MTOP | MORE THAN ONE PERSPECTIVE

The labor market is the key for integration. You naturally build a local network, improve your language skills and live self-dependent. The MTOP associate program trains refugees to become job-ready, MTOP connect places them in jobs fitting their skills, MTOP experience offers various hands-on trainings for managers and teams to build intercultural competence in order to realize the potential of diverse teams.

Since 2015, over 3 million people applied for asylum in the EU to build their future in Europe (Eurostat).  Reports show that only 25% of refugees will start a job within the next five years and 60% are likely to get hired below their skill level (OECD). Therefore, many will find it difficult to create a new existence in Europe and a lot of workforce potential remains untapped. Austria is among the top 3 countries concerning the numbers of refugees per capita in the EU. Since 2015 200.000 refugees came to Austria (BMI).

Highly skilled young refugees bring diverse skills to our changing economy, including education, language skills, and international networks. Yet, there are no integration measures concerning highly skilled refugees in Austria nor in Europe to support their labor market entry. Young diverse talents cannot realize their full potential under the current circumstances.

If this potential remains untapped and refugees don’t become full members of society following consequences will occur :

1. Refugees and their children face social exclusion and poverty

2. Economy & companies do not benefit from diverse talents,

3. European countries face high opportunity costs, as refugees don’t become tax payers and don’t contribute to the social welfare system.

⅔ of refugees in Austria live in Vienna. This is why MTOP is mainly active in the city of Vienna. MTOP works with refugees and third-country nationals who have finished their education in either business, IT or engineering and have come to Austria in the past 5 years. Most of them come from the arabic region and are 23-50 years old. In 2016 MTOP started the MTOP associate program, that prepares refugees and third country nationals to enter the Austrian labor market. Ever since the program has changed a lot according to the needs and experiences of the participants. MTOP constantly adapts the program according to the participants’ feedback that is gathered three times per program, the long term impact assessment of alumni that is done once per year and the needs of companies. As MTOP also works as placement agency companies share their skill needs very openly and the program can be adapted with specific skill courses.

Since September 2016 MTOP works on its mission to make the potential of young diverse talents in the refugee community accessible to the labor market, connects refugees with companies and break down negative stereotypes. In order to achieve the MTOP mission, three solutions have been up and running for three years: The MTOP Associate Program, MTOP Connect and MTOP Experience.

MTOP offers the MTOP Associate Program, an advanced 6-months training program to prepare highly qualified refugees with backgrounds in IT, engineering and economics for labor market entry. The program offers various workshops, training, mentoring and coaching to enable its participants to find work suited to their skills, knowledge, and work experience. The MTOP Associate Program is offered in a blended learning version, meaning it combines online and offline trainings.

MTOP Connect is the bridge between refugees and companies. MTOP Connect builds and actively supports a company network that is looking for new talents and wants to benefit from diversity. Once MTOP Associates (that is how we call our participants) are ready to start working in Austria, we connect them with possible employers within our network including Blue-Chip names like Deloitte, Western Union, PORR, Strabag, Wiener Linien, among others. Our holistic support, which aims at securing long-lasting working relationships, starts with the hiring process and continues well past the first couple of weeks on the job.

During the last three years MTOP has managed to train 192 refugees and successfully placed 117 in internships and jobs. 

MTOP Experience is a social leadership development program for (soon to be) managers with hands-on trainings how to manage a team, foster diversity and benefit from new perspectives. As soon to be managers develop a more inclusive leadership style they naturally recruit more diverse and see potential in various people.

How is MTOP different - The MTOP USPs

• Holistic and needs-based training from orientation on the labor market until successful job onboarding
• Blended online/offline learning approach to increase reach, while maintaining high quality of training

• High quality of matching of young, diverse talents and vacancies as we know the Associates personally and match them based on technical and soft skills 

• The impact model is also reflected in the business model. MTOP works with 3 stakeholders - refugees, companies and the state. All 3 stakeholder contribute with market income stream to the business model.

MTOP is currently developing one of the first training solutions in Austria and Europe, that is based on blended learning - combining offline and online support - to scale the success of its offline training and placement and reach more young refugees. The key innovation of MTOP’s digital solution lies in the combination of the benefits of digitization - especially the increased reach and possibility for self-education - with the benefits of the offline solution, which allows for personal interaction and maintains high program quality. 

MTOP has already been working on the it’s Theory of Change and impact goals for three years. Following an innovative approach MTOP will digitize its solutions to increase its impact to work towards the following goals:

Improve Labor Market Access: Refugees are enabled to enter the labor market according to their skills

• 60% of highly qualified refugees work in jobs for which they are overqualified. (OECD, 2016)

• 75% of refugees need more than five years to find a job in their new home country. (OECD, 2016)

Increase Independence: Refugees generate own income and build a new existence for them and their families

• Austria has a very low social mobility rate (OECD, 2014). Children are prone to live in similar socio-economic circumstances as their parents. 

Enable Social Integration and Cohesion: Refugees are regularly in touch with local people, make local friends and speed up their integration process

Improve Recruitment Processes: Companies use recruiting processes that recognize & select diverse talents

• Our observations and experiences show that online recruitment portals have knock-out criteria such as current employment status, which limit the chances of diverse talents to get invited for a job interview

Increase Contribution to the Welfare System: New taxpayers contribute to the system

• Each non-working, adult refugee incurs costs of around €16.000 annually (guaranteed minimum income and educational programs). The Austrian State could save an estimated total €480 million if all refugees were to enter the labor market. (By placing diverse talents in jobs, MTOP has already generated public expenditure savings of €1.040.000.)

