Theme A | Theme B | Theme C | Theme D | Theme E | Theme F|Theme H 

Theme F - WAP  (Worklife Adaptability Partnership)

Objectives
The Worklife Adaptability Partnership aims to develop and disseminate a range of tested methods/practices to help firms improve adaptability by adopting new practices for worklife balance and utilising new technologies to support this process. Projects operate in both urban and rural environments.

Target Groups
Small and Medium Enterpirses

Mainstreaming Outcomes

Glasgow Caledonian University developed a Virtual Training Environment and Worklife Balance
Virtual College has been adopted by NHS Scotland for nurse training. Ad hoc funding has been received for staff salaries for one year until mainstream funding becomes available.
Virtual College/Communities of Practice methodology is being used in Round 2 within Text2Learn project (Genderwise) and Smart Communities (WAP).

Stirling Council and Greater Pollok Job Rotation project
This report is an internal evaluation to April 2005 of Stirling Council and Greater Pollok. The project was funded from the European Social Fund (ESF) EQUAL Theme F strand and was managed and delivered by the Workers Education Association (WEA) Scotland. The Workers Education Association has pioneered the Job Rotation concept in the UK and has the most extensive experience of any UK organisation in developing and operating Job Rotation projects.
The Job Rotation model is uniquely designed to address the development needs of Small to Medium Enterprises; unemployed individuals and low skilled and unskilled existing employees of SMEs. A Job Rotation Information and Support Unit (JISU) has been established and has generated a contact database of those organisations throughout the UK.
This Job Rotation model is now being funded under an Objective 3 and has also been assisted by Learning Connections by grant to investigate Literacy’s in the Workplace.

Senior Studies Institute University of Strathclyde led and Scottish Worklife Adaptability Network project.
The South Lanarkshire Roots project – delivered in partnership with the South Lanarkshire Council - is a small-scale pilot programme to explore new approaches to increasing the adaptability of companies and individuals in the tourism/heritage sector, with a particular focus on developing Genealogy Tourism in South Lanarkshire. The South Lanarkshire Roots project pioneered genealogy tourism as an employment skill in older workers, as a new business focus for existing heritage/tourism businesses and has led to other programmes in South Lanarkshire Council’s economic development and rural regeneration strategies. This project was tied closely to the Scottish Executive, Scottish Enterprise and Visit Scotland interest in promoting ancestral tourism and was influential on the current policy framework, as delivered by the Ancestral Tourism initiative.

The Scottish Worklife Adaptability Network (SWAN) project was established to assist Scottish companies in adopting work life balance strategies that would improve retention and recruitment of employees in general, with a specific focus on older workers.
The network was established as an informal grouping of interested businesses linked with other sectoral organisations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Scottish Enterprise, and had been viewed as a potential stand alone organisation in its own right.
The project was involved with the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Working Group on Age, the Scottish Executive Older Peoples unit, the Scottish Executive Lifelong learning division, the Scottish Office and the Department for Work and Pensions. Several new initiatives including the Scottish Executive ‘Grey Matters’ and DWP Age Positive Scotland programme are directly linked to the shared experience and knowledge transferred from the SWAN project.

MOLI - Mobile Online Learning Imitative
The pilot was delivered by the Glenrothes College (successively merged into Adam Smith College together with Fife College).
At the start of the project broadband availability was patchy and Scotland lagged behind many other countries (most notably South Korea and Canada), but at the end of Action 3  99% of the population of Scotland is broadband enabled though there is still need for rural promotion.
This is because of the pressure that this project along with other Scottish Executive scheme but on the Telecoms to enable exchanges. BT’s announcement that it will enable all telephone exchanges by the end of summer 2005 means that broadband will be available, through DSL, to 99.6% of the UK population.
The use of a mobile training / demonstration unit i.e. MOLI, the mobile online learning initiative has captured the imagination of many organisation. Bodies such as the STUC, Learndirect and numerous health trusts have built a mobile resource unit into there plans for the coming years for the promotion, awareness and delivery of training and lifelong learning opportunities.

For more information please contact Leigh Berridge
Tel:01592 207709 
e-mail  LeighBerridge@adamsmith.ac.uk
or visit: www.equalscotland.co.uk