AIESEC in Belgium | Annual Report 2021-2022

Annual Report

2021-22 MC LIANA AIESEC IN BELGIUM

Letter From The President

Generation 21.22 was the first generation to operate in a post pandemic life, working towards strengthening our engines for a sustainable future of the organisation. We made a commitment to strive for ONE AIESEC in Belgium, creating a sustainable direction following the motto of Belgium as a country: “Unity makes strength”.

As the national team we themed the past year around “Liana” where we aimed to grow with every element of our ecosystem, our organisation, and to be relentless in our mission to move towards the light by bringing a new hope for the entity and working together to lead this new beginning. We determined to persevere as an organisation, to be reliable for all our stakeholders, and to be adaptable to new circumstances in our stride towards the mission.

We strived to communicate transparently and openly about challenges and information; To lead by example to reflect the change we wanted to see; And to focus on long term decision making that could positively affect the generations to come.

As generation 21.22, we focused on leadership as the fundamental solution by growing the number of youth stepping up for leadership roles and the number of youth experiencing a cross cultural exchange towards personal and professional development. We also focused on developing our amplifiers, the blood of our organisation i.e revenue and funds, and capacity of our human resources to produce further impact.

We are honoured to have had the opportunity to lead this organisation towards sustainability and share huge gratitude for each and every person that contributed to this mission.

We wish the best to the 22.23 generation of AIESEC in Belgium and look forward to the contribution of the 75th year of AIESEC towards peace and fulfilment of humankinds potential.

Best

regards,

Isha Jerath President 2022

Who Are We?

AIESEC is a global youth leadership organization founded in 1948 in seven European countries, including Belgium. It was founded by Jean Choplin (France), Bengt Sjøstrand (Sweden), and Dr. Albert Kaltenthaler (Germany). AIESEC was founded after the Second World War when young people from seven countries came together in Europe. They had a dream: they wanted to avoid worldwide conflicts by developing more people with cross-cultural understanding. Their goal was and still is big: AIESEC strives to engage and develop every young person in the world, to achieve “Peace & Fulfilment of Humankind’s Potential”. By 1977 it already existed in 50 countries, with more than 40,000 young people participating in a leadership development experience.

The organization aims to develop the leadership potential of youth from 18 to 30 years old. That is why AIESECers send youth abroad on professional traineeships and volunteer exchanges, as well as welcoming trainees in Belgium. AIESEC is present in over 110 countries on all continents, with more than 30,000 active members worldwide. It is a non-political, independent, not-for-profit organization run by students and recent graduates of institutions of higher education. The organization is open to anyone who wants to join and does not discriminate based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or national/social origin.

AIESEC was thus developed as a platform for young people to explore and develop their leadership potential and cross-cultural understanding. The founders concluded that to create cross-cultural understanding in the world, the key was to start with the youth. Young people are the voices and leaders of tomorrow, and they carry the responsibility for the future by choosing who they will be today. That is why the organization states that it places confidence in youth as the key to unlocking a better future, with leadership as the fundamental solution.

How we develop youth leadership?

After going through an experience with AIESEC, the organization states that young people are more prepared to impact the world positively. AIESEC enables youth to develop their leadership by learning from practical experiences in challenging environments. These experiences can be cross-cultural exchanges, specifically professional internships or volunteering opportunities abroad, which are the organization’s primary operations. In addition, AIESEC develops leadership in its members, the youth who facilitate these exchanges.

Lastly, the possibility of being a member of AIESEC is now seen as another way of developing the so-called cross-cultural understanding in youth, so for the following years, the membership experience will start to be treated as one of the main products offered by AIESEC with clear minimums and deliverables for the experience.

More information about the AIESEC Way can be found here

The AIESEC Experience and Products

GLOBAL TALENT FOR PARTNERS

Global Talent has been an impactful program for AIESEC in Belgium over the past years, and that did not change this year. Together with the Business Development team, many companies hired trainees in Belgium this term. Legal questions, integration difficulties or practical searches: the Global Talent & Customer Experience team were always ready to assist the international trainee community. In addition, 5 Local Committees (Bruxelles, Gent, Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, UAntwerp) were also running an incoming exchange department in which they managed to conduct many sales meetings, upscale partnerships, sign new partners and welcome trainees from all over the world.

