Skills for Growth: An Essential Guide to the Victorian Governments Strategic Planning and Workforce Development Initiative for Small and Medium Business

Skills for Growth is a strategic planning and workforce development program run by the Government of Victoria that provides small and medium businesses in the State of Victoria with free access to skilled business consultants and to employee training opportunities. The goal of the program is to help small and medium business owners achieve greater levels of near-term and long-term success by mapping out their business’ key goals and priorities and evaluating – and closing – capability gaps in their workforce.

The Skills for Growth initiative will create a number of benefits – some of which are:

- Improved performance and productivity across the business

- Heightened effectiveness and efficiency of the workforce

- Increased capability to innovate

- Broader employee skill set

- Reduced costs

All of which, of course, lead to the realization of the ultimate benefit for businesses: improved 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.

Structure of the Skills for Growth Program

After businesses register with the Skills for Growth initiative and select a Service Provider that best meets their needs, Service Providers assign independent workforce planning and training Specialists to content the business owner/manager and arrange for onsite meetings.

Workforce planning and training Specialists must have successfully completed a Training and Assessment (TAA) training course and an accredited training course on Assess Informal Learning (AIL), a prerequisite for which is the successful completion of a number of key units from Certificate IV.

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

Phase 1

In Phase One, a workforce planning and training Specialists meets with the business owner/manager and carries out a business analysis that results in the creation of a workforce development plan. The workforce development plan identifies, among other things, opportunities for upskilling and recommendations for training.

Basic overview of the key steps to the first phase are:

- The completion of a business review that plots out the business’ strategic direction and identifies key business needs

- The assessment of the skill and developmental needs of the business’ employees as they tie in with the business’ overall strategy

- 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

There are no costs associated with participating in the first phase.

Phase 2

The second phase of the Skills for Growth program proceeds only if business owners/managers choose to move forward with the training recommendations made by the workforce planning and training Specialist.

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

- 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. Eligibility is determined by a number of different factors – including: age, educational background, citizenship, and residency status.

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

Skills for Growth is open to all small and medium businesses that are based in Victoria. In order to qualify, a business must::

- Employ between 1 to 200 staff

- Have at least 12 months trading history

- Be financially viable (effective trading history and ability to meet debts when they fall due)

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

By the end of January 2010, Skills for Growth had reached the following milestones:

- 1,648 businesses had registered for the program

- 667 workforce action plans had been signed off on by businesses

- 17,934 training plans for employees had been approved by businesses

- 10,488 approved employee training plans had met eligibility requirements for the Victorian Training Guarantee

Clearly uptake of the Skills for Growth program by Victorian businesses has been strong. The results that many businesses have been getting from the program have also been strong, as you can see in some of the case studies that appear on the Business Victoria 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.

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