The development of high-quality living services urgently needs the support of high-quality human resources

Author: Yang Weiguo (Professor, School of Labor and Personnel, Chinese Min University)

The living service industry is the most direct carrier of a better life, and the high-quality living service industry is the most basic support to meet the people's growing needs for a better life. Recently, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the National Development and Reform Commission's "Several Opinions on Promoting the Improvement of the People's Quality of Life in the Living Service Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which put forward clear systematic requirements for promoting the short board and the level of the living service industry, which is a guiding document for the development of China's living service industry during the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" period.

Expand the effective supply of living services

The development of high-quality living service industry urgently needs high-quality human resources support. The high-quality living service industry is an inevitable part of China's construction of a new system of high-quality and efficient, structural optimization and strong competitiveness during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, focusing on the needs of residents' consumption upgrading, expanding the effective supply of the service industry, and improving service efficiency and service quality.

The outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan clearly points out that the upgrading of the living service industry to high quality and diversification is guided by improving convenience and improving service experience. Accelerate the development of health, old-age care, childcare, culture, tourism, sports, property and other service industries, strengthen the supply of public welfare and basic service industries, and expand the supply of various services covering the entire life cycle.

Judging from the major deployment of the country and the actual development of the industry, the high-quality life service industry is developing into a very professional industry. The state requires continuous promotion of the quality and expansion of the domestic service industry, and the integration and development of smart communities and old-age care; accelerate the improvement of service standards such as old-age care and housekeeping, improve the certification and accreditation system of the living service industry, and promote the development of the integrity and professionalization of the living service industry. This inevitably requires practitioners to go through a more professional learning and training process and have more professional capabilities.

The high-quality life service industry is a very deliverable industry. Different from the productive service industry, the life service industry requires practitioners to provide face-to-face professional services to consumers, which requires practitioners not only to have skilled hands-on operation and the ability to solve practical problems, but also to have a personalized understanding of consumer needs and the ability to grasp emotional psychology, but also to have the ability to communicate clearly and warmly deliver.

The high-quality lifestyle service industry is an industry with increasing digital development. The state encourages the innovation of commercial and trade circulation formats and models, promotes digitalization, intelligent transformation and cross-border integration, and meets consumer demand through online and offline omni-channels. Digital technologies have penetrated the entire process from service product design to service delivery, requiring practitioners to have good digital literacy and the ability to use digital equipment tools to deliver services.

Improve the talent training model of industry-education integration

Improve the talent training model of industry-education integration, and strengthen more professional human resources support.

The "Opinions" are clear and accelerate the construction of industry-specific benchmarking service standards. Support enterprises as the main body and industry organizations as the basis to carry out pilot standardization of service industries in the fields of pension, childcare, housekeeping, and property services, and introduce a number of benchmarking service standards. Create a lifestyle service brand.

These standards and brands constitute the professional connotation of the life service industry, which inevitably requires professional human resources support. Therefore, the state supports life service enterprises to deepen the integration of industry and education, jointly develop curriculum standards with colleges and vocational schools, jointly build and share internship training bases, and jointly carry out teacher training, and give priority to those who meet the conditions to be included in the construction and cultivation library of industry-education integration enterprises. In particular, taking into account the overall characteristics of the large scale, heavy tasks, weak ability and fast mobility of existing employees, accelerate the cultivation of talents in related professions such as pension, childcare, and housekeeping, and allow on-the-job employees of qualified enterprises to receive higher vocational education in the form of alternate engineering and education.

From the perspective of longer-term development needs, the state should implement the quality improvement plan of modern vocational and technical education, build a number of high-level vocational and technical colleges and universities and majors, steadily develop vocational undergraduate education, promote the transformation of some ordinary undergraduate colleges and universities to application-oriented, and support nursing, rehabilitation, home economics, childcare and other related vocational graduates to upgrade their academic qualifications. The "Opinions" require that by 2025, strive to increase the number of undergraduate students in nursing, rehabilitation, home economics, childcare and other life service related majors nationwide by 100,000 compared with 2020. It is necessary to deepen the integration of vocational education, realize two-way mutual recognition and vertical flow between vocational and technical education and general education, and provide broader educational opportunities and career development space for service industry practitioners.

Carry out large-scale vocational skills training

Carry out large-scale vocational skills training and strengthen the support of human resources with more delivery capabilities.

The life service industry not only needs professional theoretical foundation and ability training, but also needs to grasp the changes in consumer demand at all times and continuously improve delivery capabilities. Vocational skills training with more responsive and adaptive characteristics is therefore essential. In terms of training content, based on the service delivery requirements of high-quality life service industry, the strengthening of life service skills training should focus on proficiency in operation, interpersonal communication ability, digital tool use ability and warm delivery ability.

In terms of training methods, we should build a diversified training carrier based on public training bases, vocational colleges (including technical colleges), vocational skills training institutions and industry enterprises, especially to build a number of public training bases and industry-education integration bases, promote the co-construction and sharing of training resources, especially in provinces with large populations, large cities and large counties to build a number of high-quality labor training bases, and support the development of order-based and package-based training.

In terms of training funds, coordinate all kinds of vocational skills training funds at all levels, innovate the use of methods, smooth the channels for training subsidies to directly reach enterprises and trainers, promote the implementation of key mass training subsidy policies such as rural transfer of employment labor, laid-off unemployed persons, transferred workers, and the disabled, and implement living expenses subsidies during training for qualified personnel in accordance with regulations. Accelerate the speed of training, increase the intensity of training, increase the number of vocational skills training in the living service industry year by year, and continuously improve the level of life service skills of existing and incremental employees.

Smooth the career development channel of employees

Smooth the career development channels of employees and strengthen more sustainable human resources support.

The characteristics of low education, low entry threshold and low professionalization of the traditional life service industry lead to the high mobility, high turnover rate and short employment time of practitioners, and the recruitment of employees of intermediary, home improvement, housekeeping, moving, maintenance and other life service enterprises is difficult to recruit, and it is difficult to attract high-quality labor to join, becoming a bottleneck in the transformation and development of high-quality life service industry. The job market is also undergoing major changes, the labor market, the talent market, the gig market go hand in hand, standard employment and flexible employment develop in parallel, employment forms from organizational to autonomous, from centralized to distributed, from single to diversified.

In this context, promoting the transformation of the employee system of pension, childcare, housekeeping, sports and fitness enterprises, providing more stable employment security for employees in the living service industry, increasing the space for independent choice of employees, increasing more smooth career development channels, and increasing the certainty of career development expectations are the fundamental ways to strengthen the support of more sustainable human resources. For eligible employee-based enterprises that absorb people with employment difficulties and graduates of colleges and universities for employment, social security subsidies should be given in accordance with regulations.

The training of professional talents and vocational skills training in the living service industry are an important part of the career development of employees, and it is especially necessary to improve the occupational skill level system, implement the socialized occupational skill level identification, improve the urban points settlement policy, and do a good job in connecting the occupational skills, working years and skilled personnel support policies and the points settlement policy of the employees. It is necessary to care for and care for employees, strengthen the construction of grass-roots public employment and entrepreneurship service platforms, and provide free policy consultation, job introduction, employment guidance and other services for workers and enterprises. Strengthen the protection of workers' rights and interests, especially accelerate the exploration and establishment of a labor rights and interests protection mechanism for employees in new formats. It is necessary to optimize the commendation and reward system, promote the formation of an atmosphere of respect for employees in the living service industry in the whole society, and enhance the attractiveness of high-quality living service industry.

Guangming Daily (15/11/2021)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily