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Scalable & cost-effective facilitation
of professional identity transformation
in public employment services
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research,
technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 619619
Introducing learning innovation in
public employment services. What
role can facilitation play?
ICELW 2014, June 12th
2014
Dr. Barbara Kieslinger
Centre for Social Innovation, Austria

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Motivation
Challenges for European Public Employment Services (PES):
• high unemployment rates due to economic crises
• youth unemployment and demographic change
• continually changing regulations and scarce resources
Transitions of counsellors work:
• from advisers into coaches
• from matching supply and demand to coaching clients
towards a higher career adaptability and employability
Successful transition of professional roles
requires continuous learning processes

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EmployID project facts
Objectives:
• to deliver sustainable and cost-effective support for professional identity
transformation as a complex and continuous learning process, on an individual,
organisational and European network level, using a holistic tool suite.
Main facts:
• European research project
• Runtime of 4 years (Feb 2014 – Feb 2018)
• 10 partners, amongst them 2 PES (DWP from UK and ZRSZ from Slovenia)
• Successful history of cooperation amongst partners

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Elements of Professional identity

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Professional identity (trans)formation
Model of occupational identity formation (Brown, 1997)
Changes for European Public
Employment Services
Changes for European Public
Employment Services
• new services for clients
•from advisers to coaches
•new skills and
competencies
•updated knowledge on
labor market information
•flexibility, career
adaptability

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Individual characteristics
Motivation, self-efficacy, resilience,
career adaptability
Cognitive development
•Technical competences,
knowledge base, critical thinking
Transfer of knowledge to
new domains
Practical development
•Practical skills and knowledge,
doing things on the job & reflecting
Innovation for new practices
Relational development
•Relate to a community and
its practices, learning from others
change it actively
Emotional development
•Well-being, feelings, meaning in
life, understanding self & others
reflexiveness
Professional identity transformation as a learning
process in European Public Employment Services
from advisers to coaches

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Support the group to:
•Collaboratively reflect and share good practice, problems and innovation
•Support supervision and guidance of others
•Monitor the group progress
Support Individuals to:
•Understand how to bridge old and new roles
•Identify personality types and gaps in knowledge and skills
•Reflect on new praxis, problems and innovation potentials
•Explore feelings related to identity development and workplace cultures
•Monitor individual progress
What can facilitation do?
Emotional development
Individual characteristics
Cognitive development
Practical development
Relational development
from advisers to coaches

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Facilitation
“a technique by which one person makes things easier for others”
Kitson, Harvey, McCormack (1998)

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Human Facilitators
• Multiple roles
• trainers, coaches, moderators, peer learners…
• Important skills set
• Flexibility, ability to listen & understand, empathy,
self-awareness, ability to remain neutral
• PES context
• Diversified need of individuals
• Peer facilitation not institutionalized
• Big time constraints, heavy workloads
• EmployID approach
• Identify key staff who start as facilitators
• Involve key facilitators early in the process
• Get management buy-in

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Tools as Facilitators
• eCoaching tools
• For self coaching & peer coaching (intervision)
• Documentation, powerful questions, management of roles,…
• Reflection tools
• For individuals & groups
• Documentation & structuring, sending prompts, …
• PES context
• Support PES practitioners to become facilitators (own, peers,
clients)
• Combine coaching and reflection support
• Well integrated into workflow and timely
• “Not just another tool”

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Example:TheTalkReflection App
Reflection of Conversations
With Clients

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Example:TheTalkReflection App
• Created together with companies /
organisations and evaluated in different
settings
• (Health) Care
• Public Administration
• Risk Management
• Support for
• Learning in areas in which experience is
most important
• No formal education is available
• Emotions are involved

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Example: Mobile Self-Coaching

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Self-Coaching with your Mobile
• Self-Coaching: Guided process in tool
• clarification of the problem
• description/ analysis of the problem
• change of pattern state
• finding objectives, searching for solutions, selection &
planning further steps
• Advantages
• Independent of time and space
• Available anytime
• Means for intervention and structuring without coach present
• Anonymous
• Documentation for later usage
• Teaches coaching skills

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Example: MOOCs Learning Online
Learning online,
Taking exams,
Getting certified

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MOOCs: Learning Online
• Advantages of MOOCs
• High-quality content freely accessible
• Accessible for many people in parallel
• Learning at own pace, own interest
• Community of learners, mutual support
• Generic MOOC on changing careers, work, identities
• Making sense of changes in work, employment, careers and identities
• Develop coaching skills and supporting others in career development
• Finding out more about yourself, reflect on own career
• Via FutureLearn 1st
quarter of 2015!
• Particular topics for PES MOOCs
• Labor Market Information, green jobs, responses to youth
unemployment,…

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Environments as Facilitators

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Contextual challenges
conceptual
socio-technical
methodological

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• Don’t forget to analyze the context in
detail!
• Listen to employees, look out for key informants
• Don’t forget to get the management buy-
in!
• Define their role in the process from the beginning
• Don’t make it “just another tool”!
• Integrate it in the workflow of the people
• Give them ownership

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EmployID facilitation approach

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Expected outcome:
•Acknowledge and share practitioner knowledge, skills and professionalism
•Support transferring knowledge from training to practice
•Foster innovation at work
•Increase self-directedness and commitment for learning at work
•Supported monitoring and evaluation of implementation of changes
•Support competence development and career adaptability
EmployID tool suite for individual and group facilitation
Emotional development
Individual characteristics
Cognitive development
Practical development
Relational development
from advisers to coaches

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What are we trying to do?

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Thank you!
EmployID project team
Dr. Barbara Kieslinger
Project Coordinator
Centre for Social Innovation – ZSI, Austria
kieslinger@zsi.at
Co-authors
Jenny Bimrose, Alan Brown, Teresa Holocher-
Ertl, Christine Kunzmann, Michael Prilla, Andreas
P. Schmidt, Carmen Wolf