Some companies are truly holding their own in today’s economic climate. They are continuing to exceed customer expectations, maintain employee productivity, and innovate to gain a competitive edge— all within the confines of reductions in staff, budgets, and income. They are cultivating a positive organizational climate in a negative economic one. Creating a positive organizational climate is not a new idea, but it has become a corporate imperative now. As growth slows and profits lag, businesses are scrutinizing key metrics of their climate and applying their knowledge to the entire climate improvement chain. After all, a healthy climate increases employee motivation, catalyzing more effective performance. Certain leadership styles produce a positive and stable organizational climate that makes an impact on motivation and performance. Key to this success is leadership that encourages a collaborative, synergetic, and creative work environment. In a positive organizational climate, employees have the confidence and stability they need to serve customers more effectively with more innovative products. Positive organizational climate is not a goal unto itself. It is a key link in a company’s ability to maintain and improve performance. Successful leaders take pains to ignite a chain reaction that improves climate, increases motivation, and enhances performance. The aim of the OSTESA EU project is to increase the competitiveness of SMEs by supporting creation of a positive organizational climate, that is assumed to be a major force in influencing employee’s motivation and behavior, through developing and improving the transversal competencies of managers and employees. The objectives of the project are: - Improving the organisational climate in SMEs, motivation & engagement of employees - Increasing the availability of the tools for improving an organisational climate through developing competencies - Improving the capacity of employers and HR manager to understand the need to work on better organisational climate in enterprises - Improving the capacity of trainers and HR departments The target groups of the project who will benefit from the project products and take part in the projects’ activities are as follows: 1) direct target groups (primary target group): SME general managers /business owners/ line managers, SME employees; trainers and consultants; partner organisations and their staff, 2) indirect target group (secondary target group): target organisations: (VET organisations/institutions, training providers which will incorporate the elaborated project products into their educational/training offer), companies and their HR departments, trainers/consultants of the target organisations, public and private labour actors (employer associations, chambers). During the project implementation the project partnership will develop five main intellectual outputs: 1) O1: Research Analysis Report developed to identify and analyse the dimensions of organisational climate and impact of leadership style on it as well as to analyse the training needs of the target groups in the context of methods and tools, to assist the development of project outputs and that suitable levels of stakeholder & user engagement are achieved throughout the project (including during end-user validation) in the partner countries; 2) O2: Organizational Climate Assessment tool - OCA to help managers/SME owners to assess the organisational climate, increase employee motivation, catalyze more effective performance and to help appreciate how his/her actions can drive team results. The tool will include several dimensions of organizational climate and the user (e.g. general manager/business owner), depending on his/her needs and specifics of SME, would select from this list a few dimensions (and also assigned items to each chosen dimension) to assess them by all company’s employees. The ICT tool will be used by trainers, consultants and HR departments of companies in their daily work. 3) O3: Programme Toolkit (Training programmes and scenarios, training materials for manager and employee separately) to improve the organisational climate dimensions and create positive organisational climate through upgrading and improving the transversal competencies of managers (especially leadership) and employees. The Programme Toolkit will be used by trainers/consultants and HR departments of companies in their work to improve the organisational climate of companies/organisations. 4) O4: Guide for general managers, owners of SMEs, line managers how to improve positive organizational climate by changing leadership style. 5) O5: Train-The-Trainer Package (package composed of the train-the-trainer methodology, desirable profile of trainer, training programme and materials, evaluation and assessment procedure and tools, certification requirements and criteria) The outputs O2-O5 will be available in English, Polish, Greek, Czech, Portuguese and Italian.