Skills Matching for a Greener Industry 4.0 – A Literature Review

Abstract

Manufacturing industry has historically had a very high leverage on environmental impact. Therefore, it is urgent to identify how the industry and its employees can contribute to change towards a sustainable society. Industry leaders need to enable their employees to create sustainable solutions, using technologies rising in industry 4.0. However, nowadays there are also critical discussions about whether this trend has reached our workplace settings in a satisfactory way. Namely, there is a growing skill gap among employees in manufacturing industries causing a lack of capability to match skill needs for fast technological development and requirements on sustainability. The resulting mismatch of technical and managerial knowledge and experience will critically impact companies in competitive markets. Despite a vast range of educational initiatives available on the global market, less employees than needed are developing new skills. A smart matching process to strategically support employees in their learning paths, by matching them to new relevant skills and matching those skills to learning activities, could bridge the widespread skill gap and address challenges e.g., motivation to learn. This study reviews existing research on functional matching processes for individually tailored learning and upskilling paths for employees that need to develop skills in industry. The study’s result maps out parts in a matching system and identifies the existing gap in literature.