DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT – EXTENDED Erasmus Project

Project Title

DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT – EXTENDED

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

Generally speaking, we can say that the project had one main objective that we wanted to achieve. This main objective was to increase the chances for employment through a labour contract or through internships for youngsters with a distance to the labour market.
It’s important to know that we had worked towards an integral approach of three actors: the youngsters themselves, the employers and the intermediary partners (schools, job coaches, etc.). Through this project we had succeeded in establishing a system whereby these actors were actively engaged with each other, with the result that youngsters had been guided to labour in the try-outs. But even more important was that a framework had been created for the three actors where they could rely on in the future through concrete tools.

In order to achieve this main objective, we had made several sub-objectives:

1.Mapping the policy, the support and the specific legislation for each partner country. These findings were discussed by the project partners in project meetings and in a final report available (on the website) for policy makers at local and European level. The report will not be able to give immediate solutions, but gives policy makers stuff to think about.
Result : report with tools, good practices, legal framework per country and some basic conclusions

2.Developing a theoretical model of Diversity Management that empowers employers to support and recruit youngsters with a distance to the labour market.
Result : DME Handbook for Diversity Management (a practical tool voor employers who want to hire people with a distance to the labour market)

3.Collecting concrete tools/training used in different countries and which can support this model. These tools were written in a procedure so that they also could be used in the other partner countries (exchange of knowledge and know-how)
Result : 25 procedures were written and collected on the project website
http://www.projectdme.eu/hr_procedures.php
http://www.projectdme.eu/training.php
http://www.projectdme.eu/tools.php

4.Within the project, five new tools were also developed which are directly applicable by employers, youngsters and schools (coaches)
Result : 5 new tools were developed
https://www.dmecognition.eu
https://dmequickscan.eu
https://hrcareertool.eu/
https://www.dmescale2skill.eu
https://www.supportmyinternship.eu

5.In a try-out version, these tools were tested and optimized. This try-out had direct impact on employers and youngsters and in some cases also a direct impact on the recruitment of youngsters.
Result :
In total we directly reached 307 youngsters with a distance to the labour and 261 people from the intermediary groups (schools, job coaches, etc.) with the try-outs. We also set up diversity management actions in 72 companies.

6.To broaden the number of users of this methodology and tools, the theoretical model and the associated tools were spread through the site and other media channels, with the aim of deploying it as widely as possible across the EU.

7.Finally, also good practices were collected in each partner country. The aim was to sensitize and motivate the actors. It must also inspire policy makers to look at and implement initiatives from other countries.
Result : We put 26 good practices on the project website

All the tools and information will be available for free via the DME website. In that way, it must be possible for companies, schools, coaches, … to work on diversity management in the future and to give them the opportunity to employ people with a distance to the labor market.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 352919 Eur

Project Coordinator

JKVG vzw & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Syntra West vzw
• Euroface Consulting s.r.o.
• Natsionalen ucheben tsentar
• Andragoski zavod Ljudska univerza Velenje
• Stichting Kenniscentrum Pro Work