Lisel O\u2019Dwyer has been busy lately! In this\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0she looks at how businesses have responded to the pandemic and the extent to which innovation was an element of their response.<\/p>\n

Three industries are case studied: \u00a0manufacturing, healthcare and hospitality and tourism. It also looks at the implications for VET.<\/p>\n

Innovating or adapting in response to COVID?<\/h2>\n

This paper, \u2018The impact of COVID-19 on industry innovation, skills and the need for training<\/a>\u2019 was published in July this year. Innovation is defined in the paper as \u201cthe introduction of a new or significantly improved good or service; operational process; organisational\/managerial process; or marketing method.\u201d (This is the ABS definition, by the way!)\u00a0 The project had the premise that a sudden widespread change \u2014 like the current pandemic \u2014 might require new or flexible skills in the short-term. This project hypothesised<\/p>\n

\u201cthat securing the skills for the new tasks associated with the innovations and adaptations resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic could be important for the survival of individual businesses, employment and economic recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also asked, \u201cwhether the vocational education and training (VET) sector assisted them to equip their staff for these changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

What she found was that \u201cmost of the businesses that were interviewed altered their usual operations in response to COVID-19 with the resultant initiatives most commonly described as adaptations (often imposed changes) rather than innovations.\u201d However,<\/p>\n

\u201cBarriers to innovation during the pandemic included a lack of financial resources, limited innovation options and the conservative nature of their sector, as well as survival of the business being a higher priority. A lack of skills or inability to access training was not identified as a barrier to innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some businesses were forced to cut staff, especially in tourism and hospitality as well as some parts of manufacturing. Circumstances were different in aged care, however, as they required additional workers, \u201cdue to high rates of absenteeism and illness amongst staff.\u201d Some parts of manufacturing and hospitality also seized opportunities to pivot their businesses, for example manufacturers of fashion clothing pivoted to manufacturing personal protective clothing and restaurants to the provision of home-delivered fine-dining ingredients and meals ordered online.<\/p>\n

Other \u2018key messages\u2019 from the study were that \u201ca limited amount of training was required for the innovations or adaptations made, with most staff able to transfer existing skills to any new tasks. Where training was undertaken, however, \u201cit was mostly unaccredited and done informally on the job or via free online training (from government, industry associations or vendor websites). Where accredited training was used, such as in the aged care sector, it tended to be conducted online.\u201d However, there were still requirements for real work placements and these could be problematic during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Some of those providing input to the project suggested that VET was \u201cirrelevant to their needs.\u201d Others felt it could be doing a better job, especially by becoming \u201cmore agile or responsive to the conditions and provide training of short duration.\u201d Thus, for some there was \u201ca strong preference for short intensive courses or micro-credentials, which enabled businesses to be responsive to rapid change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all felt this way, though, with \u201csome concerned about how such an approach would address enduring skills shortages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Industry innovation, skills and training needs: The impact of COVID<\/a> | VDC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lisel O\u2019Dwyer has been busy lately! In this\u00a0paper\u00a0she looks at how businesses have responded to the pandemic and the extent to which innovation was an element of their response. Three industries are case studied: \u00a0manufacturing, healthcare and hospitality and tourism. It also looks at the implications for VET. Innovating or adapting in response to COVID? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-workplace-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5011,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions\/5011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}