According to Deloitte in their document "Preparing tomorrow’s workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution For business: A framework for action" many employers are currently struggling to find talent due to the mismatch between skills and employers' needs.

Technology has changed the way we work and live, and how businesses are operating. Automation and digitization greatly impact the skills required for specific jobs. 

But unfortunately a great number of organisations are not prepared for the transition to Industry 4.0, especially in terms of their workforce. This transformation in the new digital era brings in the creation of new jobs, but also the loss of many.

​Physically demanding, manual or routine jobs will decrease, and those that require problem-solving, flexible responses and customization will increase. In order to support this transition businesses will need to upskill and reskill their employees, and implement a culture of continous learning.

L.E.K Consulting's manufacturing survey revealed that automation is motivating decision-makers in manufacturing industries to actively invest in their workforce and four out of five say that they are preparing for an increase in automation technology. 

In their blog article 'The Smart Way to Prepare Your Workforce for Industry 4.0' L.E.K also suggests following the three Rs approach to preparing workforce of businesses for the transition to Industry 4.0:

• Retain - it's crucial to focus your resources on retaining your current employees, more particularly those who are older, more experienced, familiar with the factory and with deep knowledge of the company and its culture. 
• Retrain - invest in retraining and upgrading the skills of your current employees so they can manage automated processes and take on 'creative' jobs which are less likely to be replaced by automation. Train them in incremental skills needed for higher-level jobs such as data analysis, process improvement, etc.
• Recruit - retaining and retraining your workforce will not solve the challenges imposed by Industry 4.0. You will also need to focus your efforts on recruiting new more tech-savvy talent.

The TransIT project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, that the Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club is part of, is developing an innovative curricula, educational methods and training courses that guarantee an effective transition to Industry 4.0 standards. The project will provide a solution for company leaders, industry executives, HR professionals, SMEs and VET centers.

The TransIT project is producing three main elements that together will form a complete training kit, whereas each element will offer strong capacity building and help to successfully adjust to the forthcoming challenges of Industry 4.0 standards regarding the future of work.

As part of the Training Kit we are preparing under the TransIT project, we synthesise good management practice enabling the transition to Industry 4.0 with three main overarching topics: innovation thinking, motivation management and technical cooperation. It also consists of the most relevant concepts relating to adaptive management. For more information on this kit - guidebook, read here. 

Hence, the TransIT project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, that the Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club is part of, is developing an innovative curricula, educational methods and training courses that guarantee an effective transition to Industry 4.0 standards. The project will provide a solution for company leaders, industry executives, HR professionals, SMEs and VET centers.

Partners in the project are: Trebag (Hungary), NUI Galway (Ireland), Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia - Institute for Business Education, Weople (Portugal), KISMC (Bulgaria), IDEC (Greece), ARTO (Hungary), Robot-X (Hungary).

The TransIT project will produce three main elements that together will form a complete training kit, whereas each element will offer strong capacity building and help to successful adjust to the forthcoming challenges of Industry 4.0 standards regarding the future of work.

The future of work will require two types of changes:

1. Upskilling
2. Reskilling

The analysis of McKinsey suggests that 39 to 58 percent of the worldwide work activities in operationally intensive sectors could be automated using currently demonstrated technologies.

Highlights from the McKinsey blog article "Building the vital skills for the future of work in operations"

• Operations-intensive sectors have 1.3 times the automation potential of other sectors.
• Automation will have a significant impact on skill requirements.
• Large-scale reskilling efforts must overcome significant barriers. 
• An end-to-end skill transformation follows a three-phase approach:
  1. Scout - analyse skill demand vs supply to deliver on strategic ambitions
  2. Shape - design programme architecture to close demand-supply gap
  3. Shift - stand up infrastructure and capabilities to reskill at scale
• Creating the right talent pool for a digital and analytics transformation combines in-house capability building and hiring for specific roles.

Overall, companies have a number of approaches to address the skills gap created by Industry 4.0:

• search for talent outside the organisation/ hire new staff with the right skills
• build skills internally
• retrain their existing workforce to prepare employees for the new role
• have a blended approach - have a skilled contract workforces to fill in short-term needs while developing the necessary skills internally. 