Our LCs

In 2021, we started the term with 5 local committees running the Incoming Global talent product. In the beginning of the term, the focus of the Local Committees was to build sales capacity within their membership and maintain the partnership they had from previous years with companies. In order to be able to support the LCs better, the national team increased the amount of physical of coaching and visits to provide more on-ground support.

We started 2022 with LCs having a clear sales strategy, improved sales conversion, and higher amount of approvals and more partners signed. Despite an improvement in terms of consideration conversion rate (%Open-Apd), the processing time from Open-APD was the biggest challenge. To tackle this issue, we had multiple bottleneck spaces, educational space and o2o addressing the issue of expectations setting with partners and “how to deal with objections”. With 4/5 achieving more opens, 3/5 achieving more approvals, all LCs having a pipeline for account management and 215% approval growth. We believe that our LCs have a solid base and more knowledge to provide even more impactful exchanges to AIESEC in Belgium.

GLOBAL TALENT FOR PARTNERS

Trainee experience

With more than 110 international trainees in Belgium, we had a big trainee community this year thanks to the hard work of LCs and MC. We also implemented a new SOP tracking system in the whole CX department of the entity. This allowed us to improve in terms of trainees of follow ups and build a better accountability system within the CX department. We managed to organize some city tour events in Belgium, so that both trainees can form first friendships and assimilate better into the country. During the whole term, LC Bruxelles was mainly responsible for MC trainees’ Customer Experience, supporting all trainees with onboarding, pick-up upon their arrival and all their integration questions. We would hereby also like to thank the LC and Tulin and her team for their excellent support and for always being available to support us and the Belgian trainee community. We also started working more closely with the LC of UAntwerp, which also delivered a fantastic experience to our trainees working in the region of Antwerp. We, therefore, would like to thank UAntwerp for their support and professionalism.

During 2021 and 2022 you can see an improvement in the department of Incoming Global Talent in the LCs and how much they developed. They grew 26% in Opens and 215% in approvals compared to the previous term

How our young talents would describe us:

In Numbers:

107 trainees accepted by MC

76 trainees realized by MC

53 opens by LCs (31 UAntwerp, 17 Leuven, 10 Ghent, 2 Bruxelles)

18 trainees accepted by LCs (12 UAntwerp, 4 Ghent, 2 Leuven)

9 trainees realized by LCs ( 8 UAntwerp, 1 Ghent)

17 days of Process time from open to accepted

7 days of process time from accepted to approved

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

AIESEC in Belgium is known for its high number of partners and results in incoming exchange. With continuity of the good case practices and sustainability in mind, we furthered account management processes and continued the focus on new sales. We executed many sales meetings both for Global Talent and employer branding, and are the first term in many years that has sold every engagement we had in our portfolio.

Global Talent

Historically, Belgium has always had strong Business Development partners. We wanted to continue growing and stay known for our Business Development knowledge and processes, therefore, we started off the term with growth in mind, reviewing account strategies and pinpointing ways of collaboration. Our goal was to focus on internal sales and improving our partnerships, to have more open opportunities with each partner and improve process time. The outcome of our focus was that we did not only grow in the amount of positions but also in the process time, going from 73 trainees of last year to 107 so far and from 28 days of process time to 24 days. We made it our strength to deliver good profiles very fast, in addition to speeding up the follow up on the selection process. This is not only beneficial for the managers, but also for candidates who prefer a short process compared to weeks of no answers. The processes we run enabled us to become a safe go-to for our partners and to sustainably grow and expand our reach.

AIESEC in Belgium has been a tremendously valuable partner to Microsoft’s European Government Affairs organisation for many years. AIESEC’s ability to connect us with diverse talent from across Europe has become a cornerstone of our HR strategy.

-Christoph Seitz, Operations Manager European Government Affairs Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs Microsoft

PARTNER TESTIMONIAL

DPDHL: “I love fast communication and responsiveness.” things!”

