This was the focus of OrientaEuro’s contribution to the workshop “Human-centred services in a digital world” at the PES Network Stakeholder Conference in Brussels on 10 November.
Our founder, Roger Cohen, built on the excellent presentations by Inga Balnanosienė, Director of Užimtumo tarnyba / Lithuanian Employment Service, and Kari Hadjivassiliou of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.
Making these initiatives work, especially for jobseekers in vulnerable situations, means understanding and developing counsellors’ talents and capabilities, listening to their passions and motivations, and taking their fears seriously. It also means making the opportunity explicit: to add more value to more jobseekers. For most of the employment counsellors, helping people find their own professional well-being is precisely why they chose this profession.
We shared how this shapes our approach to AI-augmented career guidance with Aicca: bringing together the platform, a methodology for counsellors and jobseekers to work together, training by peers who use it daily, and evidence to guide improvements and expansion.
When counsellors can see what becomes possible, develop the capabilities to make it happen, and connect the new practice with what makes their work meaningful, adoption has a reason to last.