App-titude Erasmus Project

Project Title

App-titude

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Youth unemployment is a major problem across Europe and a hot political issue in all European countries.
In the countries involved in this project, the following youth unemployment rates are registered: The Netherlands: 15,5%, Belgium: 21,6% , France: 25,2%, Luxembourg: 18%. There are over 2 million unfilled job vacancies in the EU. Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, finds high youth unemployment and inactivity unacceptable and emphasizes that EU policy should tackle youth unemployment in order to avoid ‘a lost generation’. This generation is entering the labour market. They will have to work for at least 30 to 45 years, some in jobs that do not exist today and others perhaps in jobs that are disappearing. This affects the skills needed across many different jobs and sectors.

The App-titude project developed 2 didactic and attractive products which can be used by young job seekers or their coaches when looking for a job, attending job fairs, organizing meet & greets, etc. Our tools are available for all partners wanting to help young people setting their first steps on the labour market. The mobile responsive site (looks like an application, but it is a site available on smartphone, tablet and PC) www.testyourselfie.eu wants to improve awareness of young people about the work attitudes of the future. It enables them to scan their own skills and gives tips and tricks on how to react and cope with different situations at work.
Next to the site, there is a fact sheet available explaining the main challenges as far as youth unemployment is concerned in today’s labour market. We have also created an inspirational sheet with inspiring examples of the countries involved in this project.

App-titude is a partnership between 4 European training funds for temporary agency workers (STOOF, FAF.TT, FSI and VFU-FFI) and 2 external experts. KU Leuven University is our scientific partner and Atolo is our communication and L&D specialist.

The fact sheet (and inspirational sheet) and the site www.testyourselfie.eu are the 2 products or tools developed in this project.

The fact sheet and inspirational sheet focus on peer learning and the exchange of best practices in order to implement and transfer innovative projects into our daily work. We learned from our peers during intervision sessions, moderated by an expert (Atolo). Each intervision session had a main topic (Skill mismatching, Early school leaving, Different generations and First steps on the labour market), each time introduced with some facts and figures at European level by KU Leuven University.

The second activity was the development of the site. KU Leuven University did research on the ‘work attitudes of the future’. A large-scale survey resulted in a list of the most essential work attitudes of the future. These skills were verified with our stakeholders and translated into the content of the site. The ‘App workforce’ developed the concept, functionalities and look and feel of the app. Before the launch in April 2017, the site was tested with intermediates and final target groups.

Another goal of ‘App-titude’ was to empower all our stakeholders, both temporary work agencies and other labour market partners who coach youngsters in their first steps on the labour market. We wanted them to gain more knowledge to tackle today’s challenges on youth employment and provide them with useful tools to deliver a high-level quality service towards young job seekers.
At the moment of reporting, we can proudly say that over 11,000 unique users have visited our site www.testyourselfie.eu.
As for the longer-term benefits, VFU-FFI and the other partner countries in this project have engaged themselves to keep on promoting the website to youngsters and stakeholders. They will co-finance the costs for the hosting and maintenance of the site www.testyourselfie.eu. The current project partners and some newly interested partners have the intention to submit a new project within the Erasmus+ Key Action 2 programme. In this way, we will be able to adapt Testyourselfie to new needs and expand it with new languages, skills, questions and answers and features (such as a chatbot) and reach even more young people in more European countries. In the meantime, each country will develop a communication and marketing plan to keep on promoting the site on a regular basis. Every time there’s a project which involves young people, we will use www.testyourselfie.eu to raise awareness about soft skills. All stakeholders can freely access the tool, promote it and use it themselves.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 277696 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vormingsfonds voor de Uitzendkrachten & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Stichting Opleiding & Ontwikkeling Flexbranche
• Fonds d’Assurance Formation du Travail Temporaire
• Fonds de formation Sectoriel pour l’Intérim
• ATOLO NV/SA
• KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN