Introducing learning innovation in public employment services. What role can facilitation play?

Public Employment Services (PES) in Europe are authorities that match supply and demand on the labor market. Rising unemployment in times of crisis and demographic change are amongst others main challenges that PES practitioners, as direct interface between jobseekers and employers, have to deal with. They have to support career adaptability of their clients as well as to enhance and transform their own individual and collective professional identity to successfully cope with today’s challenges of the labor market. The research project EmployID is exploring how to facilitate the learning process of PES practitioners in their professional identity development. The aim of the project is to empower individual PES practitioners, their community and organizations, to engage in transformative practices, using a holistic tool suite combining e-coaching, reflection, MOOCs, networking, analytical and learning support tools. Initial contextual exploration has started to reveal the complexity of challenges when introducing learning innovation in these public organizations.