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Our labour market is subject to a couple of radical transitions:

  • Keeping more people employed and keeping them employed longer.
  • Evolving towards a knowledge economy, thereby eliminating a pack of short- and middle schooled jobs, some of which have already disappeared, and augmenting the number of bottleneck jobs.
  • Focussing more heavily on developing skills through workplace learning. Although this creates opportunities, it also demands a significant effort to shape this even further and to support employers and workplaces in making this a reality.
  • The evolving policy of social economy: now more than ever, career development is key, keeping in mind the inclusion of more vulnerable groups on the labour market.
  • The influx of refugees on the labour market, who without a doubt possess qualities of their own, but, looking from a realistic point of view, might not always meet the expectations of employers.

To make use of this available working potential, adjustments to the current policy are needed. More and more companies stand before this social challenge of inclusive entrepreneurship. An inclusive company aims for a profit and is being led by a strong vision and values. All employees, including those vulnerable on the labour market, contribute to the company’s goals. An inclusive employer lets their employees perform according to their own ability, from a profit’s perspective.

Integration of vulnerable groups on the labour market is an important investment which demands a permanent effort. Reality however, is that a lot of simple tasks and activities have become part of increasingly complex job positions. As a result, opportunities for people at the bottom of the market have decreased or are being limited to positions with unappealing labour conditions and environments.

As long as supply and demand no longer connect, we have to develop new methodologies to find good matches and to guide people with a certain distance to fitting labour on the market. In short, we will have to create jobs that fully comply with contemporary social demands.

All Inclusive@work – a transnational ESF-project that gave us the opportunity to integrate expertise from the Netherlands, Finland and Bulgaria into our approach – is supplying building stones for inclusive entrepreneurship to companies by offering an integrated case:

  • Inclusive Job Design
  • Job and Language coaching: support during employment, focusing on 3 levels:
    • Participant/employee
    • Direct supervisor and working environment
    • The organisation itself (creating an environment where inclusive job design is an option as well, learning environment, …)
  • Workplace learning and validation of skills obtained through workplace learning.

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Would you like to receive more information about inclusive entrepreneurship, our methods, approach and the results of the All Inclusive@work project? Contact us via the contact form.

 

This project came together in collaboration with the following partners: