Skills4Retail

Skills4Retail

Skills4Retail is an EU-funded project to build a skills strategy and vocational education and training (VET) programme, supporting growth and sustainability in retail and wholesale.

Erasmus+

EU funding programme

€ 3,947,154.00 grant

Funding awarded

Education, Skills, Employment, Retail

Sectors

Discover the project

Vision

The Skills4Retail project will focus on fast-tracking the ‘Triple Transition’ of Green, Digital and Resilience in the Retail sector, helping retailers to embrace e-commerce and ensuring their new business models are sustainable from the start.

The project's goal is to design a new Retail Skills Strategy and VET Training Programme that will address the urgent and emerging skills needs of retailers in the key areas of Digital, Green and Resilience. It will focus on training fresh new talent for the sector through training programmes in VET Schools and Higher Education Institutions, and the re-skilling of the existing workforce via work based learning and short-term modular courses.

Mission

The current and future demand for specialised digital and green skills within the retail sector will not be met by existing education and training programmes. There will not be enough skilled workers to fill the jobs, and they will be competing with digital and other sectors for the best talent.

Europe needs an innovative new Retail Skills Strategy that can fast-track the up-skilling and re-skilling of existing retail employees and managers, students, workers from other sectors, and the unemployed to address the skills gap.

The Alliance will work together to design, develop, implement, and disseminate a new Retail Skills Strategy and VET Training Programme that will tackle the immediate and future skills shortages across the sector.

Outcomes

The Skills Strategy and VET Training Programme will focus on the practical application of Digital, Green and Resilience Skills within the retail sector.

The programme will be market and industry demand-led at its core, continuously adapting and evolving to address current and future industry needs and supporting European Retailers to achieve long term growth, competitiveness and sustainability through digital and green transformation.

Our role

Funding

We secured € 3,947,154.00 as a lump sum grant under the EU funding programme, Erasmus+

Securing and implementing the project

Securing the project

Schuman Associates lead the bid management and proposal writing to win this project.

Implementing the project

A team of nine ensures that the project has access to the necessary skills and resources to deliver high-quality outcomes across our core areas of responsibility:

Project management
Quality assurance
Communication and dissemination
Sustainability strategy

Scope of work

Our work in the implementation of this project spans:

Capacity Building

Organising workshops, training sessions, and skill-building programs to enhance retailers' knowledge and abilities.

Knowledge and Skills Enhancement

Development of a common methodology for identifying existing and emerging skills needs for high demand job profiles in the retail sector and updating occupational profiles as needed.

Communication and Dissemination

Developing communication strategies, managing outreach efforts, and disseminating project updates, resources, and success stories to stakeholders in the retail sector.

Curating and managing a repository of best practices, and management to facilitate knowledge sharing and replication.

Coordination and Collaboration

Our team collaborates closely with the Coordinator, JA Europe, industry partners, academia, and other relevant organisations to ensure alignment with strategic objectives, maximise impact, and promote synergies.

Services supplied

Proposal writing

Bid management

Consortium management

Bid collaboration space

Grant agreement preparation

Project management

Quality assurance processes

Budget development

Communication strategy

Online workshops

The Consortium

Work Package Leads and Co-Leads

JA Europe

Project coordinator
Leader of Work Package 1: Project management and growth of the alliance partnership
Leader of Work Package 4: Pilot VET Training at different levels to meet urgent and long-term skills needs
Co-leader of Work Package 6: Long-term sustainability strategy to scale up activities post-project

WKO

Leader of Work Package 2: Skills intelligence, needs analysis and retail skills strategy for Europe

Skillnet Ireland

Leader of Work Package 3: Develop the VET training curriculum, content and certifications

Matrix Internet

Leader of Work Package 5: Europe-wide dissemination and roll-out of project outputs to retailers and trainers

Accenture

Leader of Work Package 6: Long-term sustainability strategy to scale up activities post-project

Schuman Associates

Contributing to Work Package 1: Responsible for quality assurance
Co-leader of Work Package 5: Europe-wide dissemination and roll-out of project outputs to retailers and trainers
Contributing to Work Package 6: Long-term sustainability strategy to scale up activities post-project

University of Bucharest

Co-leader of Work Package 3: Develop the VET training curriculum, content and certifications