Around 35 organisations signed the Arnhem-Nijmegen Region Human Capital Agreement in April last year. The aim is to tackle staff shortages and other labour market challenges through collaboration. What has gone well since then, and what could be improved? A conversation with five specialists involved in the initiative.
“There is a structural shortage in the labour market. Supply and demand are not aligned,” explains Kim Hooiveld. He has been working for The Economic Board for a few months, where he is involved in implementing the Human Capital Agreement. “The scale of this challenge is immense: it cuts across all sectors. The problem is that resolving the shortage in one sector has a cannibalising effect on another. That is why we really need a national masterplan for the labour market. You have to make choices, and that is complicated because we are not used to doing so.”
According to him, an additional challenge is that work is changing. “There are technological developments such as digitalisation and AI. The skills needed in the future are different from those we’re currently training people for. Added to this are societal issues such as the energy transition, the water transition, the shift to a circular economy, the impact of an ageing population on healthcare, and geopolitical tensions. The bottlenecks this creates cannot be resolved through conventional training methods.”
“These times call for making tough choices,” says Myriam Wedema. She has been working in the labour market sector for 25 years and is now coordinator of the Regional Mobility Team (RMT) in Midden-Gelderland. “You have to accept that not everything is possible. As a region, you need to look closely at whether the available work and the composition of the population are a good match.”
Need for an agenda
Astrid Huitink was director of the Rabobank cooperative in the Gelderland-Zuid region and the bank’s figurehead in Arnhem and the surrounding area. A few years ago, she concluded that it was time for action. “In 2021, we published the Lifeport report in collaboration with Rabobank. We spoke with stakeholders from across South Gelderland about broad prosperity.” One of the conclusions was that there is a need for a regional human capital agenda. She took this to The Economic Board, which already had similar plans. “I raised awareness of the issue amongst my contacts and passed it on to The Economic Board. In this way, we brought two initiatives together.”
Ultimately, on 13 April 2023, around 35 parties signed the Arnhem-Nijmegen Region Human Capital Agreement. “There are now more than forty companies, knowledge institutions and public authorities involved,” says Jan van Dellen, director of The Economic Board. “The aim of the agreement is for the region to make significant progress in three areas,” he explains. “These are LLO – or lifelong learning – attracting and retaining talent, and making better use of the labour potential.”
Developing yourself
“The aim of LLO is to better align supply and demand, in line with the labour market both now and in the future,” he continues. “At present, it takes a great deal of training time for an employer to teach graduates the skills required for the role. That’s a real shame. But retraining and upskilling are also very important. If someone has been a maths teacher for years but now wants to move into the energy sector or engineering, that has always been difficult. We want to make that easier.”
Higher education institutions are increasingly focusing on retraining and further training. At HAN University of Applied Sciences, people are guided towards fields such as engineering and ICT. Astrid Hoge is the director of the IT and Media Design Academy at HAN. “Personal development is important at every stage of your life,” she says. “At HAN, there’s always a suitable pathway. In recent years, around 55 people have retrained in ICT and a similar number in engineering. There are some wonderful examples, such as a caterer who became an ICT professional during the COVID-19 pandemic. After retraining, people can find work again in various places across the region. As part of LLO, we also organise masterclasses, such as ‘AI in practice’.”
Fantastic region
The second objective of the Human Capital Agreement, as outlined by Van Dellen, is to attract and retain talent. It is particularly important to ensure that people remain in the region after completing their studies, he says. “Too many students are not yet fully aware of the excellent companies based here and look for jobs outside the region. There are now projects where students can work for three employers over the course of a year. By the end of that year, they will have gained a good understanding of the career opportunities with regional employers.”
Van Dellen emphasises that the region has a great deal to offer. “We have the leading network in the energy sector. Through all kinds of innovation in areas such as hydrogen and battery technology, we’re ensuring that future generations can tap into new sources. There’s also a great deal happening at the intersection of high-tech and healthcare. Ultimately, we’ll all benefit from this as residents.”
