Shaping and managing effective employment services
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Shaping and managing effective employment services
16–20 Junho 2025
Key features
HIGH LEVEL EXPERTISE
Learn from ILO specialists, ITCILO facilitators and fellow participants from around the world
LIFE ON CAMPUS
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CERTIFICATE OF PARTICIPATION
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BACKGROUND
While the world economies have made considerable progress in recovery post the covid-19 pandemic, decent work deficits persist or are worsening especially in some regions. Recent ILO estimates warn that the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) may be in jeopardy if the current trends of the labour market continue unabated. In a context of multiple crises that weaken economies and reinforce inequalities, it is essential to strengthen the means and effectiveness of public employment services (PES) which are one of the most powerful operational tools for governments to fight unemployment and promote decent work and employment.
Irrespective of a country’s income level, its PES can support economic and labour market growth and exert a countercyclical influence during economic downturns, helping to reduce unemployment and address joblessness caused by structural changes. Importantly, PES are well placed to support vulnerable groups, including women, young people, older workers, migrants, rural dwellers, disabled persons and the long-term unemployed.
In this context, the ILO Employment Policy Department and the International Training Centre of the ILO (ITC-ILO) are offering a course dedicated to PES managers to support their strategic thinking and ensure more effective and agile PES organizations in the context of socio-economic transformations.
The course will deal in particular with the topics of relationships with employers, employability of job seekers, finance, human resources, culture of performance and leadership.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
This course aims to strengthen the capacity of Member States to shape and manage effective employment services. By the end of this training, participants will have strengthened their knowledge and will be able to improve their employment service systems.
In particular, participants will have:
- Strengthened their understanding of the role of employment services in facilitating labour market transitions and the new trends in service delivery, in particular for vulnerable groups;
- Gained a thorough knowledge of how to effectively design and implement targeted and innovative labour market services;
- Deepened their insight of how to promote public-private partnerships and dialogue, in a concerted manner in order to influence policymaking;
- Enhanced their comprehension on key and most common challenges in terms of the internal functioning of employment services, such as management and leadership, financing models, human resources strategies and performance management;
- Improved their awareness of the opportunities opened up by artificial intelligence and of the power of digital innovations to improve the delivery of and access to employment services.
In addition to enhancing capacities and knowledge, this course aims to stimulate peer learning, and possible future collaboration among participants and their respective institutions and organizations.
CONTENT
Over the course of one week of face-to-face sessions, the programme will be structure around the following topics:
CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES FOR PES AT THE GLOBAL LEVEL
This first module will present the main lessons from the global report published by the ILO, relating to the challenges and strategic choices of Employment Services around the world.
PES ORGANIZATION AND DELIVERY MODELS
Which models can PES use to organize and deliver their services to ensure equitable access and bring them close to the clients? This module will address these questions exploring the concrete experiences of different countries, while discussing advantages and disadvantages of each alternative model.
SERVICES TO JOB SEEKERS
This module will explore new trends in supporting workers on professional transitions. It will focus on services that aim at strengthening the employability of job seekers, such as career guidance and skillsbased approaches.
SERVICES TO EMPLOYERS
This module will present new trends for successful intermediation. Recognizing that PES are often underused by recruiters, it will dive into strategies that PES can use to strengthen the relationship employers.
ACTIVE LABOUR MARKET POLICIES
This module will present the different types of Active Labor Market Policies, then focus on the role of PES in their design and implementation. Participants will be invited to consider which measures might be most relevant to the challenges facing their labour market.
PARTNERSHIPS
This module will highlight the importance of a Partnerships Strategy to assure the full accomplishment of the PES mandate. It will explore modalities to build a successful relationship with different potential partners, but it will give particular attention to effective partnerships with private employment agencies.
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
This module focuses management and leadership principles tailored for PES. It will offer an introduction to strategic planning and will go through the most typical internal challenges faced by managers of PES. It will then deep dive on leadership principles and skills that are relevant to enhance service delivery and drive organizational effectiveness.
HUMAN RESOURCES
This module will be focused on human resources strategies, how to promote the optimal use of the potential of each employee while aligning human resources with the PES institutional goals. It will put emphasis on the importance of initial and continuing.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
How to nurture a performance culture within the PES? How to monitor and incentivize performance? What type of indicators and systems can be used? Sharing experiences on computerized performancemanagement systems and dashboards.
FINANCE
This module will be centred on strategies to optimize budgetary resources. Building also on the experience of countries participating in the course, we will do a mapping of possible funding sources. It will also discuss “objective contracts with funders” as a tool to ensure accountability by linking funding to measurable results.
DIGITAL STRATEGY FOR PES
In the digital environment, PES are faced with major challenges such as the use of digital functionalities optimally to deliver services and making the best use of digital opportunities and the Internet. The challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence will be discussed in this module.
STRATEGIC THINKING TO STRENGTHEN THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR PES
This module aims to support participants in identifying their country priority areas based on the knowledge gained throughout this training.
WHO ATTENDS THE COURSE
This course is of particular interest to strategic or operational managers of Public Employment Services.
Officers of ministries in charge of labour and employment dealing with the design and implementation ofemployment services and labour market programmes may also benefit from it.
