Internship nudging with microsurveys
.png)
The government and the social partners entered into an agreement in November 2020 to secure more skilled workers. The agreement means, among other things, that the students are no longer solely responsible for getting an internship, and that at least 80% of the students on basic course 2 must have an education agreement before the basic course ends. In this connection, CompanYoung has collaborated with Mercantec since 2021 to investigate whether students can be nudged to apply for an internship earlier - and the result is surprisingly positive.
Mercantec takes a positive view of the new digital investment in internship nudging.
At Mercantec, they have worked actively with the objectives of the tripartite agreement over a long period of time. They have done this, among other things, by setting up a working group that, across the different educations, coordinates, and implements a number of initiatives to promote learning and development at the school. Among these initiatives was also the ambition to improve the search for an internship for students. Mercantec, therefore, entered into a collaboration with CompanYoung to investigate the potential of using nudging principles in the young people's search for an internship.
“As part of the bouquet of initiatives, we have been working with CompanYoung and the product StudentPulse to see how it can help us to activate the young people as part of the overall internship efforts we do at our school”
John Hansen
Head of education at Mercantec.
In the Danish tripartite agreement, the ambition is that 60% and 80% of the students, respectively, should have an internship after the 15th and 20th teaching week in the basic course part 2 (GF2) for a period up to 2026. According to John Hansen, the school had to realize that if they were to fulfill some of those objectives, they had to initiate an effort already in the first half of 2021.
“The first measurements will take place in 2022, and at our school, the first foundation course students will finish at the beginning of January 2022. So the students who started until August 2021 actually count in our statistics. If we are to look at how we can lift the internship search in January 2022, then there is no point in waiting until October, November, or December in 2021. At least that is the first realization we came to that we have busy”
John Hansen
Head of education at Mercantec.
In the project with Mercantec, we at CompanYoung used the StudentPulse tool, which constantly creates an overview and insight into the internship situation among the students. StudentPulse operates with frequent micro-measurements, which should provide insight into the students' satisfaction and well-being in real-time. The measurements are made through links that are sent to the student either on their computer, tablet, or mobile, and which can be used to gain insight into which efforts at the school work well and which work less well.
5-week project with StudentPulse
In the project with Mercantec, the purpose was to test what happens when students are frequently asked a series of questions in the StudentPulse tool over a period of 5 weeks. The project was carried out on 2 educations: On computer education and electrician education.
The students were presented with a series of questions 3 times during the 5 weeks the pilot project was set to last.
The purpose of the project was to investigate how willing the students were to use StudentPulse, and how Mercantec could actively use the students' answers and data to boost the internship search.
A clear effect of nudging
During the 5 weeks, we were able to ascertain that 90% of the students submitted their answers through StudentPulse. During the 2 rounds of questions, 122 written responses were also collected, which gave concrete insight into the students who had been given an internship and the students who had not been given an internship.
The project also highlighted that the primary reasons why students managed to enter into an internship agreement were that they were both independent in their search and that they left early. Several of the students also took part in work placements, took part in speed dating events, were good at writing CVs, and reached out to their network. In contrast, the primary reasons why the students did not have an internship agreement were that they had a lack of independence and submitted too few job applications.
Based on the project, Mercantec's consultants have assessed that the effect of nudging through StudentPulse was clear, as the students themselves became more outgoing and aware of their internship search. The school has since chosen to spread the work with StudentPulse and internship nudging to all vocational programs at Mercantec.
Young people should be activated earlier
According to data from UVM, it is currently approximately 28% of students have an agreement on an internship 15 weeks into GF2 and approximately 44% have an agreement at the end of GF2 nationwide. There is therefore still some way to go from the current figures and up to 60% and 80% which is the objective.
“One of the things that we believe in in our collaboration, and where we have also found good results - is to activate the young people earlier. It's not just about getting them started, but also about motivating them to contact companies. We call this internship nudging, and it's about systematically pushing the young people in the right direction"
Gorm Eriksen
Director of Experience.
