Jorge Gonzales Jimenez has good reasons to smile again: Attending a SAP-training program landed him to a new job. And he is in good company; 78% of his fellow students who participated in SAP’s education initiative in Spain have also found new positions.
The situation in Spain is dramatic: Its 52% youth unemployment rate is the highest in the European Community. At the same time, companies in Spain desperately need skilled candidates for technology jobs.
Committed to equipping the world’s youth with the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century workforce, SAP’s CSR team – as well as dozens of committed employee volunteers –decided to confront this gap head-on. In June 2012, an education program was launched in partnership with Fundacion Tomillo. It provides high quality technological training to young or long-term unemployed people – exactly the populations who have fewer possibilities to improve their employability. Since then, SAP volunteers and professional teachers have taught SAP ERP core business areas such as Finance and Controlling, as well as Sales, HCM, and Logistics. More than 300 skilled volunteer hours have been provided to 60 students so far.
Check out the following video to find more details about this initiative.
The commitment of SAP volunteers has been impressive and spanned the business – Training, Field Services, Active Global Support, Sustainability, CSR, Sales and Presales, and HR. Some of them have participated as instructors, while others helped with project coordination, program design and materials development to use during the course.
Core elements of the program have led to its extremely high success rates:
- Courses led by professional teachers and SAP volunteers: The program has evolved from a pure volunteer program to a mixed initiative.
- Strong focus on social skills in addition to SAP knowledge.
- Follow up with successful job placements, measuring how social skills training helped the participant’s successfully apply for a new job
The program will continue in 2015 and while the team continues to make improvements to the initiative - the goal remains the same: Improve on the great employment rate success to date, and help the training participants to re-join the labor market. These goals are great motivation for the entire team: Fundacion Tomillo, program participants and SAP employees!
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