European project recommends that developing a 'learning habit' may help to preserve job security
Being a highly qualified manager in a high-tech industry is no longer a guarantee of job security, according to the findings of an EU-funded project. Many risk factors, such as changing needs for specialised qualifications and knowledge, can weaken the professional situation of even the most qualified personnel. A study conducted by a European project known as Forco-Precanet argues that safeguarding one's position has increasingly become a matter of continuous self-training. The Forco-Precanet project has studied the role that continuous training plays for the highly qualified personnel of net-economy companies active in areas such as e-commerce and information retrieval. It focused especially on cases where managers are faced with new, increasingly precarious professional situations caused by economic crisis in their sector and the rise of new information and communication technologies. The project carried out a study with 690 executives of net-economy companies, analysing the professional situation of these managers and their approaches to continuous training. The survey results have enabled the development of a tool for analysing the processes involved in deteriorating professional situations, as well as for determining the role that continuous training plays in these contexts. They also permit the carrying out of a Europe-wide comparison in the field. As a result, the study underlines the importance for workers of continuously analysing, on their own initiative, their need for continuous self-training. Furthermore, the study argues that such training should not only be part of one's professional life, but should also form an integral part of workers' personal life, so as to become a continuous process of acquisition and development of individual and collective knowledge and skills. The study therefore identifies the profile of a 'learning worker' who develops a 'learning habit', meaning that they are capable of analysing their own personal needs in terms of training, as well as capable of learning through their own means. Acquiring such a learning habit will thus add to workers' own personal and job market value. Eleven partners from five countries - Cyprus, Spain, France, Greece and Italy - are involved in this three-year project, coordinated by the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail in France. Funded under the Leonardo Da Vinci Community action, it will continue to run until the end of November 2005.