Currently 300

Next Year 500

In 5 years 7500

Horizontal Scaling: Current Focus & Identification of new target groups

MTOP wants to reach out to other target groups like migrants. By designing online content particularly targeting the challenges those target groups face, we will make their skills and potential available to companies and support their entry in the labor market.

Vertical Scaling: Replication of MTOP solutions

Our online solutions in the form of blended learning training and post-placement support give us the opportunity to reach and train more young highly skilled refugees in Austria over a longer period of time in the next two years. We aim to expand our program’s reach and duration significantly in numbers and for establishing a closer bond with the refugee communities, as parts of the program and the post-placement support can be completed online.

MTOP also plans to expand and intensify our networks with national employment agencies, governments, organizations and social businesses in other EU countries and offer them our online solutions. Once successful in our local context, MTOP solutions can be replicated across Europe in the future. MTOP was approached by organizations and social businesses in EU countries in the past and is already working on collaborations and projects together with organizations and social businesses like ONG 2.0, SINGA (Italy), talentree (Belgium), jobs4refugees (Germany) and SINGA (France). These organizations are working on similar labor market integration problems of immigrant communities in Europe and there is big potential for MTOP to offer its new solutions in countries other than Austria.

Once we are done testing our solution in Austria (which will be at the end of 2020), we are ready for scaling and replication. Barriers for that are 

• the political eco-system in Europe - it becomes less and less refugee-friendly
• funding - in order to scale to new target groups and countries we need seed-funding either by investors or public grants
• eco-system of Social Businesses - we need the support of existing players in other countries to enter the market there. As we don't want to replicate things that are already in place it is important for us to build a sound relationship with existing players.

• political eco-system: on the one side we try to do some advocacy work but mainly we try to build the business model in a way that we are independent of public money, so political shifts do not affect us that much
• funding: reaching out to investors, foundations, EU calls
• Social Business eco-system: building relationships with similar organisations in other EU countries

7

All three MTOP founders were Teach For Austria fellows and taught pupils from low-income households for two years at inner-city middle schools in Vienna. In their role as teachers they were confronted with the consequence of mal-functioning integration and decided to do something against it.

Co-Founder & Managing Partner - Head of Marketing, Organizational & Product Development

Nina Poxleitner (1988), studied business (Vienna, Stockholm, Guadalajara, Barcelona) and worked for several Start-Ups as marketing manager.

Co-Founder & Managing Partner - Head of Recruiting, Finance & Evaluation

Julian Richter (1987), studied economics and was a management trainee in the B2B sector.

Co-Founder & Managing Partner - Head of Company Network & Funding

Lisa-Maria Sommer (1991) studied economics and psychology, was an analyst at Erste Group Bank AG, and was board member of a student organization building bridges between students and companies.

Community Manager & Recruiter

Haia Haddad (1993) studied marketing, joined MTOP after being a participant in the MTOP associate program. As a Syrian refugee, she brings apart from her competencies in Marketing and Community Management - diversity, cultural understanding and target group proximity to the team. 

Program Manager

Lisa Wewerka (1986) wrote her PhD thesis in political sciences and taught German as a foreign language in Italy for the last two years.

Sales Associate

Ramona Wendtner, BSc, currently finishing her Master in Socio-Ecological Economics & Policy and has experience in various Start-Ups. 

Company Relations

Anna Bodenseher, MSc is a business graduate with 3 year supply chain experience in FMCG. Coming from the corporate world she adds a lot of business thinking.

Ashoka

Ashoka has been a valuable sparing partner from the start for questions how to run and grow a social businesses as well as for getting access to different experts.

Impact Hub Vienna

We have been part of some accelerating programs of the Impact Hub and have benefited from workshops space, various trainings, the inspiring community and different business coaches. As impact hub Alumni we are often part of keynotes and panel discussions to keep the social entrepreneurship community growing.

Teach for Austria

All 3 MTOP founders were fellows at Teach for Austria. TFA was a partner from the very beginning, giving us office space for 6 month and supporting us in building a professional network.

Social Entrepreneurship Community
The Social Entrepreneurship Community in Vienna is rather small, but there is a vivid exchange between founders to overcome challenges together and learn from each other. 

MTOP works mainly with three stakeholders – refugees, companies and the Austrian State. All three stakeholders contribute to the current social business model:

• Refugees pay a symbolic participation fee of 180€ for the offline program

By now 99% of Associates have paid the fee, which proves, that it is within their financial capability. For us, the symbolic fee is a way of showing commitment to MTOP and its program.

• Companies pay a placement fee of 1,5 - 2 gross monthly salaries and training fees for MTOP Experience
• State we have contracts with the Ministry of Integration which co-finances the MTOP Associate Program.

To increase our financial sustainability we want to further develop offer for companies that increase our market income from companies and at the same time serve our impact goal, namely integrating refugees into the labor market. The associate program as a classical training program that cannot be compensated by its direct beneficiary (this is legally not possible in Austria) will always be partially funded with ministries. In the long run, we expect the share of public funding to got down to 25%.

Access to an international network, media coverage, expert knowledge and exchange with likeminded people and organizations.

International companies that operate in various countries - especially in Europe. To start partnerships with international corporates and launch projects and programs with them in different countries would be a very interesting scaling option.

With the prize we would scale our solution to reach more refugees in Austria and Europe and change their lives in a way that they become self-dependent and a true member of their host society and provide equal opportunites to their children.

By doing so, we tackle the challenge of integration from a different perspective, not focusing on problem, but on talents and competences the challenge brings within.

With the prize we would scale our solution to reach more refugees in Austria and Europe and change their lives in a way that they become self-dependent and a true member of their host society and provide equal opportunites to their children.

By doing so, we tackle the challenge of integration from a different perspective, not focusing on problem, but on talents and competences the challenge brings within.