Zoetis:”Connection & responsiveness”

Ontex: “Always positive and open to discuss”

T-mining: “Personal & proactive approach”

Microsoft: “Good pool of candidates, very responsive team, clear communication, very helpful team”

WHAT COMPANIES SAY ABOUT US

Employer branding

Employer branding started of as a revenue project of the MC 20.21 and resulted in first contracts being signed. It was somewhat a pilot as not much was done prior to the last MC in this regard and the timeline and knowledge overall was lost over the years. Taking over from our predecessors meant to continue all the great things that they have done - including furthering the employer branding engagements that help us diversify our revenue streams. We conducted a lot of calls with our current partners, HR professionals and some alumni to establish timeline, needs, processes and how to best position ourselves in the market. We have reviewed our portfolio, made adaptations and started new sales and continued account management.

We are very proud to say that we have had the opportunity to involve IBM, McKinsey, TEKsystems, WWF, IE University, Vlerick Business School, Ogilvy and Ormit Talent with the engagements we provide through our portfolio. After paving the path of furthering the partnerships and establishing first steps for all engagements we provide in our portfolio, we are convinced that it can be the beginning of many more purposeful partnerships in the future for our successors!

To conclude, we are happy with what we have achieved in Business Development this year. We believe that by improving the partnerships with our partners and by setting up the employer branding project, there is a lot of potential in the next terms to not only grow with our current partners, but to also attract many more to engage with us in employer branding or through Global Talent. We wish the next Business Development team the best of luck in their term and we hope they can learn as much as we did by diving into the professional context of account management and sales!

GLOBAL VOLUNTEER FOR YOUTH

Historically, as AIESEC in Belgium, we have focused on Global Volunteer, our best and most attractive product for the Belgian youth, since 2015. After COVID-19, there was a need to bring the program back to its sustainability, given many exchanges didn’t come to be because of travel restrictions, which resulted in a big wave of refunding those who couldn’t participate in their exchanges.

The first half of our experience as a national board was focused on working on the sustainability of Global Volunteer to earn the possibility of rerunning it as AIESEC in Belgium. So, from the start, the Local Committees had to focus on the professional internships (Global Talent and Global Teacher), while the national board would focus on building a change management plan and risk assessment which can be found here

THIS YEAR

Even though the “old” Global Volunteer framework was not sustainable globally, the changes guaranteed a lower risk for the AIESEC entities that went through the socalled “Resumption Process”. So that is why for our second semester, we were able to run the product once again in our local offices.

Our guidelines as a national member committee were thus to completely halt operations for the program until the study of sustainability was done and the changes necessary to run the program again were done. The Local Committees struggled in the beginning since most of the University partnerships they had were focused on the market of Global Volunteer, but understanding that we must guarantee quality before prioritizing results, all Local Committees were onboard with the decision and also went through a similar process called “Local Resumption”, built by the Member Committee (national board).

Even though we didn’t focus on the product, we noticed that many students were interested in going abroad to volunteer and were signing up organically on our platform. Those were approached to be processed later, after the resumption process.

Jumping to the second semester, after all Local Committees passed the resumption process, we started running the program again, but with a clear gap in knowledge that was not retained or well-transitioned because of the semester gap, as well as a continuity gap with our main international partners for the product.

Another important point to mention about this year is that all entities went through the resumption process, not only AIESEC in Belgium. This is important because the new framework changed the supply of opportunities, process time, and acceptance percentage per application worldwide. This restricted the number of partners we could manage this year as well as the overall number of opportunities for the Summer Peak.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT ON THE PRODUCT

After all the changes to make the product more sustainable, having it working again for a semester and building capacity in the local committees, and analyzing the results for the program in the past years, it became clear that Global Volunteer should become the sole primary focus for the local offices. This was translated into an Organizational Development Model (ODM) that is based primarily on the results of said program before being able to run any other professional programs. So we are changing from the first semester, when the Global Talent program was the only one run, to a second semester in which we focused on rebuilding product knowledge and worked with both products with the same priority.

The following steps we leave for our successors are to keep alive the transition ODM and have clear strategies to support the local committees in the challenge of making their offices sustainable once again with only the results of Global Volunteer.

OUR LOCAL COMMITTEES

Currently, there are 6 Local Committees, but in the second semester of 2021, because of merges, there were nine directors (responsible for sales of exchanges to the Belgian youth) selling the product in those six different offices, which meant that some were in exploring the same Market (even though they were various universities). So one of the main battles for the first semester of 2022 was to have one person per Local Committee, or at least to have them more specialized per product and not per university. So now we have only one person responsible for sales in each office.

