With BTC Campus Project to employment: “employed individuals, social responsibility for the community”
“Who searches for the goal, will stay empty when the goal is reached; however, who finds the way, will always carry the goal with them.” (Nejc Zaplotnik)
Although one might think that the Slovene economic environment and current labor market are not really in favor of young job seekers, with the BTC Campus Project some individuals found the way to their employment and the opportunity to contribute to the realization of business goals of individual companies.
“We provided the young with various ways of thinking, which will help them in their personal life as well as business career”, Jože Mermal, Chairman of BTC Board.
The BTC Campus Project is proof of successful cooperation between institutions and the local labor market, in the form of partnership among the Employment Service of Slovenia, Center for Business Excellence of the Faculty of Economics of the University in Ljubljana, and the employees and coworkers of the BTC Corporation. The realization of the BTC Campus educational program began this February. With the first group, which contained 30 young participants, we carried out 12 program modules in three months. Jože Mermal, Chairman of BTC Board, says that through these modules “we provided them with concrete knowledge and skills, and gave them the opportunity to develop various ways of thinking, which will help them in their personal life as well as business career.” Since the beginning of the project three persons got full-time employment, which represents 10 percent of all the participants of the program, and others also have more and more opportunities.
“How to gain the ability to come up with business ideas and carry them out turned out to be extremely good “psychotherapy” and unbelievable motivation to return to active life”, Prof. Dr. Dušan Mramor, Dean of EF.
One of the important goals of the project is the implementation of social responsibility when searching and forming individual’s business strategy. For this purpose, Dean of the Faculty of Economics (EF) Prof. Dr. Dušan Mramor emphasizes the importance of “gaining the ability to come up with business ideas and carrying them out, which turned out to be extremely good “psychotherapy” and unbelievable motivation to return to active life.” Dean also says that this project helps the currently unemployed to begin trust in themselves again, and also “pursuits the requirements of social responsibility and links the economy, field of profession and those who find themselves unemployed in the current economic situation. This project is extremely important for the EF because it deals with all the values and strategies that the Faculty stands for.”
The participants in the BTC Campus Project have formed their business strategies based on the modern philosophical and methodological reproach of D.School, coordinated by lecturers Rok Stitar, Blaž Zupan, and Marjan Kramar. “Essentially it is a very simple, natural and intuitive approach to solving problems and challenges, which is, however, often in contravention with the approaches taught in the school system,” explained Rok Stritar, the leader of the D.School method, and said: “The main focus is on empathy, deeper understanding of users, creativity, interdisciplinary cooperation and particularly fast designing of new prototypes and testing solutions.”
“Every participant has their own employment goal and is aware of what they can do in life and how to do it”, Barbara Vrtačnik, Director of Regional Office ZZZS.
In the BTC Campus Project, the role of the Regional office Ljubljana of the Employment Service of Slovenia (ZZZS) was to inform and motivate the unemployed, to create a suitable selection of candidates to include in the project, and to actively monitor the realization of the project. Barbara Vrtačnik, Director of Regional Office Ljubljana, estimates that the most successful part of the project was the fact “that all the participants gained many new and valuable skills, acquaintances, knowledge and behaviors, which will help them in the employment or self-employment process as well as their everyday life. Every one of them has their own employment goal and is aware of what they can do in life and how to do it.” This is why the BTC Campus Project contributes to the solving of the problem in connection with youth unemployment. For the last 20 years, ZZZS has been carrying out programs which encourage self-employment in various forms. This is about practical training and education, and subsidies for self-employment. In connection with that, according to Valentina Zadravec Predovnik, the Head of Employment Programs in the Central Office ZZZS, they are definitely in favor of projects such as BTC Campus, and are open to similar future cooperation: “We welcome the employment possibilities for the unemployed when employers and other partners use their practical knowledge and experience to help job seekers improve their abilities to look for jobs or opt for independent business career.”
Iskra Tanjga, Jana Drolc, Lana Grunčić Krajnc, Tina Drolc, EFnews
Translated by Živa Furlan, EFnews
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