Työn Taita­jat pro­vid­ed work­ing life experiences for thou­sands of stu­dents

Dur­ing the past aca­d­e­m­ic year, over 8,000 chil­dren, young peo­ple, and adults par­tic­i­pat­ed in the City of Oulu’s “Työn Taita­jat” pro­gram. The pro­gram offered sev­er­al inter­est­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for school-work­ing life coop­er­a­tion, from work­ing life lessons to job shad­ow­ing, and from the world’s largest vir­tu­al com­pa­ny vis­it to teacher sem­i­nars.

The goal of the Työn Taita­jat pro­gram is to intro­duce work­ing life and job oppor­tu­ni­ties in the Oulu region to young peo­ple dur­ing basic and upper sec­ondary edu­ca­tion, togeth­er with a wide net­work of work­ing life actors.

The net­work already includes over 150 com­pa­nies, orga­ni­za­tions, and experts from var­i­ous fields. Työn Taita­jat orga­nized var­i­ous events with experiences for young peo­ple at the core.

– The best part of the job shad­ow­ing day was that I got to close­ly fol­low an expert’s day and dis­cuss and exchange thoughts on top­ics of inter­est to me. My pre­con­cep­tions about the pro­fes­sion I shad­owed changed a lot. My opin­ions were lis­tened to and tak­en into account dur­ing the day. The work­ing life lessons are real­ly inspir­ing, and it was great to hear dif­fer­ent dif­fer­ent career sto­ries. My cur­rent dreams about my future pro­fes­sion were strength­ened, says Alisa Heinonen from Kauko­vainio school. Alisa did her work prac­tice peri­od at Business­Oulu with­in Työn Taita­jat activ­i­ties.

Pic­ture: Juha Mat­ti­la, Pohde and Kaisa-Liisa Har­japää, Esko Sys­tems.

Youth are there to Chal­lenge Con­ven­tion­al Think­ing

Työn Taita­jat enables com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions to influ­ence young peo­ple’s choic­es in var­i­ous ways and offers a plat­form to talk about their work. Work­ing life lessons reach a larg­er group at once, thoughts are exchanged in a small group on job shad­ow­ing day, and at teacher events, infor­ma­tion is shared with pro­fes­sion­als who meet young peo­ple dai­ly.

– Shar­ing my own career sto­ry was a good expe­ri­ence. It’s use­ful for young peo­ple to hear that a career can have dif­fer­ent stages and that it’s reward­ing with all its ups and downs. Above all, I hope that young peo­ple gain con­fi­dence in their own future choic­es from the work­ing life lessons, com­ments Kaisa-Liisa Har­jupää from Esko Sys­tems.

Pekka Pau­ro­la from 1Bar urges us to lis­ten to the young.

– Young peo­ple are very smart. Treat them as poten­tial future employ­ees. When I told my career and entre­pre­neur­ship sto­ry and had job shad­ow­ing in my com­pa­ny, I was sur­prised at how inter­est­ed young peo­ple are in the indus­try and every­thing they have learned dur­ing the Työn Taita­jat activ­i­ties. They have and will have good ques­tions that may even chal­lenge some of our con­ven­tion­al think­ing.

Sec­ond edi­tion of the World’s Largest Vir­tu­al Com­pa­ny Vis­it

Työn Taita­jat orga­nized the world’s largest vir­tu­al com­pa­ny vis­it for the sec­ond time this May. This time the focus was on the tourism and restau­rant indus­try in Oulu.

Five com­pa­nies and two voca­tion­al insti­tu­tions were involved. Dur­ing the vis­it day, the indus­try was intro­duced to chil­dren from ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion to upper sec­ondary and voca­tion­al schools as well as inter­na­tion­al tal­ent. This year, over 3 600 chil­dren, young peo­ple and adults from var­i­ous munic­i­pal­i­ties from Sodankylä to Espoo took part in the event.

– The col­lab­o­ra­tion and com­mit­ment of the actors involved was admirable and the feed­back we received from the school world was very pos­i­tive. There is a need for such low-thresh­old activ­i­ties all over Fin­land, says Tiina Haa­panie­mi from Business­Oulu.

Accord­ing to Pekka Pau­ro­la, par­tic­i­pat­ing in Työn Taita­jat events is very ben­e­fi­cial – if not direct­ly for one’s own com­pa­ny, then for the entire indus­try and its future.

Työn Taita­jat con­tin­ues to grow

One of the strengths of Työn Taita­jat has been its sim­plic­i­ty for both schools and com­pa­nies. Dozens of work­ing life lessons, job shad­ow­ing days and oth­er events have already been agreed upon for the com­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year. The goal for the upcom­ing school year is to expand the pro­gram to include pri­ma­ry schools as well.

– With the help of the Työn Taita­jat pro­gram, we can sup­port the teach­ing staff in guid­ing young peo­ple. In some events, we influ­ence the young peo­ple direct­ly, and in oth­ers indi­rect­ly, by increas­ing the knowl­edge of the teach­ing staff. The work­ing life is devel­op­ing at a rapid pace, so we need to pro­vide the tools for young peo­ple to nav­i­gate it, describes Eemeli Alanne, an advi­so­ry teacher from City of Oulu’s Edu­ca­tion­al and Cul­tur­al Ser­vices.