Ms Balnanosienė's journey into the realm of employment services is not just a career choice but a legacy linked to her family history. Reflecting on her roots, she fondly recalls her grandparents, whose dedication to public service instilled in her a passion for helping others and contributing to her country. As she puts it, "New challenges are a g…

The Greek PES Changemaker Reflects on Challenges and Opportunities in the Labour Market The latest PESPod episode explores persistent challenges faced by PES in Europe, including skills shortages and the transformative impact of the European Year of Skills, as well as how Greece is tackling the skills challenge and fostering a fair and inclusive la…

PESPod episode 19 shares Network plans and priorities for 2024 and beyond The latest PESPod episode #19 features the Chair of the PES Network, Caroline Mancel, discussing her background and what hopes and ambitions she has for the Network. Mancel, who assumed the role of PES Network Chair in July 2023, while continuing her role as Deputy Director G…

Listen to the latest episode of PESPod to hear from Kristina Fleischer from the Croatian PES (HZZ) and Bernd Becking from the PES Network Secretariat in the European Commission as they share their views based on nearly 50 peer PES assessments between them in the past seven years.Learn about how the heart of the benchlearning assessments is a PES Ex…

Interview with Lukasz Sienkiewicz In the latest episode of PESPod, host David Poyser talks with Łukasz Sienkiewicz, lead author of the November 2022 PES Network survey-based report on PES staff management – challenges in the ‘new normal'.Łukasz Sienkiewicz starts by highlighting the short-term changes caused by Covid-19 in terms of “the re allocati…

A story of European Solidarity In the latest episode of PESPod, Johannes Kopf, head of the Austrian PES (AMS) and chair of the PES Network, is joined by Ewa Flaszynska, Director of labour market department at the Polish PES, to reflect on the Ukraine crisis one year on. Their discussions take us from their recollections of the breaking news of the …

Lessons from Latvia In the latest episode of PESPod, we talk to Evita Simsone, head of the Latvian PES (NVA), and HR expert Pārsla Baško about their recent efforts to understand and meet the needs of the future labour market in Latvia. Digital skills, graduate training and employment of recent arrivals from the conflict in Ukraine are some of the k…

Why a diverse workforce makes your company better In the latest episode of PESPod hear how an employer and a PES not only share a vision of the importance of workplace diversity, but how they have worked together to put this into practice. We are delighted that for the first time since its launch, this episode of PESPod welcomes an employer as a gu…

How behavioural science can help PES help their clients In episode 13 of PESPod, host David Poyser speaks to Mike Keesman from the Dutch PES (UWV) and Anne-Greet Keizer, Research Fellow at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) on how a WRR report on behavioural science has helped to improve PES performance. Anne-Greet Keize…

A Europe-wide academic expert chats with a national expert about overcoming labour shortage In episode 12 of PESPod, host David Poyser speaks to Deputy Director Haakon Hertzberg from the Norwegian PES (NAV) about their latest practices and Tina Weber of Eurofound about their latest research in tackling labour and skills shortages – the topic of the…

One country's positive experience of bench learning assessments with the PES Network In episode 11 of PESPod, host David Poyser speaks to three representatives from the French PES (Pole Emploi) about their valuable recent experiences of undergoing a peer assessment under the benchlearning methodology of the PES Network. Hear Deputy Director-General…

How the Swedish PES won an award for its work finding domestic abuse How Arbetsformedlingen, the Swedish PES, trains its front-line staff to look for symptoms of domestic abuse in an online one-hour training session. When the Swedish PES started this simple scheme to train its frontline staff to look for abuse among their job-seeking clients, they …

How collecting data helps people to find jobs In episode 9 of PESPod, Federico Muniz, Deputy General Director of Statistics and Information and Maria-Jose Arias, Head of Guidance and International Programmes at SEPE, the Spanish PES inspire us with the story of how they developed Send@ – their new data management system aimed at helping jobseekers …

On Digitalization, a greener economy and the future after COVID In Episode 8 of PESPod, European Commissioner Nicolas Schmit reflects on the “huge challenges” facing Europe’s labour markets, and the important roles that the PES Network and PES have to play in responding to labour market crises and managing transitions. Commissioner Schmit shares hi…

The Lithuanian PES becoming one In 2010 the Lithuanian PES were 46 separate organisations, and they merged to become to 11 separate organisations. In 2018, they took a bolder step when those eleven organisations all unified to become just one body. This wasn’t just an 'administrative change'. The number of purely admin jobs massively decreased and …

Though Actiris is a very small PES (it is only responsible for one town - Brussels), many PES observers feel that it has made great strides forward in 'participative management' (a less hierarchical approach to management). One of the Leaders of this approach is Caroline Mancel, their interim Director General, who talks about the process of adoptin…

The PES Network has benefited from different experience all over the EU. Before returning to his native Greece, Dr. Spiros Protopsaltis spent 24 years in the US as a Professor and adviser to a US Senator working with the Obama administration before coming back to serve Greece as Head of its PES Network. Greece famously suffers from higher unemploym…

The PES Network has had a very successful bench-learning programme for many years now. This episode has general lessons gained for all PES, from two experts who have travelled all over Europe listening to different PES, writing up reports on how they could benefit from the experience of other PES. The lessons learnt come not simply from discussing …

The strength of the PES network is the way all the different Public Employment Services can learn from each other. Luxembourg, for example, may be one of the smallest countries in the EU but many countries have learnt a lot from its “Future Skills Initiative” where the PES has worked with many employers to retrain employees for future jobs, particu…

There are many lessons for PES to learn from the pandemic. Digital skills have improved as PES staff across Europe learnt to work from home; the reputation of many PES has improved with jobseekers and employers; rapid coordination with governments was essential to establish crisis management, so across Europe PES can build on this. PESPod was lucky…

In this very first edition of the PES Podcast, the Austrian PES Managing Director Johannes Kopf, current chair of the PES Network, reflects on 2020, the most challenging in the PES Network’s history. How did the pandemic effect the work of European PES? How did they react to the developments in their labour markets and what lessons can be learned f…