Even though most University Relations partnerships are focused on the professional products, there are a lot of different opportunities in Belgium for new partnerships that contemplate the volunteer projects. One Good Case that we have is AIESEC in Gent, which has had a defined partnership with a clear goal of realizations for Global Volunteer. Now, after a semester of resumption, we must focus on building these long-lasting relationships that will empower our membership and boost our results.

By focusing better on exploring the correct markets, overall product awareness, and information management, we believe in having built the knowledge necessary and the foundation for the next generation to have more results.

The future of Global Volunteer

It is important to see the best future for our organization, in the short and long terms, based on the global reality and changes around us. Global Volunteer has undergone numerous changes to adapt to our new situation and post-pandemic reality. For that, we believe that Global Volunteer has the potential to become even more relevant than in past years for AIESEC in Belgium, bringing an even greater impact.

Historically, as AIESEC in Belgium, we focused on Global Volunteer or shortterm internships abroad for 6 to 12 weeks in start-ups. After COVID-19, there was a need to bring the program back to its sustainability, given many exchanges didn’t come to be because of travel restrictions, which resulted in a big wave of refunding those who couldn’t participate in their exchanges.

GLOBAL TALENT FOR YOUTH

So the first half of our experience as a national board focused on the professional products of our portfolio: Global Talent and Global Teacher, while working on the sustainability of Global Volunteer to rerun it. So we decided to focus from the start on these programs and put our strategies on bringing the change management to Local Committees (LCs) and making Global Talent and Global Teacher for Youth our main outgoing exchange programs.

We wanted to keep focusing on the short-term internships (6-12 weeks). However, we also improved our performance in the medium and long-term internships (13-78 weeks). Currently, mainly because of past results and the impact caused by the Global Volunteer product on the Belgian youth, not all Local Committees are able to sell the Talent and Teacher products.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Since AIESEC in Belgium had to halt operations for the main product, which was Global Volunteer, the Global Talent and Teacher programs became the focus, but without a proper change management plan from past Member Committees terms, which brought us to a semester where we should not only focus on the development of the product in the local committees but at the same time build capacity of the membership through specific learning cycles and new materials built to ensure quality education. So, based on ADKAR Methodology (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement), we tried to map and plan activities and responsibilities inside the Member Committee and towards the Local Committees through the second semester of the term to make this change happen.

Awareness was built in the first touchpoint with the commission still in June of 2021; from then on, we set spaces to create desire and align the local committees’ planning for the upcoming semester focused on operational results for GT (such as the Global Talent Summit held at the beginning of July).

The national education cycle (NEC) plan was built around a series of asynchronous lectures about the internal processes and hard and soft skills required to work in sales and customer service. They were mainly delivered by the Member Committee and the Entity Support Team. We capitalized on the spaces that we usually had with the entity, like the conferences, summits, commission meetings, summits, and others, to build the ability using of practical spaces for practice and execution of tasks.

Currently, there is still much work to be done in the change management as not all our members know how to work with the product, and one of the main things that were left out is to build a strong culture of team and network between the different local committees.

OUR LOCAL COMMITTEES

Currently, there are 6 Local Committees, but in the second semester of 2021, because of merges, there were nine directors (responsible for sales of exchanges to the Belgian youth) selling the product in those six different offices, which meant that some were in exploring the same Market (even though they were various universities). So one of the main battles for the first semester of 2022 was to have one person per Local Committee, or at least to have them more specialized per product and not per university. So now we have only one person responsible for sales in each office.

The Belgian Market is quite extensive, and many students are interested in internships abroad, either for a short period or an extended period. Compared to previous years, we see a growth in people interested in and applying to our Global Talent and Global Teacher opportunities, even increasing results for the Global Teacher. But, as previously mentioned, despite our efforts, Local Committees miss the knowledge or the ability to upscale sales at the moment.

By focusing better on exploring the correct markets, overall product awareness, and information management, we believe in having built the knowledge necessary and the foundation for the next generation to have more results.

We believe in having laid the foundation in the 21.22 term and envision that the next term can maximize and exploit this.

