EIC (European Innovation Council) gave WorkPilots “TECH FOR SOCIAL GOOD” Recognition -
WorkPilots was chosen as one of three start-ups from EIC community who are tackling unemployment, equality and creating social impact. #Techforsocialgood #worlddayofsocialjustice.
We are honoured of this recognition. Thank You!
Service of the year award
End of 2017 we got a surprising, but very pleasant contact. We had won the honorary award of service work of the year, given by The Finnish Service Alliance. By that annually given trophy, Finnish Service Alliance wants to lift up successful service reformers and emphasize the service innovations’ significance to the society and the success of companies.
Our whole team was very flattered and thankful for this acknowledgement, this was absolutely incredible. We had been working over two years building our service, and this kind of public recognition made us feel really happy. Special thanks belongs to our awesome partners, who have been in significant role in the planning of our service since the beginning. In addition without support of our partners (cities, municipalities, companies, organizations, foundations and numerous private people) and of course without the support of numerous youngsters we would not be here. We would not exist without all of you and your courage to start trying new solutions in our common and important mission to get young people into work life.
Kalle Nieminen from Sitra spoke about the reasons of judges’ selection please find his speech below.
“Finnish Service Alliance’s annual honorary award for service work in 2017 is given to Work Pilots Ltd. WorkPilots has created a solution, which grabs to one of the main problems of society’s challenges: employment of young people and that way to alienation of young people.
In Finland and in western world generally, work has been important way to attach to the society and way to be part of society’s action. This way also the identity of Finnish person is built by work. This does not make the solution of WorkPilots more insignificant, vice versa, it highlights the significance of work as one of the important pieces of youngster’s life and growth.
In addition to social effectivity, Work Pilots has successfully created an implementation which fulfills the requirements. It is also shown in an example as starting internationalization. When effectivity and successful implementation are combined in the solution, we can talk about successful social innovation.
Work Pilots describes the service experience very well on their web page and especially in the videos. Different kind of material creates rousing and sparking story of service experience to the different user groups – youngsters, households and companies.
As their values Work Pilots lists easiness, trustworthiness and fairness. Two first of these are good values for both, to products and for the service. Fairness is a value, which fits for service and especially for the service, which cherishes the effectiveness of society.
Hold on to that.
Congratulations Eija Kiviranta and Jari Raitanen”.
THANK YOU ALL FOR ONE MORE TIME – IT’S GREAT TO CONTINUE FROM HERE #TOGETHER!
Insurance group’s CSR campaign - connecting young and elderly
Giving up is not our thing
RedCross Savo-Karelia District and insurance company LähiTapiola East worked together, young people got jobs and elderly got help - supported by WorkPilots.
LähiTapiola Itä is an insurance company owned by its customers. We are located in Finland in the East (Itä) are an independent regional company belonging to the group. We are strong and responsible local player in North Karelia as well as in the Upper and North-Eastern Savo, close to our customers. We're considering us as a the “Life Security Company”.
We make social impact in our region by promoting local well-being and vitality. The priorities are children, young people, the elderly, education and entrepreneurship. We have also set up by the social responsibility working group where we come up with ideas and consider various donations.
Connecting young and elderly
In this idea, we wanted to support young and value the interaction between different generations. We decided to set aside 80,000 euros for this, which is almost half of the amount set aside for safety of life impact projects this year. We decided to create the implementation in collaboration with WorkPilots. In this way young person begins to form also own CV in the platform for other opportunities. We chose to donate hours to various SPR local departments, and they found the local eldercare places. In addition, the participating departments would receive a separate donation for children and youth.
Then why the Red Cross? For us it is absolutely essential for us that partner is responsible and trustworthy. Our district company has a comprehensive and, above all, well functioning network. We wanted to be active in the whole Eastern area, and with RedCross summer work with the elderly could come true in as many places as possible. The Finnish Red Cross is also the nationwide partner for the whole group, so this helped us all to bring nationwide co-operation to local level and help even smaller communities.
I introduced this idea to our district office, we thought together practical implementation and division of labor, from there that co-operation was set in motion and was further refined along the way.
Together, we decided to organize information sessions for young people's recruiters at different schools on Valentine's Day, while the young people would be told also about saving (which is one of our business areas). So everything was ready for the summer, RedCross departments were actively involved, jobs had been agreed and young people had already been selected.
