Building your Workforce Development Program

You should now be ready to build a plan for workforce development in your region. The driving forces behind film industry workforce development in your area could reasonably include:

• meeting heightened and diverse film industry needs and expectations
• managing services offering improvements to the sector within tight resources
• delivering skills training in different ways to different people
• achieving workforce reforms including more flexible working practices that more accurately reflect film industry practice
• achieving a diverse workforce the reflects the local community at every level
• exploiting the benefits of new technologies
• ensuring compliance with legislation, codes of practice and government policy

Any of these could be areas that you focus in. However; unless you are a phenomenally well resourced as a Film Commission, it is not advisable to attempt to become a training provider yourself. After all, there are probably already training providers in your area who could adapt their services to meeting the needs of the industry. “Helping people to help themselves” is a more effective approach, and your role, in this case, is simply to assemble as much information as possible on local education and training available in the area.

Here, George David from the Royal Film Commission of Jordan talks about how they brought in training to help build skills in their area:
Once the specific challenges of your own area have been identified, the needs prioritized and the solutions developed, it is important to structure this information into an action plan. As with all action plans, you’ll need to:

• identify and assess the potential risks associated with not achieving your desired objectives, and to set up appropriate contingency plans.
• assign roles, responsibilities, and tasks, with agreed deadlines
• ensure sufficient resources are available to deliver the plan
• set up processes for monitoring, evaluation and review – when it will be done and by what method and means