1
Governments and businesses around the world are experimenting with new approaches to grow productivity.
PROGRAM WEBSITE
Established in 2017 as a private-sector-led charity to accelerate diffusion of management best practice. Initiatives include an online tool for businesses to benchmark their practices and receive actionable advice, a mentorship program between highly productive and less productive firms, and a training program for managers to learn and implement best-practice methods in their businesses.
The United Kingdom: Be the Business
PROGRAM WEBSITE
Flexicurity brings together trade unions, the government, and businesses to maintain a flexible labor market while also supporting workers in finding new employment opportunities. Two core components include: an active labor-market policy that provides incentives for continuous learning and retraining, and a generous social-welfare program that helps
unemployed workers retrain while they look for a new job.
Denmark: Flexicurity
PROGRAM WEBSITE
Launched in 2014 to enable lifelong learning and to contribute to creating a highly skilled and competitive workforce. SkillsFuture works with industry associations and government bodies to identify future skill requirements and provides career guidance and high-quality training to support workers in continually developing and mastering new skills throughout their careers.
Singapore: SkillsFuture
AT&T launched a training program in 2013 to reskill its nearly 280,000 employees globally, many of whom were trained in a different era for a cables-and-hardware industry now becoming obsolete. The reskilling program mapped the skills the company would require in the future, radically simplified internal role profiles, established an online portal that covers job vacancies and the skills required for each role, and partnered with external providers to help employees to develop these skills.
The United States: AT&T
SAP began by mapping the future skills the company would require as it responds to the pressures of Industry 4.0 and disrupts its existing products to offer more advanced
solutions, including public cloud and machine learning– enabled services. To support employees transitioning to new roles, the company developed end-to-end learning journeys incorporating classroom learning, on-the-job practice in the new roles, and coaching.
Germany: SAP
Poland has surpassed the United Kingdom in international rankings on educational outcomes. Two key programs are behind the improvement. The first, launched in 1999, added an additional year of schooling for 50 percent of students, empowered principals to select and retrain their teachingstaff, and gave teachers greater choice over selecting curricula.
The second, launched in 2008, broadened the curriculum and introduced a new evaluation system that strengthened
professional development for teachers.
Poland: Education reform
PROGRAM WEBSITE
Starting in 1997, Estonia created a highly digitized society with the Tiger Leap Foundation, which connected all Estonian schools to the internet and funded ICT training for teachers. The ProgeTiger programme, launched in 2012, initially aimed to teach programing and robotics in preschool, primary, and vocational education but is now developing a wider range of IT skills by integrating modern technologies directly into the teaching of school subjects and extracurricular activities.
Estonia: Tiger Leap Foundation and ProgeTiger program
PROGRAM WEBSITE
Similar to the United Kingdom’s Catapult network, Denmark’s Advanced Technology Group aims to drive innovation in Danish industry by sharing new and existing knowledge and technical know-how with companies and public institutions.
Its services include courses, consultancy, certification, and “innovation checks” to assess SMEs’ innovation potential.
Denmark: Advanced Technology Group or GTS
PROGRAM WEBSITE
The German government’s Digitization and Innovation Loan provides businesses, even firms with weak credit ratings, with funding to invest in new technologies. Financial support is provided for the digitization of products, production processes and procedures, such as the networking of production systems using Industry 4.0 technologies.
In addition, measures to develop corporate strategy and organizations to incorporate digital technologies are also eligible for loan support.
Germany: Digitization and Innovation Loan
PROGRAM WEBSITE
Slingshot, a corporate start-up accelerator in Australia, delivers programs that connect established corporations with disruptive start-ups and entrepreneurs who are building innovative, market-changing technology and products. Corporations bring scale, resources, and access to the table while start-ups bring the agility and innovation to drive commercial outcomes, at pace and at scale.
Australia: Slingshot
