Agile Occupational and Training Standards for Responsive Skills Policies

Previous chapters presented several examples of how countries ensure that occupational and training standards are of high-quality, that they are aligned with labour market needs and that their production is efficient. Despite their heterogeneity in terms of methodologies, formats, tools, governance, and processes, the case studies reviewed highlight key good practices, which can be used by practitioners and decision makers to improve their own standard setting systems. In particular, when reflecting on the system in place in their country, policy makers should consider the following four recommendations.

Timeliness of the production process means delivering new or updated standards within a reasonable timeframe and minimising delays. Timeliness is vital in the context of dynamic and continually evolving labour markets, as timely production and update of standards ensure that the skills and competencies they encompass remain relevant. This is crucial for equipping the workforce with in-demand skills, enhancing employability and addressing immediate labour market shortages. Delayed updates or slow response to changing needs can lead to widening skills gaps, where the workforce’s skills are outdated or misaligned with market needs.

An efficient production process optimises the use of resources – time and labour – by streamlining operations and minimising waste and costs. Efficiency is critical because developing occupational and training standards is a demanding process, requiring significant time and resources from the main entity as well as for all stakeholders involved, including social partners and experts. Efficiency allows for a better allocation of public resources and is particularly important in times of tight budget constraints.

Best practices from the case studies in this report suggest that the development of entirely new standards should occur within a year. Standards updates are usually faster, especially when countries have developed fast-track procedures, such as French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland.

Three ingredients are necessary to ensure timely and efficient production of occupational and training standards. First, establishing well-structured processes is essential. Despite differences in their institutional structures and governance systems, all case studies have put in place a clear and transparent process, with explicitly stated procedures and steps involved, from the start of the process to the approval of occupational and training standards. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the organisation overseeing the development of standards has created a list of criteria for the creation of a new occupational standard. In Switzerland, a detailed handbook and separate guidelines for an accelerated procedure are available to ensure common understanding and agreement on the process by all relevant stakeholders. Similar documents are also published online by the SFMQ in French-speaking Belgium. In Germany, each step of the process is assigned a specific timeframe to limit the length of the entire process and allow for the creation of an occupational and training standard within one year.

Well-structured processes are typically accompanied by a clear allocation of tasks and responsibilities. Clarifying the mandate and responsibilities of the main entity in charge of occupational and training standards, as well as other relevant stakeholders, is essential for ensuring an efficient process. The role of the co‑ordinating entity can be embedded in legal frameworks, such as in Germany, French-speaking Belgium and the United Kingdom, to ensure that the role of the supervising body is clearly recognised by all stakeholders, to provide it with necessary convening power, and to guarantee financial and human resources. This is particularly important as, in all case studies examined, the main entity plays an important role during the development phase of standards, either by co‑ordinating the process or by drafting the standard.

Digital tools can be introduced to ensure a timely and efficient production process. In Flanders, the focus is primarily on updating existing occupational standards rather than creating new ones, and an AI dashboard has been developed to inform the updates. As a result, these updates require less resources. In France, an online platform is used to collaborate with stakeholders more efficiently.

Labour market relevance means that occupational and training standards accurately reflect the realities of labour markets. Up-to-date standards mirror the current needs of employers, as opposed to outdated practices and requirements that no longer align with evolving industry demands and technologies. Ensuring that standards are responsive to labour market requirements is key to maintaining a skilled and competitive workforce and meeting the dynamic needs of employers. The concepts of labour market relevance and up-to-date standards are closely related to the timeliness of the production process discussed in the previous section: timeliness is necessary for standards to remain up to date, yet it is not sufficient. A number of other ingredients are needed, which are discussed below. Agility means that standards remain relevant even after slight changes in the tasks performed by workers, for instance as a consequence of the introduction of new machinery or equipment. A certain degree of agility implies that standards require less frequent updates.

User-friendliness means that standards are accessible and practical. They should be easily understandable and useable by a wide range of stakeholders, including trainers, learners, employers, and policy makers. User-friendly occupational and training standards facilitate better decision making in career development, curriculum design, and workforce planning. By presenting information in a standardised, accessible format, they help maintain consistency across training programmes and institutions. When standards are not user-friendly, their uptake is generally low, or if their use is mandatory, their adoption is difficult and time‑consuming.

To incorporate the needs of employers and make occupational and training standards labour market relevant, employers and sectoral organisations are actively involved in the production process in all countries analysed in this report. However, the extent of involvement varies, ranging from employers attending consultation meetings to them being jointly responsible for the production of standards. In France for instance, standards are mainly developed by France Travail, the Public Employment Service, but employers and sectoral funds provide material to inform the preparation of the draft standard and give feedback. At the other extreme, in the United Kingdom, employers that compose trailblazer groups are responsible for the production of standards and lead the process. The advantage of a strong business involvement in the process is that employers can directly express their needs, which are then precisely transcribed in the documents. Participation in the standard-setting process also fosters ownership and buy-in. One main disadvantage is that firms do not always have the time to be involved in the process.

When assessing labour market needs, it is important to ensure the representativity of firms involved or consulted. Particular attention should be devoted to the inclusion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In order to facilitate their participation, SMEs may receive a small compensation, as in Germany and Switzerland. In some cases (like Switzerland and the United Kingdom), the composition of consulted groups must satisfy a set of criteria to ensure the representativeness of employers in terms of sector, size, and geographical spread.

