Working abroad in a foreign country is a challenge which implies a great effort in order to familiarize with the customs and the culture of the new country as well as the chance to assume bigger roles and greater responsibilities in their professional career. Either the culture shock or even issues like support, the uncertainty, etc. can directly affect the professional efficiency. For this purpose, the project aims at finding out, which components an ideal intercultural preparation and an integration programme for companies should contain.Usually the need for being prepared for international exchanges is restricted to those who will go abroad. But a decisive role for a successful exchange program plays also the mobility partner that is i.e. training instructors or those who work with foreign employees. Similar to employees they have to deal with intercultural and communicational challenges. Combining these two target groups permits an overall preparation of all parties involved in mobility programs: foreign participants as well as companies and their employees. In the first step, there will be a research and collection of studies regarding early termination of mobility and significant problems during mobility experienced by expats and apprentices/trainees. On this basis, the main reasons for early termination of mobility will be summarized.In the second step, the opinions, fears, hopes and experiences of different target groups (see below) in connection with their mobility will be discovered. This will be done by interviews and surveys with these target groups. 1. Expats- Expats, who are going to go abroad (e.g. their aspirations, aims, fears, hopes and, most importantly, their opinion on how a perfect preparation should be like.)- Expats, who are currently abroad (e.g. their current challenges, whether they participated in some kind of preparation and if it was adequate to prepare them for those challenges)- Expats, who just got home from abroad and especially those, who terminated their mobility earlier than planned. (e.g. their experiences and difficulties during the mobility, especially reasons (e.g. whether they do have preparation programs, what components they include and how successful they are)2. Companies, who work with expats (e.g. whether they have some kind of integration programs for their employees and incoming expats and how successful they are)There will be a minimum of 25 surveys per partner and per target group (Expats and companies), so 50 surveys per partner, thus 250 surveys in total.There will also be a minimum of 12 interviews conducted by each partner, so 60 interviews in total.The aim of the research, the surveys and interviews is to identify and categorize:1. The most crucial factors in the different areas (such as intercultural competence, language, building a social environment, psychological aspects, etc.), which lead to severe problems or early termination of mobility.2. The factors/components which should be included in every expat preparation program3. The factors/components which should be included in every integration program for incoming expatsThe final aim is the Elaboration of a report which summarizes all findings from the surveys and interviews. This analysis will reflect the real situation of abroad assignments as well as a list of recommendations or best practices to improve this kind of professional mobility in all the countries involved (Germany, Italy, Belgium and Spain). For this reason, we expect significant findings, as there will be a deeper knowledge of the key factors which guarantee a successful expatriate assignment.The participants can use the results in order to improve the quality of their work, intercultural communication skills and the success of their foreign assignments. The project partners benefit from the project from gaining insights regarding education paths in other countries, establishing and broadening their international network and moreover, they can use the results as a basis for further projects in this area, such as the design of a preparation/integration program, that contains all of the most crucial factors that were found during this project and to use it.The results will be disseminated even after the project has ended, so its sustainability implies results in the short and long-term. Also, every person with whom the results are shared, can use them for their own creation of preparation/integration programs. Besides, the participation of project partners in international networks ensures its incorporation and multiplier transfers to other people interested in or even companies which want to develop good strategies for their present or future expats.

ITONBOARD introduces young people to career orientation possibilities in IT with a focus on open source software communities. The onboarding program extends from gamified career orientation activities to in-depth e-learning to facilitating the involvement of companies in order to offer a practical component.Students in the general education system are first playfully familiarized with the basic ins and outs of careers in the realm of IT.Teachers are provided with the tools they need to carry out IT career orientation initiatives using innovative and engaging methods.Young people can use e-learning to obtain further information on their own with regard to the IT occupations in question.European IT companies are encouraged to offer internships to both secondary and post-secondary students and are offered guidance to this end. Facilitation of contact between IT companies offering internships and young people looking for them is provided via an online internship exchange. The project components interlock seamlessly with one another and guide students from their first playful contact with IT-related topics to the final community onboarding.The content is based on common working methods of open source projects and communities. All project results will be made freely available on an online platform and are designed to be transferable to other communities and technologies.The concrete project results include gamified career orientation activities at schools in escape game form, a guide for the implementation of project weeks at schools, e-learning courses on the topic of IT career orientation, an internship guide designed to assist medium-sized and small IT companies in the design of an internship and an online internship exchange as a European marketplace for internship providers and interns.

<< Objectives >>At the latest with the worldwide pandemic, it is clear that job profiles are changing dramatically fast, a rapid shift towards a fully digital working world is taking place.In addition to offering real mobilities, the project wants to give trainees the opportunity to expand the quality of their training and to come into contact with the European idea and interculturality remotely during their training and thus subsequently be even more open to international cooperation and digital working.<< Implementation >>There will be 6 main activities. Activity 1 will analyse digital competence requirements in the craft/electrical sector. Phase 2 will implement multiplier events in all partner countries to gather inputs. Activity 3 will develop a concept for apprentices to implement an international remote project work. Activity 4 will implement this concept as an example. Activity 5 evaluates phase 4. Phase 6 disseminates the tested concept among trainees and training centres during 4 multiplier events.<< Results >>The project partners expect to end up with a valid concept guide that can be used by VET-centres and their trainers to implement transnational, (interdisciplinary) working groups of trainees in remote project work. Ideal working environments, intercultural preparations, language courses and required digital tools are addressed.In this way, the partners want to awaken openness for the European idea and the willingness as well as readiness for digital communication and interaction.

