Youth Employment Support

YES is designed for recruiters who select job applicants and introduce them into their company,
mentors, in-company trainers of apprentices, instructors and other senior members of staff who supervise young people at work in SME.

Those responsible for inserting young people in SME can benefit through:

  • improvement of their knowledge and experience with regard to insertion of young people in small and medium-sized enterprises;
  • target-oriented development of qualified employees;
  • exchange of experiences at an international level and
  • application of practice-oriented instruments and methods of in-service vocational and further education.

The YES system consists of the following elements:

Training

The YES blended learning offer consists of 5 modules. The content of these modules can be seen below. Each module includes 3 hours face-to-face trainings and 10 hours of e-learning.

 

Coaching

Approach

The coaching offer developed will follow the approach of systemic constructivist coaching:
The human being is seen not only as an individual but as a part of a complete social system, who is “constructing” its own reality. Change is only possible when this is realised. The systemic view of the world deals with the extension of perspectives and cultural diversity.
YES coaching means active support for recruiters and mentors in SME. Direct interaction with the young person is only foreseen if needed and agreed by the SME.

 

Cycle

The coaching support of the YES system will include four main phases as described below.

 

Peer support

An essential element of YES is the facilitation of peer support of SME recruiters and mentors. For this purpose a virtual learning platform with the following elements is been developed:

  • forum and other communication tools for peer interaction and virtual meetings of users;
  • e-learning parts of the YES course;
  • online counselling tools.

 

YES Project

Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), insertion of young people is often a big challenge. Many young applicants are early school leavers, have failed to complete vocational education and training, and often they are socio-economically and/or personally disadvantaged.

YES offers SME support opportunities for the employment and introduction of those young persons.

YES is a European project including 8 partner institutions specialised in adult education. The project running from November 2007 – October 2009 is financed by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. It builds on and combines the results of the preceding projects EuroJobMediator and ADEC – Adult Educator in Company, which both developed useful resources for actors in the youth employment process.

YES addresses recruiters selecting job applicants and introduce them into their company as well as mentors, in-company trainers of apprentices, instructors and other senior members of staff who supervise young people at work in SME.

 

 

YES rationale

To employ young people brings various assets to a company: fresh ideas, high motivation, flexibility and resilience and applicable knowledge related to the educational level. On the other hand insertion of young people is often a big challenge. Many young applicants are early school leavers, have failed to complete vocational education and training, and often they are socio-economically and/or personally disadvantaged. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are often reluctant to employ and/or train such young people, even if they generally want to give them a second chance. Those responsible for human resources seem to worry that these youngsters are too “difficult” to deal with and require too much attention and time of their supervisors.

Experiences from previous partner work with young people in large scale job insertion programmes as well as other initiatives indicate that SME are more inclined to employ and/or train young people if they receive comprehensive and intensive support. There are already many initiatives which target young people, but there is a clear lack of training and coaching support offered to the other side, the potential employers.

The main aim of YES is to respond to the clear need in Europe in general and the project partners’ countries in particular to strengthen staff managers’ skills to interact with youth, who will make up a considerable proportion of the future skilled work force.

 

YES objectives

The overall aim of YES is to strengthen staff managers’ interaction skills with “difficult” youth in the frame of employment and/or apprenticeship. Therefore YES intends to

  • raise awareness for the need of a support system for SME among employment and job insertion agencies, vocational training providers, social partners and decision makers in the field of youth labour market and apprenticeship policies;
  • adapt, combine, and further elaborate the Leonardo da Vinci project products EurojobMediator and ADEC- Adult Educator in Company to a comprehensive youth employment support system for SME;
  • support at least 56 SME (8 SME each in AT, FR, SL, DE, CZ, NL, SK) directly during the projects piloting phase.

Thus YES contributes to reducing barriers of employers to insert and train early school leavers, young people who have failed to complete vocational education and training and other groups of youth with socio-economic and/or personal disadvantages.

 

YES activities

The main activities of the YES project between November 2007 and October 2009 were:

  • Valuable lessons for the job insertion of young people could be learned from the experience gained in the successful European project EuroJobMediator, ADEC and other initiatives: YES examined this existing pool of experience and adapted it to the learning needs of recruiters and mentors in SME.
  • A thorough analysis of the specific needs of SME ensured the development of  a tailor-made support offer.
  • The YES system was established and tested in Austria, France, Slovenia, Germany, Slovakia, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
  • The adequacy of the YES system and its effects on the relations between employers and young people were carefully evaluated.
  • The project results were presented at the international dissemination conference Youth Employment Support. Innovation and creativity in the field of youth employmentin Salzburg on 20. November 2009

 

Downloads

YES brochure

Coaching Guidelines

Flyer YES

Pilot report

Poster YES

The project products are also available in the languages of the partner countries. Please ask for them by contacting us.

 

Links

On the Link sites in the partner languages you find link collections for the respective countries.

Here we just want to refer to

http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/labour_law/directives_en.htm

were the European Commission publishes relevant information about Labour Law and Work Organisation with regard to Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

 

YES Partners

die Berater®
Austria
dieberater.com

 

MISSION LOCALE DE L’AGENAIS ET DE L’ALBRET
France
missionslocales-aquitaine.org

 

Glotta Nova
Slovenia
glottanova.com

 

Bildungswerk der Sächsischen Wirtschaft gGmbH
Germany
bsw-ggmbh.de

 

Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia (CESGA)
Spain
cesga.es

 

TRANSFER Slovensko, spol. s r.o.
Slovakia
transfer.sk

 

Stichting Reflexion
Netherlands
atriumbv.nl

 

METER Silesia, spol. s r.o.
Czech Republic
meter-silesia.wz.cz

 

Contact

Holger Bienzle

Head bridges to europe

„die Berater“
Unternehmensberatungs GmbH
Wipplingerstraße 32/Top 23-25
A-1010 Vienna
Tel.: +43 1 532 45 45-0
Fax: +43 1 532 45 45-1145
E-Mail: office@dieberater.com
www.dieberater.com

 

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.