internal processes are less preferred options.

However, the lack of financial resources can hinder the implementation of these strategies, despite their importance.

Interesting findings related to trainings

• WSNs normally prefer face-to-face training and teamwork to address their own skill gaps.
• 84.3% of enablers claim to support training activities.
• The majority of enablers indicated reliance mainly on WISEs’ own funds.

Top 3 barriers preventing WISEs from organizing or supporting training according to enablers:

• Lack of time to organize/involve staff in training;
• Lack of funds;
• Lack of tailored training opportunities fully matching the WISE skills gaps.

Discover the full report on EU-27 Work Integration Social Enterprise sector. You will learn more about:

› Key features of WISEs, including the distinctive models of integration they have developed.
› The mix of resources WISEs rely upon.
› The context of emergence and the patterns of evolution of WISEs in three groups of countries: Central and Eastern Europe (i.e., Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovenia), Southern Europe (i.e., Greece, Italy and Spain) and Western Europe (i.e., Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands).
› State of play of technology and digitisation in WISEs.

Download the report here: http://bitly.ws/zn4Z

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The Report on understanding user (digital) skill needs in WISEs was published in December 2022 and it was prepared by the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Economy (EURICSE). The findings from the report will:

• inform the design of three training curricula to meet the skills gaps of workers in integration, their supporters and their managers.
• contribute to the development of a European Strategy to continue addressing the skills needs in the WISEs sector even after the end of the project.

Visit the B-WISE project page.