“There are many strong networks here, particularly in the healthcare, energy and high-tech sectors,” adds Hooiveld (The Economic Board). “We could certainly be a bit prouder of our region at times. It’s very important that we manage to keep young people here. We need to do a better job of showing them what opportunities the region has to offer.”
Everyone agrees that the region is also a wonderful place to live. Van Dellen: “We have plenty of green spaces here, but also a rich cultural life, with concerts and festivals.” “This region is an incredibly beautiful place to live and work,” adds Huitink (Rabobank). “We all need to get that message across.” Hooiveld has lived in the region for thirty years, but until recently worked for The Economic Board in Amsterdam. So he knows the appeal of the Randstad. But he also knows that certainly not everything is better there. “Just try finding an affordable place to live in Amsterdam.”
Place for everyone
The third objective of the agreement is to make better use of untapped labour potential. Van Dellen: “There are too many people on the fringes of the labour market whom we would like to give the chance to participate.” This issue is very close to Wedema’s heart. “I want people to be able to participate in the labour market and truly believe that there is a place for everyone.” In 2021, she was involved in setting up the Regional Mobility Team in Midden-Gelderland. This was initially intended to help people who had lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic find work again. But very soon, many more people were being helped.
These Regional Mobility Teams (RMTs) will cease to exist at the end of this year, but it is highly likely that a successor initiative will be launched in a new form. Wedema: “The 35 labour market regions have now been tasked with forming a Regional Employment Centre. Just like the RMTs, these will be partnerships between local authorities, the UWV and various social partners, in coordination with the education sector. Such a Regional Employment Centre must become the go-to point for residents who have questions about work and training, but also for employers who, for example, wish to recruit someone who is distanced from the labour market. At present, they often do not know where to turn, with all these different service points.”
One of the ways to make better use of the labour potential is a skills-based approach, according to Hooiveld (The Economic Board). “The value of qualifications is beyond dispute, but they only reflect a limited aspect of what people are capable of. In a skills-based labour market, you gain a much clearer understanding of the skills people possess and how these can be utilised in the labour market. By focusing on skills, people can switch jobs more easily and you can make better matches. This allows you not only to make better use of untapped labour potential, but also to facilitate the necessary shifts. We need to move towards a more agile labour market.”
First big steps
There are already some excellent examples of how the region is working together on labour market issues. Both Huitink and Van Dellen mention the job-matching platform, which involves companies such as Alliander and TenneT. This is a social start-up through which the initiators and other companies recruit staff for the energy transition based on their skills. The power of AI is being harnessed to match a jobseeker’s skills with the requirements of current vacancies.
Hoge (HAN) cites another example of collaboration drawn from her own experience. “Our Embedded Systems Engineering students from the HBO-ICT programme are now helping to design and develop robots that support Alliander’s technicians in underground transformer rooms. The robots ensure greater safety and the availability of materials. As a result, technicians can also go down there on their own more often, rather than having to go in pairs.”
The signing of the Human Capital Agreement has led to improvements, according to Van Dellen (The Economic Board), amongst others. “Of course, you can’t solve the challenges within a year. But we’re carrying out many excellent projects with all the parties involved. We’re certainly not there yet, but the first major steps are being taken.”
Hoge emphasises the importance of collaboration, particularly in terms of retraining and further training. “If we consolidate that demand effectively, companies will no longer have to do it themselves; instead, knowledge institutions such as HAN can simply fulfil that role.” Huitink (Rabobank) sees a great deal of potential, but also challenges: “There are lots of enthusiastic and committed people in the Lifeport region, but they’re often linked to a particular local authority or organisation and don’t act as a figurehead for the whole region. Cooperation could be improved. For example, if I come across someone who wants to work for a construction firm, I put them in touch with one of my clients. That’s how everyone in the region should think.”
After a few months at The Economic Board, Kim Hooiveld sees plenty of opportunities. “Yes, we’re smaller than Amsterdam, for example, but that also has its advantages. It means we can act more decisively. The Human Capital Agreement provides a solid plan. We’ve now really started to make an impact together.”