In Numbers

CONCLUSION

We started this year by bringing the change management from Global Volunteer to Global Talent & Global Teacher using the ADKAR methodology and exploring the LCs’ markets’ readiness for the product. But since it was rushed because of the frozen state of Global Volunteer, the change management wasn’t so well implemented, which created gaps in knowledge among the local directors. Nowadays, the product is feasible but should not be the sole focus of our local committees if we want to reach more people and create more “good impact” as AIESEC.

TESTIMONIALS

“My experience in Athens with AIESEC LLN has been really positive and enriching. Having subscribed to the Intern program, I have had the opportunity to work in a local company, Ginbits, and get a taste of how the professional world functions. This has allowed me to learn, grow, and become more confident about my skills. Now, I feel that I have developed a stronger sense of initiative as I can take decisions more easily and without hesitation. Plus, I have had the privilege to work in a very supportive and stimulating environment. My colleagues were indeed amazing and I really felt welcomed and part of a big family.

So, if you want to challenge yourself, meet people from all over the world, improve your linguistic skills, and boost your CV, the AIESEC Global Talent program is perfect for you! So grateful for this opportunity!”

- Concetta, Member of AIESEC in Louvain-la-Neuve Went on a Global Talent to Greece

Developing our Network

OUR MEMBERSHIP

The people working everyday for our purpose and goals represent the core of our organization and the Talent Management department is responsible to work on evolutions regarding the membership experience in our entity.

In this term, since the need for the adaptation of virtual management during pandemic and then afterwards for the readaptation for physical touchpoints, our membership stayed stable and more likely to apply for leadership positions.

171 members

57% of members stepping up for leadership positions

100% local Executive Boards fulfillment 8.6 NPS

76% members staying in their local committee

63% quality team standards implemented 77% conference attendance

We started by evaluating the TM Process Implementation and what has been the role of a VPTM at the local level. The first challenge was to bring a higher awareness in the commission about the job description and create a stronger identity, so we could be more aligned in a sustainable direction for our Human Resources. We also noticed that the entity was struggling with local engagement and people willing to apply for leadership positions. Based on this, one of our main focuses was to improve our Develop and Keep process in order to have a stronger pipeline and retention among our membership.

We started by focusing on personal development plans of the members, looking deeper at their inspiration to join our organization and capitalizing their competencies so we could align it with our job descriptions and goals. Since the VPs TM were more capable and aware of how to implement their Job Description, to educate other VPs and follow up on the execution would be easier. With that in mind, we improved the awareness of the role of VPTM to track team standards implementation so we could deliver better routines and support to our members. By workshops, tools and synergies the VPs TM were able to more accurately provide team management support among the LC.

In order to keep the members in our organization we had to take a closer look at what was the current state in terms of engagement and organizational climate, so we are able to identify why people are not willing to stay or apply for higher roles. Therefore we analyzed the organization culture and realized that unity and collaboration was not happening and those aspects drive Generation Z to move towards a common goal. With this in mind we implemented the One AIESEC in Belgium identity and message, with the idea of creating an unified direction for our organization that would strive for a sustainable development. All LCs planned their culture with this in mind its values, so we could be more aligned to achieve a common goal.

In terms of our recruitments, both were successful, overachieving the targets in potential members and final selected members, We started by defining our National Personas, focusing mostly on bachelor students enrolled in Economics or Business Administration profiles, but also Communication and Political Science students, while the promotion had attractive call to actions and catchy phrases that will already introduce the potential members in what AIESEC is focusing on. The most attractive value proposition is personal development and practical experience. In order to select the right people in the right place we organized our Talent Selection & Allocation based on cultural fit of AIESEC values, job description and competence stack.

It’s not enough just to recruit the right people - they also need to be inducted and educated. For this, together with the product heads we created an onboarding journey. We designed the first 2 weeks of new members in the organization for each track. It includes a clear schedule of touch-points, list of theoretical topics, tasks to put them in practice and measurements of successful delivery. Along with that, for implementation, we provided the materials and agenda to deliver each touchpoint, short videos, personalized tracking and incentive system. In the second semester mostly we managed to bring back the practical approach of learning and development, by being present on ground with LCs. Also the education cycle was designed based on learning by doing and practical workshops, delivered mostly in physical summits and with external facis, in order to bring a new and fresh perspective for our members and to make education an informal place where all the members can develop their knowledge and skills.

