THE Open University in Scotland is touring the country to help small and medium-sized enterprises address an ongoing skills shortage that is being especially felt in rural areas.
The university’s Skills for Business Roadshow, which is hitting the road in April and May, will aim to raise awareness of a range of flexible, short online courses that it says SMEs can access at little or no cost to themselves or their employees.
Through its access to the Scottish Government’s Flexible Workforce Development Fund, it noted that SMEs can receive OU grants of up to £5,000 to support the upskilling and reskilling of existing staff. Larger employers in the private, public, and third sectors can tap into training worth up to £15,000.
The roadshows are being co-hosted by a number of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, including Ayrshire, Dundee & Angus, Dumfries & Galloway, Fife, Forth Valley, Inverness, and Moray, as well as the Cairngorms Business Partnership and various Business Improvement Districts.
David Allen, senior partnerships manager at The Open University in Scotland, said: “This has been an incredibly challenging few years, especially for smaller businesses and organisations based in rural locations. The OU is in a position to offer easy access to a high-quality programme of flexible online courses that can have a big impact on business performance, at little or no cost because of the funding available.
“This is our first-ever Skills for Business Roadshow and it presents an incredible opportunity to engage with business owners on a one-to-one level, gaining a greater understanding of their needs and challenges. Our goal for the roadshow is to provide them with support and advice on how The OU can help create a tailored training strategy that will address the specific skills gaps and needs within their business.”
The OU said the Skills for Business Roadshow will offer informal but informative sessions, noting that they will provide insights and highlight skills-related trends from the recent Open University Scotland Business Barometer Report, produced in association with the British Chamber of Commerce.
The first roadshow event will be held Falkirk on Friday April 21.
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