The interest did not discourage either when came the pandemic, which revolutionized everything. The restrictions came into force and very soon it became clear that the planned work in elderly homes would need to be canceled. A common thought emerged quickly that the jobs promised to young people would not be canceled.
This issue was taken up in the RedCross departments and they did a lot of work for new jobs to be found there. It succeeded and nearly 50 young people got a summer job. The initially thought two week period changed to new opportunities by doing small fragmented tasks during the whole summer. The promise to young people was not deceived, it feels good, and grateful for everyones help. Thank you very much for that.
I attended the mid summer party arranged by “Elderly care” social organisation (Vanhusten Tuki ry).
Many elderly people were for the first time outdoors, we had lovely food (including finnish sausage), enjoyed the beautiful weather and just did general chatting, it was nice. I also met some young people who were the helping the event. Got to hear lovely experiences from the project.
We have excellent stakeholders in this project, including local media company who told this story in local newspapers. Part of that kind of collaboration is visibility, to increase people’s awareness in the RedCross and the valuable work the do locally. The diversity of their activities becomes known and this way perhaps new members and supporters can be found. Newspaper articles have created visibility and information has been passed.
As of this writing end of summer 2020, a large proportion of young people have already done their jobs, everything has gone well. Especially gratifying has been that after all and with changed jobs most of them were related in one way or another helping the elderly.
This effort would not have been possible without all the support from RedCross and their local offices and our common intent to help young people. Giving up is not for us, there were many curves on the way but we still managed to do what we intended.
I've been in contact with many RedCross departments and have got so happy feedback which I have enjoyed. Thanks again to all - it has been a pleasure to do this project with all of you.
Mari Pykäläinen, LähiTapiola Itä, Corporate Social Responsibility Working Group, member of the board
Thousand and one stories
Thousand and one stories is the Finnish story collection, which consists stories, which are related to young peoples’ experiences of work life in our platform, its challenges and opportunities and how tasks provided have helped them to move on in their lives.
Chapter 1 – ”Only Rescue”
”Job was the only job of the summer, because I didn’t get any other summer job. In that sense it was my rescue.”
”I didn’t get any other job in the summer, but this was anyway the work of the field I have studied and an excellent work experience.”
”Young people have problems with getting money/work experience, when they are only 16-years-old, so this application has helped me to get a work, even though it was just one gig.”
”Without WorkPilots I wouldn’t have had any chances to get more work experience in addition to my summer job.”
Chapter 2 – Valuable work experience
WorkPilots helps continuously to get work. That way I got for example cleaning job and that employer promised me more job. Thank you. – Kasmir
”I got a gig from that kind of job, I’ve always wanted to get.”
”It has been magnificent to earn first salaries of my life from you. It strengthens my know-how in the work life and my CV also.”
”Everyone are awesome experiences and I’ve got to done that kind of jobs that I could not have done otherwise.”
”I told in the summer job interview about every work tasks I have done via WorkPilots and employer saw this as a positive advantage.”
”I have learned that even though you would not get summer job by applying to them, you can get employed other way and spend the best summer ever.”
Chapter 3 – Finally summer job
”Without application I would probably have left without a summer job again this summer.” – Elina
I had applied summer jobs actively for three years and sent several job applications. Anyway I never got a job, and I didn’t have luck in the city’s summer job lottery. I got to hear quite often that I didn’t have enough work experience.
In the beginning of this year one youngster of our friend family told that he/she had downloaded WorkPilots-application and had found gig work tasks for him/her that way. He/She recommended that for me too to download it, if I could find something for me too. I downloaded the app and soon I got some work tasks and earned some pocket money.
In the spring I applied to summer jobs again and thanks to WorkPilots-application, I had now some markings on my CV. Soon, because of my WorkPilots-experience, I got an invitation to the first job interview of my life and I got a job as church guide for the whole summer.
I’m really thankful that I was recommended to use WorkPilots. Without the application I would probably had left without summer job even this year. Using the app is very easy and I can choose work tasks very easily according to my own schedule, and I will surely use it in the future also. – Elina
”I got the best possible summer job.” – Valtteri
”I participated in the piloting of the WorkPilots-application in the spring of 2016. I got this chance via youth government of our municipality. During that two-week pilot period I did a few work tasks that fit well for me and I earned some pocket money.
