Personnel growth development– GSIP2 Learnings

Project News

TEXT | Kati Myrén
PHOTO | Milja Veini

Project Urban Growth – GSIP Vantaa addresses a socially important issue when it encourages companies in Vantaa to make social investments and grow responsibly. The purpose is to raise the competence level of the workforce in Vantaa, improve and increase employment in the region and support companies to grow responsibly.

GSIP 2 objective was to support companies’ sustainable growth by developing personnel skills. This is an important goal in general but particularly important it is in Vantaa because over 30 % of the labour force have no education after mandatory school. This is almost 8 % higher than in the other five big cities in Finland.

GSIP2 service options were:

  • Executive Coaching 
  • Growth Coaching 
  • Services for Developing Professional Skills 
  • Growth Clinic 
  • Morning Coffee Webinars 

After the innovative service development period GSIP 2 services were offered to selected SMEs in Vantaa. GSIP 2 services started in SMEs during the spring 2020 with the Executive Coaching sessions. This service reached in total 43 participants from 24 companies. Executive Coaching one-to-one sessions were followed by Growth Coaching which were targeted to managers and specialists in SMEs. In total 260 personnel from 27 companies participated in Growth Coaching.

Service for developing professional skills included tailored sessions for SMEs personnel giving information about apprenticeship training. Also, personal study plans were made with those who wanted to start apprenticeship training. In total 137 participants from 16 companies participated to this service, and in total 87 apprenticeship contracts were signed. In addition, future business online event Growth Clinic reached 56 participants and 19 Morning Coffee Webinars got ca. 200 enrolments. 

Tailored services with tangible results

Particular success factors lie in tailoring services, in concrete actions and in account manager model. We understood perfectly well that the entity that considers both the company and the individual needs is the most appealing. Secondly, the service must produce the tangible actions, models, and processes to help companies’ everyday life. Finally, our account managers took care of an excellent customer experience, i.e., holistic consideration was in their focus when dealing with the company representants.

At the latest, during GSIP 2 we realized that the schedule and the scope as well as the extent of the service should be planned together with the company bearing in mind their needs and hopes. And the importance of communication is huge! You should pay attention to i.a., communication timeliness, accuracy, and comprehensibility.     

Obviously, Covid-19 affected also on GSIP 2 service execution. It challenged us to create agile services and to react flexibly to changed environment. Despite of the peculiar year or because of it, GSIP 2 was very successful. We shared information and we coached, we enabled, and we influenced. We reached almost 700 contacts! From a project perspective we learned too in the process. Now it is time to continue with GSIP 3 services – it is about technological shift and growth within professional development.