How it plans to encourage workers across all sectors of the economy to continuously upgrade their skills.

The Scottish Government outlines its plans to encourage workers across all sectors to continuously upgrade their skills in Skills for Scotland – a Lifelong Skills Strategy.
In the strategy we recognise that an important factor in employee learning is the commitment of employers to training and learning. To this end we are working with the sector skills councils who, through their four primary objectives highlighted in the strategy, we believe are well placed to encourage employers to continue to invest in training and learning and to raise demand for this from their workers.
Alongside increasing the demand for training and learning we believe that the way jobs are designed has a direct impact on how the skills gained by workers can be deployed in the workplace. The Scottish Government are investigating how skills are currently being utilised in the workplace and if there is a potential role for government in improving this utilisation to enable workers to have an immediate positive impact to their workplace after a period of training or learning.
We believe that it is important to recognise the valuable contribution that the Scottish credit and qualifications framework can make to encourage workers to continuously upgrade their skills. Many workers receive informal “on the job” training and by recognising this learning we hope to promote the learning experience. Evidence has shown us that trade unions help to engage workers and raise their aspirations in the workplace, which is why the Scottish Government provides funds to support Scottish union learning.