Social Green House - for complementary actors
Background
The Social Green House project is aimed at actors within a labor market policy project or program who want to offer their participants an additional opportunity to enter working life. The project aims to engage the business community in order to facilitate and reduce the height of the threshold for starting your own, becoming employable or further education.
Self-employment is a good way for those with language challenges or have some form of functional variation as it is the service and not the person who becomes important. Social Green House is a two-step program developed by the European Social Label. The aim of the project is to establish a national model for self-employment where the participant is slightly further away from the labor market. Other target groups are of course also welcome to join the program.
Step 1 is a 14-week program and Step 2 up to 104 weeks, which ensures that the participant after the instruction period will succeed in their business and you as complementary actors will be able to include your former participant as someone has progressed.
Social Green House - for complementary actors
Model
The model is based on a two-step program that aims to be a win-win for everyone: Participants should gain a deeper insight and voluntarily want to move forward. Executors of a labor market policy program or project must get more participants to leave and go into self-sufficiency, we must get more members and our members must be seen for charitable purposes by supporting the participant from ear to loaf.
It is only during Step 1 that the participant has any connection to a complementary actor. The instruction period for Social Green House is 14 weeks, which is shorter than most instruction periods a participant has in a labor market policy program. A successful completion in Social Green House Step 1 means that the participant is qualified for a start-up contribution, creates his or her own company and is offered to transfer to the European Social Label and out into self-sufficiency.
Through Step 1, the participant will receive help in writing their business plan and based on it will receive a needs and risk analysis. Furthermore, the participant will also be given the opportunity to both study visits and be introduced to members of the European Social Label who will be given the opportunity to inspire and tell their story. The participant's needs analysis is also matched against our members' services and expertise so that if they want to proceed in Step 2, they already know where to turn to realize their companies.
Step 2 takes place when the participant goes out into self-sufficiency and leaves the complementary actor. Here, the European Social Label takes over and acts as a mentor and coaches the former participant but also participates in the daily activities. It can be an important meeting, accounting or something else that has emerged as a need or a risk and we make sure to minimize it.
Should a participant feel that he does not want to go ahead and start a business, it is not a failure for us but rather adds to the eternal learning of the individual. The goal is still that the participant has met so many established companies and entrepreneurs that he has been inspired enough to either directly seek work with our members, or want to train further to become employable in the next step - either with our members or with a similar company.
Social Green House - for complementary actors
Step 1 - Business plan, needs analysis
Something that all companies need is a business plan, whether it is for the first company or another. There are many who recommend writing a business plan but no one tells you what it should look like, what it should contain and creates a great deal of uncertainty right from the start. It is even more difficult to be expected to write a risk analysis for someone who does not know anything about entrepreneurship. It is impossible to expect someone who does not know the conditions to know what the risks are.
Here, the European Social Label comes into the picture with clear templates and where we sit down with the participants to together develop a business plan, needs analysis and risk analysis. It may even be the case that two participants find each other and can do a cooperative activity. Once the foundation has been laid, the European Social Label begins to match with its participants their needs and risks with our already existing members. We believe that the match is incredibly important, the meeting should be structured so that it ultimately benefits the participant with new and relevant knowledge.
It is also common for the participant to learn to stand in the spotlight. It includes learning to pitch and present both oneself and one's company.
Social Green House - for complementary actors
Step 1 - meeting with members
All our members want to be involved and help someone else and it can be anything from letting the participants come on a study visit or come to us themselves to introduce themselves, tell about their history and how they did to succeed. The meeting with our members is one of the most important points in Social Green House Step 1 and one of the things that other actors have not been able to contribute which in turn has made previous attempts have failed.
The meeting with our members should lead to several things: The participants should get inspiration and feel that they are something on the tracks. Our members must be able to present themselves, their history and their services and offer in order to - if the participant goes on in Step 2 - then have established contacts with potential customers.
Participants who enter Step 2 also become members of the European Social Label. When the next round of participants comes to the project, there are thus already established, former participants, entrepreneurs who in turn can inspire and show that it is possible to move forward. It is a good opportunity for the participants to feel that if someone else can, so can they. We call this a form of sponsorship that rolls on, generation after generation, you could say.
Social Green House - for complementary actors
Step 1 - completion, panel, formation and transition to Step 2
Within the European Social Label, we focus on companies, but in each company there is one - or more - entrepreneurs. For the company to succeed, the entrepreneur must succeed and people who are unemployed or feel insecure about themselves will have a greater challenge ahead of them than those who believe in themselves. Creating a good business plan, meeting inspiring members and more is very much about just building the individual.
The participant should feel that he or she can also meet the challenge and at the same time know that when it gets difficult, the European Social Label is there to support and help. Step 1 culminates when the participant has a clear goal picture with their company, is qualified for start-own contribution and knows what to do in Step 2. But to get to Step 2, the participant must make a final presentation of himself and his company before a panel consisting of European Social Label, members and we also want employees from complementary actors to join the panel.
Coming to a panel in this way and feeling that you have to succeed is in itself what an entrepreneur feels every day he goes to work. We make sure that the participant knows exactly what is to be said, how it is to be said and what is to be highlighted. When the panel has given its approval for the participant to go over to Step 2, it should feel like a mountain that leaves the shoulders and a relief and joy should appear. Together with our members, we have also developed a good welcome offer to the participant that includes several different services and platforms to create the best conditions ever for a successful business.
Social Green House - for complementary actors
Step 2 - introduction
Here, it is important to bear in mind that the participant goes into self-sufficiency but still has continued support through the start-own contribution. The now former participant is given a startup package that includes a digital tool to keep in touch with us and also our members, manage files, chat and video meetings. The package also includes a GDPR-ready customer system, project system and access to all European Social Labels' other platforms and channels.
According to a previously developed needs plan and risk analysis, the Social Green House member and the European Social Label draw up a detailed action plan to realize the participant's dream of owning a company. It can include meetings with other members to take part in their services and products, it can be to be involved in important sales meetings and everything in between.
Social Green House - for complementary actors
Step 2 - up to two years
The European Social Label works towards long-term goals and wants the participant's company to succeed. Where other alternatives often let a person or company down, we are involved for up to two years and help where we are needed. Gradually, however, we release the entrepreneur and the goal is that for two years the company should have had time to be part of everything that a company can experience. This includes sales meetings, invoice management, work with suppliers, accounting, accounting and much more.
We are fairly convinced that many companies today do not succeed or do not reach their full potential because they lack commitment around them. As a new entrepreneur, alone is not strong and everyone you turn to usually wants to be paid. It is a pity to feel exploited just because relevant knowledge or experience is not in place, but here is an activity that offers just the support at the individual level that until today has been completely lacking.
Social Green House - for complementary actors
Step 2 - Finish
When the collaboration begins to come to an end, the entrepreneur and the European Social Label sit down to discuss the future. The goal is to get a picture from the entrepreneur's perspective of what he wants. From our perspective, there are three options:
- The entrepreneur wants to continue under his own auspices
- The entrepreneur wants to continue the collaboration with the European Social Label
- The entrepreneur does not want to continue and instead wants to close down the company
Regardless, the European Social Label helps with the preparations needed to cope with any of these scenarios. We consider up to two years to be long enough to find out if the company can cope, if the entrepreneur wants and can meet the challenges and when that does not happen - what we in the European Social Label can assist with. After two years, it is reasonable to be able to make an evidence-based decision and proceed on that basis, regardless of which direction it takes.