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The fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) is the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology. It is the altering of the way products are created by spreading digitized manufacturing/processing and automation.

The goal of Industry 4.0 is to increase the amount of usable data and improve decision making. Nowadays many organisations still don't understand how Industry 4.0 could impact their business as well as are struggling to find the know-how or workforce to support their transition. 

The Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club is part of the TransIT project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. We are aiming to develop and provide innovative curricula, educational methods and training courses that guarantee an effective transition to Industry 4.0 standards. Moreover, the project is developing work-based competences necessary for managing the transition to Industry 4.0. Read more about the TransIT project's objectives here.

The project will provide a solution for company leaders, industry executives, HR professionals, SMEs and VET centers. We strive to inspire these groups to innovate and optimise their potential in the times of transitioning to Industry 4.0.

According to Worximity, more and more technologies will be implanted in factories, there will be increase in the human-machine interactions and new jobs will be created, whilst employers will look for a variety of skills related to the transition to 4.0. 

In one of their blog articles, Worximity suggests a number of tips to address the changes impacting the workforce in the era of Industry 4.0.

1. Train and develop talents - make sure you provide training and introduce programmes for skills development to ensure a smoother transition to Industry 4.0 and consider augmented reality or online learning.
2. Deliver HR flexibility - if your business is hiring R&D specialists, software engineers, data scientists you are competing with various technology companies, which are attracting talent with numerous 'hard to refuse' perks. Therefore, it is of high importance to innovate in this space and be more flexible in your offer to new employees.
3. Delegate decision-making - considering you are developing your employees to perform more complex tasks, this would mean that you need to give them more autonomy in decision-making. Do consider flattening the hierarchical structures.
4. Make employees responsible for innovation - after training your employees and you have granted them with autonomy, the next step is to let them be responsible for innovation and understand the entire process. 
5. Recruit based on abilities - the outdated way of recruiting based on experience and diploma will not work towards the demands of Industry 4.0. Having versatile employees in the manufacturing industry will be key, as well as their ability to learn quickly and work on various projects at the same time.  
6. Strategically plan industry-related HR activities - make a list with all significant information about your workforce such as parental leave, subcontractors, temporary contracts, retirement, etc. with focus on their training needs and your recruitment needs. 

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​For additional information about the TransIT project, read here.

​The first transnational meeting of the TransIT project was held on the 9th and 10th of December 2019, in Budapest and was hosted by Trebag Szellemi tulajdon- és Projektmenedzser Kft, the project coordinator.

The Project partners had the chance to meet with each other and discuss about the progress of the project: Trebag (Hungary), NUI Galway (Ireland), Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia - Institute for Business Education, Weople (Portugal), KISMC (Bulgaria), IDEC (Greece), ARTO (Hungary), Robot-X (Hungary).

The TransIT project will create a training kit for the middle management of SMEs with a technical background, which aims at developing transversal competences necessary for managing the transition to Industry 4.0, in work environment.

For more information about the project, click here.

The TransIT project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, develops and provides innovative curricula, educational methods and training courses that guarantee an effective transition to Industry 4.0 standards.

The project will provide a solution for company leaders, industry executives, HR professionals, SMEs and VET centers.

Partners in the project are: Trebag (Hungary), NUI Galway (Ireland), Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia - Institute for Business Education, Weople (Portugal), KISMC (Bulgaria), IDEC (Greece), ARTO (Hungary), Robot-X (Hungary).
The TransIT project will produce three main elements that together will form a complete training kit, whereas each element will offer strong capacity building and help to successful adjust to the forthcoming challenges of Industry 4.0 standards.

1. Handbook - containing the most crucial tools for adjusting your company’s managerial system to the new technological advances
2. Methodology - handy and practical for enabling hands-on treatment of adaptation problems and development needs.
3. Online Platform - divide the curriculum into „digestible bits”, depending on the method chosen by learners. It allows learners to engage with the topics in a modern and interactive way.

For more information on the project read here.