This is not only a name for this post – it is a slogan of Re-Crew project. And it is not only the sound words, definitely. All participants feel on the mission to make the hiring process easier and more constructive for small businesses.
Why it is important?
Every project team member has her/his own story connected to the topic of Re-Crew project.
Claudia from Exeo Lab Srl (Italy) shared how the idea was born. After graduation, she had a very hard time. She was looking for a job without any luck. It was a very depressing, sad time. And she noticed a lot of not-friendly situations for job seekers and/or not professional behaviour from the HR side. Claudia was dreaming to improve this process, making it much more structured, clear and people-friendly.
When she started to work at Exeo Lab Srl she appeared «on another side of barricades». Claudia was a part of the hiring team. And then other challenges got so obvious: lack of time, low priority, multitasking with no possibility to focus on the hiring process 100%.
To be honest, all project team members have a lot of challenges with hiring the right people and finding the time allocated for this process. One of the biggest challenges was mentioned as «How to attract talent to the remote locations«. At the first glance, you should hire anyone from the local potential employees’ pool. But is it true? There are so many options right now, then remote work is as the standard option since 2020.
Re-CREW was kicked off on Friday, November 28 in Copenhagen. And probably in the best location in the city – Copenhagen Business School.
All teams arrived on time and in a very good mood. Despite the darkness and coldness of November, energy was bobbling in the room, smiles were shining and warming up everyone in the office. Danish coffee maybe is not the most attractive and delicious thing for Italian, Slovenian or Spanish partners. But good pastries and small gifts made the atmosphere very cosy and festive. Christmas was just around the corner. And love was in the air. «No gift is too small to give or too simple to receive if it’s chosen with thoughtfulness and given with love.» Unknown
What were the goals of the Kick-off meeting?
- Plan the upcoming activities in the Re-CREW project.
- Review Project Handbook and establish the evaluation and monitoring procedures.
- Present work plan for WP2.
- Present work plan for WP3.
- Present work plan for WP5.
- Reflect on two perspectives of recruitment for SMEs based on the presentation of the external guests.
- Consolidation of the consortium: get to know each other.
- Exposure to Danish culture through activities.
What do we need for the successful kick-off meeting and to run the project with a flow?
Open, enthusiastic and professional people, who have a passion for projects and share their expertise with others with clarity and ease.
- Exeo Lab Srl (Italy),
- Gestión Estratégica e Innovación (Spain),
- Prios (Norway),
- p-consulting.gr (Greece),
- International School for Social and Business Studies (ISSBS) (Slovenia),
- We Are Entrepreneurs (Denmark)
are the best collection of the such tribe!
Also, it is crucial to have a perfect very detailed Schedule / Program for the day. It was ready in advance, shared and presented to everyone participant at a good time before the meeting. As well as some «homework» / preparation which was needed from the participants’ side. It looked like all partners were competing who did the best preparation. Top-notch professionals for sure!
How it went?
Internal Evaluation and Quality assurance were developed by Exeo Lab and ISSBS and were presented by Claudia Caggiano in a simple and clear way. No questions from the consortium.
Also, it was agreed on the plan for the upcoming activities and face-to-face meetings:
- TPM2 – Norway 27-28 June 2023
- LTTa – Slovenia 14-16 November 2023
- FTPM – Italy 25-26 June 2024
ISSBS was presented by Valerij Dermol, International School for Social and Business Studies (ISSBS) (Slovenia). The main points were:
Data will be collected in 3 phases
- Desk research. Topics: Recruitment process (Exeo Lab), Talent management (ISSBS), Social responsibility policy (Prios), Health and well-being at the workplace (GEINNOVA), Needs for SMEs: what kind of staff (p-consulting.gr), External environment: what are the challenges (We Are Entrepreneurs).
- Interviews with HR professionals.
- Survey the small enterprises.
KPIs 60 user cases (10-15 enterprises per partner).
- A report will be compiled by ISSBS Graphics to be used and information to be displayed in a visual way to avoid lengthy translations.
- Suggested eTranslator (for translations).
Work plan for the training curriculum, presented by Milagros Barrios from GEINNOVA. Step by step, task by task, module by module.
- e-learning platform as an option was introduced.
- Pilot for training curriculum (60 small biz, 10 per country).
- The partners have the freedom to set-up the training as they see fit.
- Translations into Danish, Spanish, Italian, Slovenian, Norwegian and Greek.
- Officially will be delivered through the projects’ channels and the Erasmus+ Results Platform.
To better understand the small-businesses perspective, Andreea Spaima from Ethan Partners | Global Executive Search and Kristel Hering from Amitylux, presented the partners with their thoughts and experience about recruitment from a head-hunter and a small business owner, respectively. It is always great value to get all answers from first-line experts. Andreea shared her experience as a hiring manager. She dived deep into all processes and gave some «golden nuggets» pieces of advice.
Kristel was sharing her experience from per small business perspective. Some simple and very effective tip & tricks were as «go and implement right now»:
- Create templates for everything you can. Intro email, reply email, answers and etc.
- Ask for video presentations.
- Do a surprise call. I the person polite? How she/he will respond to you without any preparation?
- Give some hands-on tasks to complete and check if and how a person will manage to do them. Also, what is the behaviour? Are tasks completed on time?
- Find the platforms which will provide the highest value for your money.
Dissemination was presented by Charitini-Maria Skoulidi and Panagiotis G. Anastassopoulos from p-consulting.gr
- The communication and dissemination plan was reviewed and approved by all partners.
- Decide to use Social media channels: Facebook and LinkedIn. Monthly posts will be created by partners monthly according to the Dissemination Plan.
- Website presented and approved by partners
- Blog posts are to be uploaded every month according to the Dissemination Plan.
- p-consulting.gr will finalise the text for the website together with flyers, brochures and other promotional material
- Agreed details of the Newsletters.
The smart plan was drafted on how to work on research of the current status of recruiting in small businesses. The crystal clarity is real gold and the foundation of all projects!
Discussions flowed as a river agreeing on conclusions and consensus, defining the next steps and pointing out responsibilities.
Collecting feedback or voting tools made it easy to define the main keywords.
Everyone experienced the power of hybrid meeting. The remote participant was missing nothing but one thing – traditional Danish cake during the coffee break.
It was a full long, busy and very productive day!
Did we have we some cultural experience?
Oh, yes! What could better represent Denmark than Tivoli Gardens, also known simply as Tivoli? It is an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world.
Gløg, the great chat and photos with Santa Claus was the perfect ending to the day. Despite the long day, everyone was happy to spend a time together and have fun in Tivoli. Look forward to the next meetings already!
We will share more about Re-Crew on the go!
