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4.1.1 Survival enterprises: The demand for training

Written by: International Labour Organization

Article Overview: In simple numerical terms, 'survival' enterprises predominate in most informal sectors. The general view is that the skill requirements for most tasks undertaken in this type of enterprise are minimal and/or are relatively easily acquired on the job.

4.1.1 Survival enterprises: The demand for training

In simple numerical terms, 'survival' enterprises predominate in most informal sectors. The general view is that the skill requirements for most tasks undertaken in this type of enterprise are minimal and/or are relatively easily acquired on the job. Women are particularly heavily concentrated in very low skill activities (most notably street vendors and food preparation). It is difficult, therefore, to see how conventional training services could significantly increase productivity and/or incomes in these kinds of occupations. "Within the household subsector and independent services subsector, training, in itself, has little impact in breaking the low income trap" (ILO, 1998: 103). In addition, "economic compulsions" and "acute vulnerability on a daily basis" keep the poor (and poor women, in particular) out of conventional training. Although most labour force surveys show high levels of "under-employment", most poor people are, in fact, too busy working to have time to enrol on training courses of any kind.

Faced with so little scope for improvement among existing activities, more 'transformative' approaches have often been tried by both governments and NGOs. The main objective here is to provide a critical mass of skills and resources to targeted individuals and groups that will enable them to transform their livelihoods. Again, however, most interventions of this kind have not been successful mainly because the resources and time needed to start new enterprises are well beyond the means of the poorest and, more generally, they have failed to address adequately the complex array of constraints that keep the poor in poverty.

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING
PAPERS
43
Learning to change: Skills
development among the
economically vulnerable and
socially excluded in
developing countries
Paul Bennell
Employment and Training Department
International Labour Office Geneva
First published 1999

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Article Tags: compulsions, critical mass, daily basis, employment and training, food preparation, incomes, independent services, informal sectors, international labour office, labour force surveys, livelihoods, main objective, numerical terms, paul bennell, poor women, skill activities, skill requirements, street vendors, survival enterprises, transformative approaches



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Training - Louis: Some regulated industries mandate that you attend training. However, even then, finding time to meet those requirements becomes an issue. This may explain the growth of tele-seminars. To answer your questions though, ROI is very important and everyone needs to sell or market no matter what they do. The best tip I ever got on training is not to pitch training as training b/c even big companies have limited budgets for training but training rebranded as "sales support." It makes the ROI argument that much more appealing. Hope that helps. Good luck.
One Thing To Note - As a trainer myself, I'm always amazed at the lengths organizations go to to pay for training and then not follow through. Any training I design myself has to have at least an offer built in for future support as well, for the benefit of those receiving the training, the organizer and the people the trainee works with. Corporates don't seem to like this too much - they often seem to want to budget, sign it off, run it and close it off. I'd always ensure that there is the offer of ongoing support/challenge/development in some shape of form. Not sure what Louis or any other training providers find...
Re: Service Or Product? - Hi Evan, A late response to your question but I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth as it's still a great topic. I like services personally as a business model but products would work as well. It all depends on the demand for the product. I learned a long time ago that if the demand out weighs the supply, whether it be a service or a product, the potential for success is far greater. When consumers or businesses are looking for what you're selling, the sale is that much easier and the risk is that much lower. Think about businesses that never have to advertise and just have websites and yellow page listings to be found. There is normally such a demand for their product or service that there's no need to advertise to find business as their customers will find them. These businesses do exist and if you think long and hard about it, you'll come up with a few that dispite the economy, spend next to nothing on advertising. So, product or service... who cares... demand and finding a niche is what matters and either or could be very successfull.
AdWords - The way I understand it - with AdWords, the price depends on which keyword you choose. Some keywords are really cheap because they aren't in demand, while others are much higher because they are in demand. If you have 2 people that want one keyword, but 200 that want another -- the 200 are going to pay higher prices. I've only looked at it a little, but I have a Google account where I get paid if people click on ads and the amounts vary drastically. Chris
Re: Greetings from Toronto! - Welcome to the forum and best of luck with your "foodie" enterprises. I hope you find some good advice here and also join in the conversations. Best wishes, David


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