DiscCo Consulting

University students conclude their careers with few or null work experience. Medium and large size companies also faces work balance issues due to different situations: Vacations, Demand increase, Employee Turnover, promotions, etc. When students are trying to be hired after culminating their study plans, their lack of experience makes them not appealing for companies. 

DiscCo aims to close this gap through on the job training as formal courses in universities, capturing the knowledge of companies in structured classes where the student learn about actual job roles in companies related to their career.  These classes are based on methodologies like Lean, Design Thinking and on existent IT tools to document processes. 

Our solution help students to better understand their future work, to look for improvement opportunities and to have practical experience.  Our solution help companies to balance workload and help to promote their brand to a pool of future employees.

While Higher education in the Latin America and the Caribbean has expanded dramatically in the last years (*),  unemployment rate has increased from 6.3% to 7.9%  between 2011 and 2018 and it has raised to 8.09% in 2019 and 10.63% in 2020.

These new students even when they receive academic instruction, they are not fully exposed to real work environments. 

Companies in the other hand, faces challenges associated to the  training of new employees and even when university certificates are required, they find these employees not very appealing in terms of learning curves and time to be able to cope with real work assignments. 

(*) as the average gross enrollment rate (defined as the ratio between

higher education enrollment and the population ages 18–24 years) has grown from 43 percent to 53 percent between 2011 and 2019. Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/

Our solution includes:

-Interviews with companies in order to understand their needs or constraints when searching employees to fill a job position (this could be a specialized or critical role)

-Process Documentation including:

-Organizational Chart

-Role Descriptions

-Application of Process mapping techniques (instructional videos, flowcharts, value stream mapping, work instructions, process observations, current employees interviews, etc.)

-Documentation to use during work assignments.

-Data bases of certified students with the knowledge and skills for a specific job position.

-Identification and use of software solutions that support training objectives.

Our solution impacts to:

* University students,

* Companies searching for specialized roles in their companies.

Our solution support teachers and educational institutions with teaching and learning methodologies, tools, and resources that help develop future skills for students.  Process documentation is critical in work environment to reproduce work steps.  Students, independently of the field they are enrolled, will be faced to processes at work.  Understanding processes students will follow at work, gives Universities a better understanding of the skills they should develop in students and how they should adapt study plans to match current and future needs of the main companies in the field.

At this point is a concept, already shared in other local challenges.  We need to grow a customer base in order to prototype and create a methodology we can share with Universities interested in this service. 

Our solution is innovative in the context of Latin & Central American countries, as trainee programs are under developed and when existant, this are not providing an input or feedback to Universities to improve their Study Plans.  They merely ask for a document as a pre-requisite for graduation.

Company wikis as Confluence, Vyond for making videos, Snag It for editing pictures, Thing Link for teaching and summarizing training content and any other software that proves to be useful to the learning process for students.

Vyond will be used to make instructional videos (https://www.vyond.com/)

Confluence wikis or other company wikis to document process (https://www.atlassian.com/soft...)

Snag It to edit pictures or make videos (https://www.techsmith.com/scre...)

Thing Link to create training material (https://www.thinglink.com/)

And any other software that is useful to make instructional material for students.

Main risks are related to confidentiality breaches.  

Confidentiality agreements should be signed with contracting companies and students should sign a confidentiality agreement with DisCCo.  

Collaboration between a group of students is encouraged, but information can't be downloaded to be used out of the community.

Current number: As Process & Systems Manager I served more than 50 people in around 9 countries.

In one year: At least 5 classes of around 20 - 30 students in one University, and 2 contracting companies.

In 5 years: Expanding to Central America and the Caribbean.

The business model can be replicated trough franchises for other people interested to know the methodology. If this approached is followed, it is possible to have a global impact.

KPIs - During Design:

* # of Processes documented / # of Processes contracted by Companies completed on time (max. 2 months during the semester).

* Customer satisfaction: Rating given by the contracting companies (scale from 1 to 5)

KPIs - After Documentation:

* % of work assignments completed on time

* % of work assignments accepted by contracting companies (quality)

* Success stories: % of job positions fulfilled with trained and certified students, accepted by contracting companies 3 months after using this service.

2 people so far.

Organization led by experienced personnel, with experience in:

* Systems, Processes, Training & IT Managerial tasks for multinational companies (Over 11 years of experience with multinational companies). 

* Lean / Six Sigma Black Belt coaching,

* Work projects in United States, Canada, New Zealand, Colombia and Central America.

* Leading personnel in Central America and the Caribbean. 

University access is no longer restricted to high income families.  There are several universities attending low income students that need a better inclusion in the job market. If we approach these universities first, we will be able to include vulnerable families and add income from work to their family budget.

I am applying to the 2021 TPrize Challenge because I want to make impact in a sector that needs to update and propose changes.  University duration is 5 years that could finalize with low or none work experience and we have very intelligent and active young people that can contribute more to the economy. Employees, on the other hand, sometimes can be overwhelmed when demand increases and companies faces restrictions to hire more workers.  A solution should be created to close this gap.

Human Capital: All human resources policies, guidelines and regulations that apply for the countries where we operate.

Public Relations: It is important to make the organization visible in order we expand services and captivate more companies and individuals to participate in this model.

Product / Service Distribution: In order to expand the client base.

Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá