"Context of the project:The project ""Worklife Guidance - Development of guidance and counseling in the workplace"" is about bringing together methods used within career guidance and counselling, validation of prior learning and Human Resource Management and build a toolbox for providers of guidance services to use when working with managers and employees in the workplace on a strategical development of the workforce competences. In the modern society people cannot rely on the skills they acquired at school to last them till the end of their working life and companies need up-skilled and re-skilled workforce to be able to cope with the rapid market changes. The main aim of this project is to make it clear to both parties, employees and employers, that a strategical development of skills and competences should be a part of every-day work-life and that the responsibility is mutual. The target groups of the project are: a) Individual employees; b) Managers, especially within human resource management and c) Providers of guidance services, who were trained in how to approach both groups and gain trust in the methodology used.Objectives (towards long-term benfits)- Strengthen the competences and believe of managers and middle-managers to use counseling and coaching methods to map competences and possible skills gaps.- Strengthen the believe of employees towards a systematic development of competences to develop their competences and meet organization or sector needs. - Bring down barriers towards the use of competence modeling and measurements/mapping of skills mismatch.- More efficiency in the use of finances used for development of human resource within organisations.- Strengthen adult education’s connections, relationships and service models with companies through the work of career counsellors and through the co-working models of career counsellors and vocational experts - Share and compare models of guidance at the workplace in order to develop models to be used by adult education / career counsellors Products:Comparison of methods/models: information was gathered from all partners for comparison of methods/models used within career guidance and counseling, validation of prior learning and human resource management. On the basis of this comparison partners were able to understand the issue better and choose models that would better serve the respective employment sector and/or companies that each participating organization was cooperating with.Toolbox for providers of guidance services: the core of the project outcomes is the Toolbox which includes promotional material to be used by the providers of the guidance services, models to be used when providing the service, guidelines on how to approach employees and employers to gain trust in the services and a training program for providers of the guidance services.About the partnership:The participating organizations come from five different European countries, Iceland, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden. They brought different aspects to the project work as the objectives of their work are different, covering adult education, guidance and counseling services, validation of prior learning, research on education and training systems in Europe and cooperation with the business world. This was to secure a very broad approach to the theme and objectives of this partnership project. The benefits of this project for providers of guidance services will be that they are better equipped to approach companies and employees as both parties will better understand the importance of letting the competence development of employees go hand in hand with the needs of the company. Five international meetings have been held, all three multiplier events have been conducted: ideology presented; train the providers; final conference, and the three outputs/products have been produced; report on comparison of methods and tools, Toolbox for guidace (http://wlguidance.wixsite.com/toolbox) and training course/material for guidance providers. The project has reached directly over four hundred professionals in five European countries. Partner countries have set up processes for continuing disseminating the ideology of the project and using the Toolbox further with guidance providers and in companies. This will open up further developments in the area of competence development, transparency and matching of skills."