In Autumn 2022, Scanfil Åtvidaberg, Swedish Public Employment Service and Montico, a Swedish personnel service company, participated in a program called Labor Market Education. The program focuses on educating and training unemployed individuals in cooperation with different companies. For Scanfil, the purpose of the program was to find and educate unemployed individuals and to do training at Scanfil – and hopefully to continue their career at Scanfil after the training period. The focus was on blue-collar positions. The need for the program stemmed from a common challenge: how to find talented and motivated employees to meet the growing business needs.
Highlights of the program: almost 100 applicants, 11 training participants, and 6 new employees
In September 2023, the first meeting between Scanfil Åtvidaberg, Swedish Public Employment Service and Montico was organized to agree on the guidelines of the program.
The Swedish Public Employment Service was responsible for finding suitable candidates by advertising the program and the opportunity to do a training at Scanfil and for doing the first screening. They received about 100 applications and 20 of them were invited to visit the Scanfil Åtvidaberg factory to hear more about the open positions and Scanfil as a company. In addition, Montico conducted short interviews.Most of the candidates continued to the educational part of the training organized by Montico. They were taught about how to work in a factory environment as well as more practical things such as how to read technical drawings. In addition, some of the participants completed truck driver´s license to succeed in their positions. The educational training took from 6 to 8 weeks depending on the role. After the educational training, 11 candidates started the 4-week training at Scanfil Åtvidaberg.
“We were really happy with everyone participating in the training. They were really motivated, and knowledge and skillset gained during the educational training helped them to adjust to the new working environment very quickly” says Marie Sjödin, HR Manager at Scanfil Åtvidaberg, and continues “we are also happy to announce, that after the training, six of them continued their Scanfil careers as full-time employees”.
The program is planned to continue quarterly
The program was a success: over 10 participants gained valuable training and work experience through the training, 6 unemployed participants found interesting new jobs, and Scanfil Åtvidaberg found motivated new employees with excellent skillsets. In addition, one of the main benefits of the program was that Scanfil was able to find a more diverse group of talent who might not have applied to the positions otherwise.
“The cooperation with Scanfil, Employment Services and Montico worked really smoothly. We are extremely happy with the current situation,” says Andreas Apelqvist, HR Business Partner at Scanfil Åtvidaberg. Since this has been a great way to find new talented employees, Scanfil Åtvidaberg has planned to continue the program once a quarter on a smaller scale.