To keep standards up-to-date, frequent reviews are necessary, where the organisation in charge analyses and assesses whether an update is needed. Importantly, a review does not always trigger a modification of the standard. In the case studies presented in this report, standards are reviewed between four times a year (Flanders) and every five years (Switzerland). In several instances, updates can be requested by stakeholders, in particular employers and sectoral organisations. In France, updates can be proposed via the online platform dedicated to the production of standards. In the United Kingdom, when an existing occupational standard needs updating, employers initiate the process by completing a first draft proposal. Although not widespread, informing updates with labour market monitoring and analysis, including the analysis of online job vacancies as in Flanders, is a best practice that should be generalised.

Agility necessitates standards to be general and broad enough so that full updates are not needed after slight changes in the tasks performed by workers, such as the introduction of new software. It is however important to balance agility and precision. While occupational and training standards should not be too rigid and should allow enough flexibility to adapt to rapid changes in the labour market, they must also provide clear information on required skills and knowledge. The right balance between agility and precision and the necessity for updates is best assessed by end-users, who should be asked to provide feedback on the content and quality of the standards.

While strong involvement of employers and sectoral organisations is key to ensuring labour market relevance, strong collaboration with end-users is essential to develop user-friendly standards. However, the needs of employers and those of end-users may not always be aligned and finding a compromise between the two groups is not straightforward.

Training standards are closely linked to occupational standards when they align with the requirements described in the latter. A systematic link between the two ensures that the training offer meets labour market needs. By closely reflecting the skills and knowledge outlined in occupational standards, training standards can be used to develop programmes that meet businesses’ requirements. This connection not only ensures that the workforce is capable, certified, and ready to perform their job roles proficiently, but it also enhances the quality and relevance of the training.

Findings from the case studies show that the connection between occupational and training standards is stronger when a single organisation is responsible for the development and maintenance of both, as the case of French-speaking Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In these countries, occupational and training standards are developed within the same production cycle (i.e. the training standard is created or updated right after the occupational standard). This approach alleviates the complexity of managing two different processes at the same time. Furthermore, in all countries except France and Flanders, occupational and training standards are combined into a single document per profession.

The link between occupational and training standards is further reinforced when they are prepared by the same group of experts. In Switzerland, a partnership is formed between SERI (the organisation in charge of developing the standards), professional organisations, and cantons to create VET ordinances, which combine occupational and training standards in a single document. In the United Kingdom, trailblazer groups lead the development of both occupational standards and curriculum requirements of apprenticeships. However, other countries have chosen to assign these tasks to different groups of experts. For instance, in French-speaking Belgium and in Germany, two distinct groups – one composed of experts of the occupation and the other of training experts – are responsible for writing the occupational and training standards, respectively. The advantage of this approach is that training standards benefit from the input of training experts, making them more tailored to the needs of training providers. When the two‑group approach is preferred, good communication and co‑ordination between the expert groups are essential, though not always easy to achieve.

Quality assurance and oversight mechanisms are sets of procedures designed to ensure that occupational and training standards and standard-setting processes meet specified quality criteria. Quality assurance mechanisms are established formally and usually include external, independent audits of the processes in place. Oversight mechanisms are less formal and monitor, regulate, and ensure compliance with established criteria internally.

Quality assurance and oversight mechanisms are crucial in the production and update of occupational and training standards to guarantee their consistency and credibility. Indeed, they ensure consistency by requiring standardised procedures and criteria for developing and updating occupational and training standards. Uniform practices are necessary to guarantee that all standards meet the same high-quality benchmarks, regardless of by whom they are produced. This consistency in standards setting makes learning opportunities based on training standards reliable and comparable across different regions and providers. At the same time, strong quality assurance also aims to foster two types of trust: (i) trust among the different stakeholders involved in the standard-setting process, thereby facilitating co‑operation and contributing to heightened ownership and buy-in; and (ii) trust in the process by the community, promoting a reliable framework that supports continuous improvement and accountability.

Quality assurance frameworks take very different forms across countries and contexts (OECD, 2021[27]). They can be formalised regulatory tools imposing minimum quality requirements that a system needs to meet in order to be put in place (e.g. quality labels or external audits) or they can be optional support tools that use guidelines and good practices to inspire quality development efforts (e.g. self-evaluations). In Flanders, for example, for a new occupational standard to be included in the Competent database, it must go through a thorough quality control. First, dedicated staff at VDAB carries out internal quality checks, and then the proposed standard is sent to sector contacts and Synerjob partners for their external feedback. In the United Kingdom, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) has recently moved to a framework where the quality of their apprenticeships and occupational standards is ensured by external bodies – namely, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) and the Office for Students (OfS) for integrated higher and degree apprenticeships.1

However, not all standard setting procedures reviewed in this report are subject to a formal quality assurance mechanism. Yet, this does not mean that internal oversight mechanisms are not present. For instance, when training providers in France want to create a new certification, they are required to list it in the Répertoire National des Certifications Professionnelles (RNCP). Among the various documents to submit in their application, providers also need to include the proposed certification standard, which France Compétences – the authority in charge of the RNCP – can reject. Indeed, France Compétences assesses applications based on the content of the certification standard, an analysis of the adequacy of the certification to the needs of the economy, and the career prospects of the learners. Proving that this approach contributes (at least partially) to quality assurance is the fact that the rejection rate remains very high – 50% in 2022 (Besson et al., 2023[28]).