Information from practice – brief and to the point

Starting point/challenge

An important focus of the work at Network IQ is advising companies, municipal administrations as well as job centres and employment agencies on intercultural themes and skilled worker immigration. To maintain contact with the target audience during the coronavirus pandemic, the regional coordination office of Network IQ Thuringia launched a new virtual meeting series entitled "Schon gewusst? ... IQ Zeit" ("Did you know? IQ time..."). This provides those interested with an insight into the network's areas of work and their subprojects – and does so in brief, succinctly and online.

Implementation of the meeting concept

The concept for the virtual meeting format was developed jointly by subproject staff and the PR team at the Thuringia IQ regional coordination office. The concept and content for each meeting is designed by the subprojects. Individual aspects are taken from the extensive IQ spectrum and presented in a very targeted way. This generates curiosity and a way of linking with contact partners.

The 30-minute format is kept intentionally brief and compact. This presents a challenge for subproject staff as the usual presentation of offers is replaced by individually taught sequences, case studies or even an interview.

The PR team takes care of promotion, administration of participants and deals with technical aspects of the meeting. The video conferencing tool “GoToMeeting” is used for the technical implementation. The virtual format is ideal for providing a brief but informative insight into project offers. Participation is very straightforward and easy to access. New and creative presentation methods mean that existing barriers can be removed – in turn increasing motivation to take a closer look at the topic areas.

The "IQ Zeit" is intended to build a bridge to more in-depth offers and advice, in particular from the areas of intercultural competence development and skilled worker immigration. So far, a broad range of topics has been examined from an interview series with experts on issues relating to employment and integration of foreign specialists and workers, to intercultural opening and practice through to anonymous application processes.

Conclusion

The virtual event concept "Schon gewusst? IQ Zeit..." has been offered twice a month since February 2021 on the first and third Thursday of the month. In 15 events in the first year of implementation, around 140 participants were reached who in some cases booked multiple events. The feedback they provided via an online tool was entirely positive – the concept was very well received. Individual subprojects report that "IQ Zeit" has enabled them to generate new interest in their offers.