“BE DIGITAL” project launched

On November 1, 2021, the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry launched the Be Digital project under Operation Joint Actions of the Social Partners, Component 2.

Silvia Kabaivanova, Vice Chairman of Bulgarian Digital Cluster joined the project as an expert methodologist.

Digital transformation is a process that is gaining ground, both in all spheres of the economy and in everyday life, and in the conditions of the COVID pandemic this process is developing more and more dynamically. In order to meet the challenges that digitalization poses to business and society as a whole, it is necessary for the digital skills of employees to meet the growing demands in the exercise of various professions / positions. That is why the BCCI, together with the other social partners, is committed to getting involved in solving this challenge. The main goal of the project is to contribute to the acquisition of specific levels of digital skills by employees from 65 identified professions / positions in various economic activities / sub-activities under NACE.BG 2008, necessary for the successful performance of their official duties.

Based on the developed methodology under Component 1, the needs for general and specific digital skills of the employees will be researched and analyzed and the results of the research and the trends in the digitalization of the sectors and economic activities within the BCCI project will be analyzed. . Based on the results of the survey, unified digital skills profiles will be developed, tested and validated by key positions and / or professions, according to the NCAP 2011, indicating the knowledge, skills and behavior that the employee should possess in order to perform his / her duties. in the scope of his profession and / or position. These unified profiles will serve as a basis for testing the current skills of the workforce by sector in order to establish the difference between the desired and actual digital training of workers, and for this purpose tools for assessing digital competencies will be developed.

Once the gaps have been identified and the necessary training to achieve the desired level of digital skills is identified, non-formal training programs will be developed to develop specific digital skills according to the requirements of the specific job / profession beyond basic digital skills (according to DigComp2.1).

After their development, the curricula for the development of specific digital skills in key professions / positions will be tested and adapted to the specific conditions in a given sector. It is envisaged that sectoral qualifications frameworks for the development of digital skills will be developed and adopted, which will be adapted and updated as necessary. Within the implementation of the project will be developed methodological guidelines for maintaining and upgrading the digital skills of workers in the sectors to provide continuing education in order to better professional development and increased training of employees in the exercise of their profession / position. Employers ‘and employees’ awareness of the need to develop digital skills and competences will continue to increase.

The project will develop models of social partnership and collective bargaining in enterprises, adequate to technological change and digitalization of work processes for active change management and ensuring successful adaptation of enterprises and their employees to change.