After that work task I got maybe the best possible summer job, and it’s not yet cast iron, that it would be just a summer job. At least for me downloading WorkPilots to my phone has been very great thing.
Chapter 4 – Accumulating skills
*…offered me the task of content producer for one evening and it was instructive experience. I got a experience of making interviews and filming with videocamera.”
”I spent a really great day with kids during the autumn vacation and it helped me to develop myself as so called leader.”
”My best experience was a childcare gig. Via service I got to know, how to get on with children”.
”WorkPilots is splendid way to test different fields and possibly learn new things about yourself at the same time”.
Chapter 5 – Self-confidence and finding the strengths.
”In the event I got to know new people and I was in touch with many people I didn’t know at all before. That experience helped me to be more open with new people”.
”I got more courage to go along to new things and talk to new people”
”I was taken seriously”.
”I’ve got positive feedback from the work tasks, which has given me self-confidence to that I can do also other jobs, not just the jobs of my own field.”
”… even though the work hasn’t always been so mediocre, I still get to show reliability and I could ask them for a summer job next summer”.
” I have found new strengths of myself and also learned, what I still have to develop.” – Aapo
On one winter day my friend asked me to market WorkPilots with him. I downloaded the application and after looking at it for a moment I was wondering, is it really so that works are just a few clicks away.
Marketing in the shopping mall was my first task and I enjoyed being there very well. Time went fast and soon few hours had gone. I learned a lot of self-confidence, courage and initiative, which made to apply to many other tasks too. I’ve worked in the museum with kids, done some garden work and worked as the kiosk sales man in he Finnish baseball -game for example.
Work tasks have given me a lot of important work experience and I’ve found new strengths of myself and also learned what I still have to develop. Anyway I have managed all the tasks well and I’ve done my best. My personality is like that, if I start something, it has to be finished also. This attribute has been really useful while working!
Every employer have treated me well and given me clear instructions, what the work includes. Friendly colleagues have also given me their part to my only good experiences of WorkPilots. I hope that nice and versatile work tasks make it possible for me and many other youngsters to get different work experiences! -Aapo
Chapter 6 – New dimensions from the world
”Some people can find longer-term job via WorkPilots, for me WorkPilots opened the door to Asia.” – Erika
A bit under a year ago we planned a trip to Indonesia with my friend. However, we had one problem; how to collect money to that trip. We googled different ways to collect money and we found WorkPilots, application, with which we started to go for our dream. It didn’t take so long, when we got our first gigs and we were raking the garden of one nursing home. In addition to raking, we cleaned an office, mailed letters and attended to activities of Kotka’s ohjaamo.
In April we flew to Indonesia and we spent there two weeks. WorkPilots helped with collecting the trip money and at the same time we got to create relations to many companies and operators in Kotka. I have worked also after trip myself. I was an assistant physical education instructor in park gymnastics exercises for a while and I’ve also been on a WorkPilots introduction video.
My experiences have been only positive! Pocket money has come to useful purpose, experience has increased and the application is very easy to use. I’m also really positively surprised by the fluent and continuous co-operation of Ohjaamo and WorkPilots. Me myself had a lot of work experience before, but for them who has not, WorkPilots gives easy way to get into work life and brings wanted experience and possibly opens the doors to the work life even more.
I will look for jobs via WorkPilots also in the future and I hope more employers, entrepreneurs and households get to know about it. Some people can find longer-term job via WorkPilots, for me WorkPilots opened the door to Asia. – Erika
Chapter 7 – I got a job!
”I got my first gig after attending to test the application via Duunista toimeen -project and after it I started to follow the application actively. After this I got to get few gigs from Kouvolan Lakritsi (liquorice factory) and after that I got more gigs from them. After few gigs they wanted to offer me more permanent job and nowadays I’m working in their factory outlet.
Factory outlet is located in the same premises with Kouvola’s Filmtown, so after few months I got a job also from Filmtown as a sales person. WorkPilots-application gave me a great start to work life and via it I’ve got much experience, which will surely help me in the future.” – Aino
Waltteri’s story:
I graduated as a bachelor’s degree (BBA) in 2015 and unfortunately jobs just leaped farther way apart from one temporary job of 2,5 months and some irregular work shifts. In August 2017 the path to work life opened, when I got chance from WorkPilots.
In have created my own blog to tell how I left here my comfort zone and about my learnings, which I got on my way with the sales guru and meeting young workers.”