General insight
Upskilling and reskilling poorly supported
It was discovered that 94% of Latvian export companies provided training opportunities for their employees. However, the overall situation within Latvia does not seem as hopeful with
only 36% of all employers having a separate budget allocated for reskilling and upskilling their employees.
Training provided by Latvian export companies
Export companies were asked to share what skills their employees developed during the past couple of years. It was revealed that investing in “soft skills” was more popular than investing in financial literacy or even digital skills. For example, 68% of employers had invested in developing social skills like collaboration and mentoring, as opposed to 44% investing in developing employees’ computer usage skills and only 24% investing in the development of financial skills. According to employers the relevance of the top skills learned now is not going to disappear over the upcoming years.
TOP 5 types of training provided
1) Social skills
2) People management
3) Customer service
4) Communication skills
5) Software specifics
Factors explaining the current skill needs of exporting firms:
1) Availability of training
2) Customer service as the main pillar of the service industry
3) Recent graduates emerging with strong technical but weak social skills
4) Basic digital and English language skills as a prerequisite for office workers
Main conclusion
In general, the employees of Latvian export companies are motivated to learn, but the main obstacles mentioned were the lack of time and the difficulty of combining learning with daily work duties. In most cases, employers' support can be decisive for employees' success. For example, even if organizing courses online could be more challenging for employers, it could be the only way for some employees to learn, as, in this case, they now have the benefit of choosing the best time and the place for studying.
For more insight on how the learning needs can be defined within a company or how the companies can support their employee studies, download the full research (available in Latvian language only).
