Standard of skills for Installers, Maintainers and Repairers

One of the challenges due to a growth of the European elevator and escalator will be labour shortages in qualified and skilled EU workforce.

The Safety, Education, and Training (SE&T) Committee of the European Lift Association (ELA) tried to contribute by harmonizing the minimum skills of the persons working in the industry.

By Ana Efata

The elevator and escalator industry is considered as a business with challenging working conditions, which explains ELA’s continuous commitment in safety culture and belief that all incidents are preventable.

Looking forward, the European elevator and escalator (E&E) industry is on track for substantial growth, with projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.8 per cent from 2023 to 2029 (source: Europe Elevator and Escalator Market – Size & Growth Forecast 2024-2029 (researchandmarkets.com). Thus, one of the challenges due to this growth will be labour shortages in qualified and skilled EU workforce.

No job-specific minimum training requirements

Assembly of the lift car: Assembly work in a team under the guidance of the trainer at the trainers at the Thor Academy's Menteroda training centre, which is also used for VFA Academy training courses. Photo: © THOR Industriemontagen GmbH & Co. KG

As part of the ELA Committee's role, the Safety, Education, and Training (SE&T) Committee tried to contribute by harmonizing the minimum skills of the persons working in the industry. The Committee’s research confirmed that currently there is no job-specific minimum training requirements in the E&E industry.

ELA’s ultimate goals are to develop the minimum standard of skills competencies concept guidelines for elevator and escalator installer, maintainer, and repairer, with at the end six ELA guidelines.

The Committee has started first with the elevator installer minimum skills requirements. The Committee developed it by brainstorming within experts from France, Germany, Italy, Netherland, Poland, Turkey, and the UK. Finally, the Committee received the endorsement of the ELA Board on this training concept guideline. Currently, ELA is working to get the endorsement of the EU Commission in order to have this minimum qualification levels in the elevator industry to be recognized and implemented across Europe.

I believe this is a necessary step and should not be taken lightly. It may all seem to work fine; we can let it stay as it is today but having this minimum qualification levels validated at European level will be beneficial to all parties.

A challenge for SMEs

Photo: © THOR Industriemontagen GmbH & Co. KG

For international organizations, their employees can work across EU countries without any restrictions within their internal organizations. However, for smaller companies, this can be quite challenging. As an elevator installer, the basic knowledge of education should be the same and that was the reason ELA came up with this initiative.

Anyone who has completed these minimum skills requirements should be able to work anywhere within the EU without being discriminated against based on his/her country education and as an effort to ensure social sustainability practices.

Having EU-wide recognized diploma for elevator installer can benefit international organizations as well, as they won’t need to put extra time and finance in giving newcomer basic training as this training would already be part of a standardized program. It is a critical and necessary effort to tackle difficulties in finding employees with the right skills and qualifications.

Different requirements in the EU

Photo: © Butz & Neumair GmbH Aufzugbau

That being said, some EU countries may have more stringent requirements than this minimum guideline standards, whilst some countries have even nothing in place, with anyone authorized to maintain elevators without any certificate, no experiences, and no background check.

In those countries, anyone who wants to do it can do it. This is good for on-demand technician, but I don’t think it will work out well for the customers who use the elevator.

We need to balance what are the minimum requirements. Without standardized training and equality in qualifications, it will be difficult to create high productivity and bring the elevator and escalator industry to sustainable development.

The author is chairwoman of the Safety, Education & Training Committee

More information: Qualification Level Lift Installer (free download as pdf):
Module 1
Module 2
Module 3

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