TRANSVAL-EU piloting in Umbria Region

The TRANSVAL-EU piloting in the Umbria Region continues at full speed. Last December, the practitioners of the Employment Centers of Umbria, who had participated in the national training in June 2022, started to hold meetings with selected candidates for the identification and documentation of the transversal competences. Each candidate was evaluated for one competence that the practitioner had previously selected according to the candidate’s profile. About 30 interviews have been held so far and further interviews will be done to include more and more beneficiaries.

The practitioners have highlighted the relevance of the TRANSVAL-EU approach and expressed their opinion that there was an urgent need to put the validation process in practice in the Umbria region. Three practitioners, who were interviewed following the research process, expressed their enthusiasm about the TRANSVAL-EU experimentation and stated that the three-phase process consisting of the pre-questionnaire, interview and final questionnaire stimulated an important self-reflection in the candidates, and, as practitioners, it was very interesting to observe the individual paths of each person.

Furthermore, the practitioners highlighted interesting connections and synergies between the identification of transversal skills and their daily activities. For example, one practitioner, while running the identification of the transversal competences with several candidates, realized that certain transversal skills were very crucial to understand if a person is more keen to work as an employee, or to become a small entrepreneur, in light of assigning a microcredit for self-employment. 

Another practitioner highlighted that the identification phase and mild assessment of such competence (for the assignment of an EQF level to the competence under analysis) had a significant impact also on the guidance activity. 

A third practitioner expressed their interest in working further with enterprises to develop new modalities for identifying and selecting new personnel by taking transversal competences into account. These should also be better valued in upskilling paths of employees.  

This feedback shows that transversal competences should be given more attention in the context of competence assessment and placement interviews with candidates in Umbria (an Italy at large), as they allow for a better understanding of the individual and for their more effective empowerment in the job market.