"The project TALENTS4CONSTRUCTION was dealing with the lack of junior staff in the European construction sector. The consortium intended to explore new approaches to be disseminated in an easy and understandle way. Often some topics dealing with HR management seems to be too complicated, especially for persons (like construction workers) who do not get along with those kind of topics. Therefore following three main topics were worked out, since those areas seem to be very relevant and important for the EU wide construction branch: -Employer Branding: innovative ways to bind employees to the company and to optimize the satisfaction of aspiring professionals (apprentices) by increasing the external and internal relationship -Boomerang Hire: HOW and WHY to install new positions for ex-employees? What does an employer has to consider, to create and to offer new chances for experts who have decided to come back? -Network-Recruiting: How to convince employees´ friends, family members or other peer group members to start a carreer in the construction branch? The above mentioned topics were deppend by creating easy to answer specific questions designed for several branches (mainly for the construction branch). In the cause of the project questionnaires were developed by all project partners and sent to different companies. The results of all ansers (given by companies in DE, ES, LT, SLO) were taken to produce understandable ""movie nuggets""."

"The aim of the ""Improved Mobility"" project was to identify factors that make it possible to measure the probability of successful mobility of trainees in Europe. The idea was that raising awareness of one's own strengths also increases the likelihood of taking up offers such as those made by Erasmus+. The recording of individual factors was only one part of the study. Institutional opinions were also taken into account in the project on the basis of personal interviews with trainers, representatives of training centres, companies and institutions.The sectoral focus of the surveys was mainly on the construction sector as well as the automotive industry, as access to the target group was guaranteed by the composition of the consortium.The project idea came about because the topic of ""mobility"" had become a topic of increasing importance for vocational training in recent years.Many institutions had increasingly recognised that stays abroad during vocational training were a useful supplement. The basic idea is that globalisation is leading to an increasing internationalisation of jobs. It goes without saying that it is an advantage if the relevant skills are already acquired during training through stays abroad.Consequently, the consortium asked itself, how does successful mobility come about? What are the factors for successful mobility? The project started with this focus.The basis for a proper investigation was in particular the fact that the EU in this context pursued the goal of encouraging 6% of trainees in Europe to spend a period abroad during their training. In Germany this rate was 4% in 2015. After the project idea had already been completed, the latest studies were published in a BMBF press release in July 2018. 5.3% of trainees in Germany had already taken up an offer of a stay abroad during their training in 2017. One year later, the figure had already been 6.3%. The trend is rising with a target which the government of the Federal Republic of Germany had set at 10% by 2020.In the partner countries of the project consortium, the rates at project start were 5.9% in Spain, 4.9% in Italy, 1.3% in Belgium and 7.4% in Lithuania. The quotas indicated that, on the one hand, there was experience and a wide variety of findings on mobility in the individual partner countries, but on the other hand, there was also a need to gain insights into successful factors.In the course of the project, trainees were questioned by means of questionnaires both before and after mobility and it was also worked out which factors in companies are advantageous for mobility. As explained in the introduction, personal interviews were conducted at institutional level with representatives of training centres and their customers or affiliated companies. As far as the trainees are concerned, they were either interested in the topic of mobility and were able to reflect on important personality traits by means of the questionnaires and thus to check whether mobility is useful for them. In addition, trainees who had completed mobility with one of the project partners were interviewed. These persons were asked about their subjective sense of achievement. In this way, it was possible to derive success factors in general and to generate effects of before and after the completion of stays abroad within the scope of a training.All findings were compiled and published under the title ""Improved Mobility Final Results & key findings"" under the following link:http://improvedmobility.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Erasmus-Improved-Mobility-final-results-EN.pdf.The results can be downloaded in all partner languages at http://improvedmobility.eu/en/final-results/.In summary, the following can be said about the results:In total, the questionnaire survey was able to reach 432 trainees and 46 contacts at institutional level. Essentially, personality traits that could be important during training abroad were examined. These could be assessed by the participants on a scale of 1 (not important) to 5 (important). - ""Communication skills"" were rated as the most important, ""ability to spend time alone"" as the least important.- The most difficult personality trait during training abroad was the ""inability to leave the comfort zone.""- In general, all personality traits considered difficult during training abroad, after mobility, were considered even more problematic.- The ""involvement of families"" was identified as the most important external aspect for successful stays abroad.- The most important aspect for improving stays abroad in education was ""Requested certificate for the execution of stays abroad"", while ""Support in the search for foreign partners"" is rated as was rated less important.Overall, it was found that a ""greater availability of information on stays abroad"" was rated as extremely important, especially after mobility had been completed, which could indicate that trainees did not feel sufficiently informed."