Progression in Employment: Employer initiatives in relation to progression in employment

Overview of employer initiatives in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK

The Progression in Employment project, of which this paper forms a part, is designed to capture evidence and insights on developing and implementing upskilling pathways for low-skilled adults. The project aims to identify effective employer practice in supporting the in-work progression of adults in low-skilled and low-paid work, and to share the learning from this practice with employers through the creation of an employer toolkit and a range of dissemination activities.

This paper provides an overview of what is known about current employer practice with respect to progressing low-skilled staff. The paper also provides selected examples of promising employer practice in progressing low-skilled staff across six countries (Sweden, UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy) and in four key sectors (retail, hospitality, health and social care). The examples have been collated from publicly available data. Later phases of the project will seek to provide more in-depth examples from ‘live’ case studies with large and small organisations operating in the same sectors and countries.

This report is published by IES with the support of J.P. Morgan under their global New Skills at Work initiative.