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The Adecco Group

The Adecco Group is the world’s leading talent company.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Victor Negrescu (Member of the European Parliament) and Transport and Environment (European Federation for Transport and Environment) and

5 Nov 2025 · Union of skills in motion addressing the EU's workforce challenges

Meeting with Maroš Šefčovič (Commissioner) and

28 Oct 2025 · Priorities of the EU’s trade agenda

Meeting with Johan Danielsson (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and World Employment Confederation-Europe

11 Jul 2025 · Fusk och utnyttjande i långa underleverantörsled

Meeting with Pál Szekeres (Member of the European Parliament) and ExxonMobil Petroleum Chemical

18 Sept 2024 · Labour market challenges

Meeting with Idoia Mendia (Member of the European Parliament)

5 Sept 2024 · Meeting with Adecco

Meeting with Abir Al-Sahlani (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and The Swedish Trade Union Confederation

30 Jan 2024 · EU Talent Pool

Meeting with Nicolas Schmit (Commissioner) and

17 Jan 2023 · The European Year of Skills, the Future of Work

Meeting with Elisabetta Gualmini (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and BUSINESSEUROPE and

29 Mar 2022 · Roundtable on platform work directive

Meeting with Nicolas Schmit (Commissioner) and

13 Jan 2022 · Changing labour markets, Skills and Platform Work.

Meeting with Nicolas Schmit (Commissioner) and

22 Nov 2021 · Employment in the automotive sector and platform work

Response to Micro-credentials

18 Mar 2021

As a company recruiting and assessing candidates who could hold micro-credentials, as a training provider, but also as company committed to making the future work, a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability is of high relevance to us. As labour market needs change ever more rapidly, short-term learnings are key in addressing the skills gap and offer a viable alternative to longer duration degrees in formal education. Creating ways to validate the outcome of such shorter learnings in micro-credentials could help workers facing labour market transitions by offering more transparency on the content and level of certain skills for hiring employers. A European approach on the matter could provide a frame to ensure the value, the quality and the credibility of the micro-credentials. Moreover, we agree that such a frame would provide a higher level of comparability, which in turn enables a greater portability across countries and sectors. Flexibility Ensuring common standards should not be done to the detriment of agility and flexibility that are crucial in a fast-paced labour market. To reply to the rising demand for certifications of learning outcomes, creating and getting micro-credentials validated should be as efficient and rapid as possible, and accreditation as an issuer of micro-credentials should not become a bureaucratic burden. Already today, we see that training providers such as the Adecco Group’s General Assembly (GA) choose not to use existing accreditation schemes as those do not offer enough flexibility to rapidly adjust training content annually – or in some cases even more often. For students, their choice for GA seems to indicate that they rate the value of the acquired skills as higher than that of a formal degree. Content of the credentials Credentials should mention both acquired hard and soft skills. In addition, we believe they should establish a clear link to the quality and to the methodology criterion, rather than to the length or number of hours of the training. One critical part of the scheme will be to determine the level of skills or knowledge that would constitute ‘certified’ in credentialling. By giving a candidate a label of having a certain skill, employers may well expect this skill to be clearly evidenced and actively demonstrated from Day One of employment. Should it not be the case, employers could quickly lose faith in a scheme which is perceived to supply lower quality of skills than expected. There have been clear examples of trainings where 70% of candidates would pass, only to find that this led to an inflation of the value of certification. Thus, there is a careful line to be toed around standardisation of skills which needs to balance employer expectation against inclusivity and candidate fairness. Furthermore, we believe that suppliers of credentials should be cross-referenced to ensure equivalence between providers and harmonisation of content and subjects. If the syllabus or topics of a particular skill differ wildly between suppliers, there cannot be equivalence of certification. And importantly, micro-credentials should not be meant to replace formal diploma’s or full credentials, but they should rather recognize worker’s specific learnings. Formal education institutions should also view those micro-credentials as valid proof that (partial) prerequisites to obtain a degree or full certification are fulfilled. To ensure the comparability and the portability of the micro-credentials, the European Commission’s approach should be based on existing systems (such as the ECTS). Additionally, when designing the format of the credentials, or the digital means and platforms to deliver the credentials, specific attention must be paid to the essential fact that it needs to be portable, for a lifetime, globally. A blockchain-based format or an E-ID type could be considered.
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Meeting with Nicolas Schmit (Commissioner) and

26 Feb 2021 · Meeting on the economic situation and skills development for recovery and the future economy.

Meeting with Nicolas Schmit (Commissioner) and

8 Jun 2020 · Videoconference on the effect of the crisis on employment and the importance of skills.

Meeting with Joost Korte (Director-General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion) and World Employment Confederation-Europe

8 Jan 2020 · Meeting with Adecco Group and World Employment Confederation to discuss Future of Work and the need for a New Social Contract as well as Skills.