Multilingual workplace mentors supporting recruitment and onboarding of newcomers: a diary-based thesis about creating a curriculum for training course for mentors
Hiltunen, Sanna (2022)
Hiltunen, Sanna
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060214587
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060214587
Tiivistelmä
The challenges of immigrant employment have been at the forefront of the societal debate in Finland in recent years. It is stated that the country needs international talents and foreign labor force, but in reality, it is difficult for immigrants already living in Finland to start building a career. The most common reason that employers mention for not hiring an immigrant is the lack of Finnish skills no matter how much proficiency in the language is needed at the work itself (Owal group 2021; Taloustutkimus Oy 2020). Developing the receptivity of the working environment or changing the onboarding processes is less likely to come to the fore.
Startup Refugees is an organisation that has helped immigrants since 2015 to find a work or start a business in Finland. Their northernmost office started to develop new services for hiring companies to develop their receptivity and one method was to use multilingual workplace mentors when hiring and onboarding. These mentors’ tasks would be providing language support to both, jobseeker and employer in the beginning of the process, as well as work as a mediator of Finnish working life practices in their field. This thesis will cover the process of creating a curriculum for this training course, how it was conducted with the pilot group and what was the outcome.
This thesis uses a diary reporting model and will cover a time span of nine months, which entail the design and testing of the training process. In total, three groups of mentors were trained, having in total twelve participants. Some of the main findings of the study are the need for multilingual workplace mentor to understand Finnish working legislations and practices, have good communication skills as well as strong ethical value base and independent approach.
Startup Refugees is an organisation that has helped immigrants since 2015 to find a work or start a business in Finland. Their northernmost office started to develop new services for hiring companies to develop their receptivity and one method was to use multilingual workplace mentors when hiring and onboarding. These mentors’ tasks would be providing language support to both, jobseeker and employer in the beginning of the process, as well as work as a mediator of Finnish working life practices in their field. This thesis will cover the process of creating a curriculum for this training course, how it was conducted with the pilot group and what was the outcome.
This thesis uses a diary reporting model and will cover a time span of nine months, which entail the design and testing of the training process. In total, three groups of mentors were trained, having in total twelve participants. Some of the main findings of the study are the need for multilingual workplace mentor to understand Finnish working legislations and practices, have good communication skills as well as strong ethical value base and independent approach.