Connecting Career Counselling and Human Resource Development in Enterprises for Higher Education and Training in Practice

"Career Guidance through the entire working life: crucial for individuals, companies and economy Career Guidance and Counselling (CGC) is an important tool throughout working life to help citizens, businesses and the economy to adjust to the rapid change in the labour market, the mobility of work and people and the dynamic developments within enterprises. More than 220 million EU citizens work in small or large companies. CGC should be accessible not only in public services, but also in companies through their personnel work and human resource development (HRD). However, the demands of the EU Resolutions of 2004 and 2008 have not yet been sufficiently implemented in companies. Small, medium and large companies dispose of different resources and knowledge to adjust and compete in this. Individuals in companies have different chances to participate. Not least the economic and industrial situation in different EU member states call for differentiated concepts to address regional needs. The aim is to provide equal opportunities for all employees or VET students.The key role of (future) Career CounsellorsStudents and professionals as (future) HR experts and practitioners, university and trainers students in VET sector, counsellors and coaches in public or private services play a key role in the implementation of the envisaged change. CONNECT! will address them as direct target groups by courses and trainings. So far CGC is not ready to cope with the challenges companies face. A mayor problem is that CGC study programs do not integrate systematically knowledge and experience from enterprises’ and organisational perspective. CONNECT! brings together the research-based knowledge from the fields of career counselling on the one hand and HRD on the other hand. Through the cooperation in regional excellence clusters the project invites HR experts from companies, chambers, employer-organizations and PES to identify needs and innovative practices and feedback on valorisation of innovative results.Connecting CGC with HRD: Innovative Higher Education courses and in-service trainingsApart from setting up regional clusters, the project also includes the development of ""Guidelines for innovative practice"" for CGC services in and around the world of work. Based on this, the project develops study courses based on well-founded, innovative and practice-enriched knowledge from the two areas ""CGC"" and ""HRD"". These are prepared in innovative teaching forms and tested in study programs. It can also be regarded as innovative that we integrate the study courses in study programs (B.A. and M.A.) from different disciplines (education, psychology, economy and HRD). The developed courses are also transferred into hands-on ""learning sprints"" in an agile and digitized form that will be accessible to many companies and to many consultants.The European perspective as an answer to growing mobility In the nowadays crucial phase of dynamic change of labour market and growing mobility CONNECT! will provide scientific founded modules and teaching materials to all Universities that are engaged in CGC practitioners, trainers and coaches as well as other relevant partners during and beyond the projects' period. The courses want to reflect a transnational, European perspective.The consortium of the CONNECT! project is well connected in the European university and consulting landscape. Many of the partners are part of the NICE network, an association of more than 50 universities offering counselling courses in Europe. The projects’ network also gives direct access to hundreds of CGC practitioners who, in their respective national contexts and local conditions, can help to better connect the world of professional guidance and the world of Enterprises."