Activ'Action

“We want everyone to be aware and value all their potential, that can be technical, relational, intellectual …”

CONTEXT

Activ’Action is an association launched in June 2014 by three unemployed people. They created Activ’Action in order to help unemployed people don’t suffer from this situation and to use this period of unemployment as an opportunity.

Their ambition is to develop a community of talents, people who help each other, with strong values such as kindness, solidarity, open-mindedness, initiative.

Through fun workshops, Activ’Action has main objective is to enable unemployed people to use this situation as an opportunity to:expand their network, identify their potential and train themselves in the skills of tomorrow, especially soft skills, create an action plan to realize their professional and personal projects.

More than 850 workshops were organized for more than 6,000 participants in 20 cities in France and abroad.

Feedback are very positive: more than 94% of participants recommend Activ’Action and more than 84% say they have found confidence. 180 people were trained to run workshops themselves

THE CHALLENGE

Improve the workshops offered and the services offered around the workshops.

Create commitment.

ROLE & TEAM

I worked alone on this subject.

I wanted to offer my services voluntarily on social topics because I aspire to work on projects with social or environmental impact.

This work was also part of a dissertation as part of my UX certification.

USERS & AUDIENCE

Jobseeker career path and profile

All socio-occupational categories are concerned by unemployment, which in 2017 is affected by 10.6% of the working population and which is more likely to impact the unskilled, the young and the elderly.

This situation affects the individual strongly in all aspects of his life: economic, social, psychological and societal.

Absence of work can lead to trauma and psychological disturbances, a change in personality, or even a “deconstruction” of the person. This phenomenon is accentuated by the length of the period of unemployment.

The growing demands made by recruiters “to have the right degree, adequate experience, professional references, recommendations and especially soft skills” disarm the unemployed already significantly weakened by his lived situation.

Activ’Actor Profile

The Activ’Actor is the participant in a workshop.

According to 2 studies carried out, one in June, the other in July 2017, the Activ’Actors profile is as follows:They are graduates:

• 78.6% of people have at least one BAC + 2, of which 50.0% have a BAC + 5.

• 100% of people have at least a BAC + 2, of which 64.28% have a bac +5 or higher.

They are long-term unemployed:

• 67.8% of the respondents lived or live an unemployment period of more than one year, of which 57.9% one of more than 2 years.

Respondents are aged between 24 and 62 years old (all studies combined), from a wide variety of professional backgrounds.

Motivations and expectations

Three main motivations are identified during the interviews. People come to register for a first workshop in order to:

• to be re-motivated, reboosted,

• to break the isolation,

• out of curiosity.

DESIGN PROCESS

In Situ Observation

In order to better understand their methods, an in situ observation was carried out for one month.

This active immersion allowed me to participate and to experiment their method via 5 workshops.

Research of scientific/marketing studies on the subject

Qualitative research

14 people were interviewed at the end of the month in order to:

• evaluate the upstream needs of participants’ workshops,

• evaluate the results / impacts of the workshops on the participants,

• identify gaps and things to improve in the organization of the workshops,

• test improvement ideas.

Workshop

Once the problems were identified with the previous methods, I proposed to the Activ’Action team to participate in a workshop. This is to make them aware of the importance of the problems identified and to find solutions together.

For this, I asked workshop animators, who are still unemployed, who had gone through all the workshops to join the Activ’Action team. In order to confront the ideas.

RESULTS

Activ’Action in its workshops implements methods usually intended for companies/organizations, with a business purpose. These methods are intended for problem-solving (process, customer) and for creating products or services.Activ’Action has diverted them as part of the creation of individual value, but also collective.The work in the workshops focuses on the problem solving and psychological brakes of the individual. This work helps to rebuild the person, to develop his potential through social empathy.Collective intelligence is used for the personal development of unemployed people.

The experience feedbacks undeniably highlight the psychological impact of the workshops.The workshops allow the unemployed people to get back on their feet, to be reintegrated socially, to re-motivate themselves, to learn from others.They also improve the communication and the relational posture of the Activ’Actors: trust, listening, emotional intelligence …Activ’Action creates a climate conducive to development and learning, including the learning of soft skills.

The climate and context (by games) are important for the participant to integrate, contextualize or provoke the intended skills.The activities to be carried out and the events to be managed contribute to the construction of the meaning necessary for the manifestation of the soft skills. Thus, facilitation methods and selected games are interesting.Activ’Actors co-create together. Workshops, based on entertainment (theater) or passions of Activ’Actors are born. The impact on personal development is real.The development of collective intelligence generates trust and commitment.

Suggesting to the participants to evolve as a facilitator is very interesting, indeed animation and facilitation can be useful in many positions.It also helps to maintain the process: a participant becomes a facilitator. If he leaves another replaces him.

On the path of a person looking for a job, the workshops are a base to jump start in the job search, with other perspectives.Unfortunately, workshops do not currently provide more concrete tools for job search. Workshops on the job search technique have been initiated and are trying to be maintained.

Apart from the 3 workshops Boost, Up and Jump, there is not a real course of evolution proposed, especially because of the availability of volunteers. As a result, professional development is limited.

The workshops allow the creation of a friendly network but not yet a professional network.

In the development of Activ’Action, several brakes are raised, including technological. For example, no possibility of contact before the workshop, if the facilitators do not provide personally their pieces of information.

The links that have been created and the network are limited by the lack of tools facilitating the maintenance and development of the network.

RECOMMENDATION

Recommendations: Reinforcement of the “Activ’Actor” journey

→ Continue the implementation of the online questionnaire to measure the psychological impact of the workshops on Activ’Actor over time.

It will allow visualizing the evolution of the emotions and moods of the Activ’Actors over a period of 6 months starting from their first workshop. A periodic evaluation will contribute to measurable monitoring and evaluation of their progress. Collected items may be used to enhance existing workshops.

→ Propose (and not impose) to the participants, a path, which allows the personal and professional development, without the obligation to carry out all the workshops. In particular, it will be necessary to provide a number of basic workshops that are superior to the existing one, making it possible to use the skills needed to find a job. It will also be necessary to make it clear to the participants that the benefit they can derive from the workshops is closely related to the number of workshops conducted. In other words, it is necessary to give them concretely a roadmap.

→ Developing the commitment to workshops through the gamification of their career path: people wanted to have a logbook to follow their progress (paper, digital), elements of improvement proposed during the survey.

→ Propose a “Facilitator” training with several levels and certifications (Activ’Action has become a training organization): this will allow a more “serious” commitment from the facilitators and a maintenance of the new workshops related to the training of the Activ’Actor.

→ Developing commitment to the association, in other ways than animation: the idea of sponsorship was well received in the qualitative survey. However, it was noted that rules and limits need to be defined. Indeed the sponsorship is a professional accompaniment, however, some people present trauma and psychological disorders, aspects that can only be treated by specialists (doctors).

→ Create a tool that allows the community to self-manage and co-develop without the Activ’Action team, but under its control (facilitating the creation of events and workshops for example).

→ Build bridges between acquired skills, including soft skills and CV, cover letter and Linked In.