While participation in education has received considerable attention in research in Greece, training participation has not been studied extensively. The results of surveys of technical employees about their training participation highlighted the importance of two broad factors – personal and organizational. The importance of organizational factors can be explained as most training activities are initiated by employers, but at very different rates in different organizational environments. From the analyses some initial recommendations about improving training practices of employees – and especially technical employees – in Greece can be made:

• The factors determining training participation of employees, namely personal and organizational factors, should be clearly outlined in order to produce focused interventions on specific groups.
• The participation of employees in small companies should be further examined because it is faced with severe obstacles.
• Access to information about available programmes is needed for both employers and employees.
• Training should focus on specific occupational knowledge and at the same time provide horizontal skills and competencies.

The paper provides a bridging analysis that links the more specific contributions to the theme ‘combining formal and non-formal learning’ (that focus on occupations in the ICT sector) to more general challenges on the development of VET systems.