To be sure that we are providing the experience we promised we also worked on improving our qualitative measures of services and having more insights on people analytics. With that in mind the Membership Engagement Survey timeline was established and the assessments for Membership Experience, HR Sustainability, Organizational Culture and Performance Management were established. In order to ensure a good evaluation of this data, dashboards and reports were created, so our members were able to see the evolution of their experience and give more collaborative feedback. For the management aspect, our VPs became more aware of their team management and also more data savvy. With that, we were able to identify, prioritize and focus on the most important things. tried to focus more on the engagement of the entity by putting a lot of effort team routines and job descriptions implemented for a better performance.

Our Conferences

KICK OFF IN FEBRUARY 2O21: Olympic Games

After lockdown and a whole semester of online touchpoints, in September, we could host events physically for 200 people. It was an opportunity to be with our members again and engage them. Our venue was De Kalei in Dilsen-Stokkem. The conference was open for Local Executive Boards and Team Leaders. We had slots for 65 registrations, but we still had a few slots open, so some Team Members also joined the conference. It happened from the 17th to the 19th of September. and one direction (for sustainability).

Kick-off was the first conference of Member Committee Liana and we wanted to create a connection with the entity so we could Kick Off as ONE. We launched the ONE AIESEC in Belgium motto and had the theme of this conference as the Olympic Games, and the message we wanted to transmit through our agenda was focused on 3 pillars: one leadership (for pipeline), one entity (for unity) and one direction (for sustainability).

The chair of this conference was Insa Lata, MCP of AIESEC in Germany.

NatCO was our first National Conference and wanted to empower our network to apply for leadership positions since EB applications timeline was coming but also October is a performing month and the peak of results in the organization. It is the period to push the membership to achieve their goals before their exams. We had 115 registrations. The conference happened from 29th to 31st of October. With that in mind we wanted our delegates to go under the leadership journey, find out their purpose and create more impact for their LC. Based on this we had the idea of using SuperHeroes as our theme, so the delegate journey was the Hero’s Journey.

NATCO IN OCTOBER 2021:

The Hero’s Journey is a model for both plot points and character development: as the Hero traverses the world, they’ll undergo inner and outer transformation at each stage of the journey. Thinking about it, the message we wanted to transmit through our agenda was focused on 3 pillars: our power (for purpose), our battle (for connection with the LC), our triumph (for responsibility and role awareness). In the end of conference we gave a t shirt for every delegate with the logo of ONE AIESEC in Belgium.

At the conference we also had partners joining. IBM, TEKsystems and Build Your Future delivered keynotes and workshops to the delegates.

EB Summit

Each year we organise a one day conference for the new elected leaders of the organisation to prepare them for their upcoming term. We hosted this summit online this year bringing together 40 new leaders to teach them about strategic thinking, how to plan for the year and bringing an understanding the history and context of this organisation.

The main objectives of the conference were: “Knowing my function and how to lead it”, “Knowing my LC context and focuses for 22.23”, and “I know how to strategise and plan for the future”.

TAKE OFF IN FEBRUARY 2022: Water Cycle

Take-Off was the first conference of the semester and the first one in 2022. It was designed for mid-February, a month that is used for the pre-attraction phase and recruitment, with a focus on closing the experience with the previous generation and welcoming the new one. What was new this time compared to other years was the invitation of the alumni network as well as the Executive Boards of 2021 for participation in the MCP election process.

At the conference we had partners joining. UCB and AKKA Technologies delivered keynotes and workshops to the delegates.

The drivers of the conference were the three states of water: Solid, Liquid , and Gas . Solid refers to the most structured and stable state of matter, which in our case meant the understanding of the leadership role and the value proposition of AIESEC for the youth. The liquid is a more malleable and shapable state that represents how we would shape ourselves according to the necessities of Belgium’s youth to deliver better experiences. These were the spaces focused on building knowledge and capacity in the membership. Lastly, the gaseous state is the most energetic, and we used the sessions related to gas to hype the leaders for the upcoming year of their experience.

We had a total of 54 delegates, including EBs 2022, and around 15 people from EBs 2021, members of the alumni network, and partners at the venue for the four days of experience (one day of pre-meeting and three days of the conference). Eleonora Barile, MCP for AIESEC in Italy 21.22 was the conference chair, the choice of conference chair was made by the MCP, which was also conference manager for Take-Off 2022, and it was done based on the strong culture of AIESEC in Italy towards results and a personal connection between both MCPs.

