Training Structure Report

READ BELOW A SUMMARY OF THE TRAINING STRUCTURE REPORT IN ACCESSIBLE LANGUAGE

The objective of D2.2 Training Structure Report is to understand the training needs in the expansion and strengthening of the social economy and social enterprises.

For this purpose, we implemented different methodologies and involved a group of experts from different EU countries from Italy, Spain, Finland and Greece.

We are very grateful to the efforts of all of the OBCD project partners and many people from the social enterprise sector. The main results that are presented in the report are presented below.

Mapping Skills

Working in social enterprises is a complicated challenge, requiring economic, social, managerial, and environmental skills. Although there are highly educated people in Europe, it is necessary to know if the possession of this high educational level is adequate for someone to become a social entrepreneur. 

In order to find out which competences are needed in social enterprises we have carried out the following research:

  1. We have interviewed 60 professionals from Greece, Finland, Italy and Spain. These professionals are social entrepreneurs, university and vocational education trainers.
  2. We surveyed 122 social enterprises’ practitioners in Greece, Finland, Italy, and Spain.

Through the interviews and surveys, we have been able to define 80 competences that the interviewees consider necessary for someone to work in a Social Enterprise.

These competences have been grouped into 19 learning outcomes which will be used to design training offers.

Managers and developers of social enterprises:

  • Understanding the political, economic, legal, and social dynamics of social entrepreneurship development.
  • Managing the Innovation of SEs (open innovation, innovative transformation for sustainability)
  • Strategic management of SEs (mission and vision, social value chain, competitive advantage, business model).
  • Building the good governance of SEs (transparency, accountability, democracy and social responsibility).
  • Lead responsibly and empowering responsible leaders.
  • Creating and managing the financial resources of SEs (fundraising, private/public funding).
  • Assess and communicate the social impact of SEs.
  • Human resources development and management (paid/volunteer). 
  • Social and digital marketing. 
  • Managing complex networks and diversity.

Workers: 

  • Open business and openness in SE.
  • Impact assessment, social impact, ESG strategies.
  • Digital skills in SEs.
  • Financial fundraising and taxation.
  • Management support, and administration in SEs. 
  • Human resource.
  • Soft skills.
  • Communication.
  • Networking in SEs.
  • Green transition of SEs.

The main conclusion is that in order for someone to work in a social enterprise he/she need to be an expert in management and social issues. These are two types of competences that are not usually taught together in vocational training and university.

For this reason, the OBCD project will prepare a training program that integrates social and management aspects for High Education and Vocational training.

Further results have been obtained through the research and are published to help other researchers around the world.

Mapping Occupations

In D2.2 Training Structure Report we have also looked at the new job profiles that can be found in our days in social enterprises. These are job profiles that only exist in social enterprises and might be new employment opportunities. Ten new job profiles have been detected in OBCD project.

Two of these job profiles have been analyzed in more detail. They are the “Managers and Developers of Social Enterprises” and the “Social Business Administration Professionals”.

The necessary knowledge and skills for someone to have in order to perform these jobs are presented in detail in the report.

Social EntreComp

In Europe there is a model that lists the competences needed for someone to be an entrepreneur. This model is called EntreComp.

The EntreComp defines what knowledge and skills are necessary to create and manage an entrepreneurship project.

In the D2.2 report of the OBCD project we have looked at the competences needed to set up a social enterprise. 

The competences for creating a social enterprise are very similar to the EntreComp competences but there are some competences that are new. We have called this model of competences needed to create and manage a social enterprise “Social EntreComp”.

We believe that for someone to be a social entrepreneur he/she need to know about social issues (Social Literacy) and be able to know and perform the following:

    • Knows the general principles of social challenges.
    • Master the general processes of social and environmental intervention.
    • Know about participatory and open governance.
    • Communicate the  social impact.
    • Be social responsible.
    • Solidarity (support and help to other people and groups in society)
  • Manage the achievement of economic and social objectives (The social enterprise is obliged to achieve both economic results and positive social impacts).
  • Transparency (Communicate issues of the company’s activity and results, without hiding information).
  • Use open resources. Know how to locate and use resources that can be used freely, without having to pay for them, and that need to be used responsibly.

Conclusions

Our work shows that working in a social enterprise requires many skills and that adequate training offers are not always available.

It also shows that it is important to improve the competences of social economy professionals in order to achieve more social development and welfare and the importance of social business in facing sustainability crisis. 

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