This conference was marked by a lot of miscommunication and mess-ups. The three most important to mention were the communication chair-conference team that was being done through the conference manager, the changes in the agenda that were also done by the conference manager without any alignment with the agenda manager or the conference team, and a storm that closed the railways and roads to the venue, making all delegates late for the opening session.

The main points of improvement from this conference and from my experience as Agenda Manager are:

• It’s necessary to choose a chair that will firstly connect to the membership, not solely based on their achievement or leadership experience.

• The communication between the chair and the conference team should be done directly, without the conference manager being the mediator.

• The conference team must be prepared to adjust the agenda, always communicating amongst themselves, based on any unforeseen circumstances, ranking the most important sessions, and cutting out those that can be done in other touchpoints.

SPRINGCO IN APRIL 2022: Spaceship of Leadership

SrpingCo 2022 was the last conference of MC Liana. Being at the performance peak for summer, it was a very important touchpoint for the network to find the skills and knowledge they need to be engaged and perform

The conference theme was connected to space and was based on the self determination theory. The agenda of the conference was designed to help the delegates feel competent in their roles, feel connected to the organisation and have a clarity on how to implement their strategies, hence building competance, sense of belonging and autonomy in the membership.

We thank the chair for the conference, Ufuk Tetik, MCP 21.22 of AIESEC in Turkey and the international facis joining the conference for creating an amazing faci team experience which got the best session feedbacks in this year by the delegates.

There were a lot of new innovative sessions focusing on interaction and discussion spaces created in this conference that can definitely be a benchmark for the coming generations to look at. Ormit Talent joined as a partner.

Conferences - Financially

Throughout the whole term, we have made sustainable decisions in order to drive profitable conferences. While 3 out of 4 conferences were profitable, we experienced a small loss during our lost conference due to low attendance of delegates and inflation hitting our budget. However, overall we have made a profit of 2.5K this term to cover the loss from the past years in the conference fund and return some of this money to the Local Entities in the future.

Our Alumni

AIESEC in Belgium has a strong network of Alumni at National and Local level that engage and still contribute to the organisation in various capacity. We are very grateful to all our alumni who contributed this year to AIESEC in Belgium. First of all we would like to thank our Board of Advisors consisting of: Jaouad El Azzouzi, Tinuoye Oluwashayo, Helene Yohannes, Elisabetta Castaldo, Sarah Frans, Yoëlle Vanderlaan, Yassin Tajafrat, Myriam Neri, Dries De Schutter, Josephus Ayola, Kowsar Nouzari, Philippe Verschorren. Throughout the term we had 5 different Board of Advisors meetings. Besides that, the Board of Advisors supported us with project based support.

Secondly, we would like to thank all alumni who supported us in the delivery of workshops during the national conference and the rest of the year: Sara Moreno (UCB)

Emanuela Auteri(UCB)

Vlaadan Petrovik (AKKA technologies)

Thirdly, we would like to thank all our alumni who contribute to us with any other project.

Finally, we would like to thank all the alumni which have been mentoring the national team of AIESEC in Belgium: Sarah Frans, Myriam Neri, Yassine Tajafrat, Kowsar Nouzari and Margarita Vargas. We are looking forward to how in the next generation we can build upon this and capitalize on this.

Driving Sustainability

Organisational Development

Introduction

Organizational Development this year had all deliverables centred in the MCVP TMOD with the help of an EST Data Coordinator and iComm Coordinator. The main responsibility was to ensure good data and info management of our services and process and later on to work in synergy with MCVP F&L for a change management plan for our OD Model. We implemented new processes while still building upon and improving processes from generation 20.21. In that way, we could ensure a smooth transition and ensure sustainability for AIESEC in Belgium.

The organizational development model

At the beginning of the year, we did not introduce any changes to our organizational development model due to the lack of performance influenced by the external context, our local committees kept their status as “Expansions” and the ODM was frozen due to the pandemic and oGV being under resumption.

In our second semester of the term, in order to actively drive focus and performance in the entity we renewed our model, to transition from the phase we were into a more sustainable final phase of sustainability. With that in mind, we provided a path for the upcoming 12 months to fully reposition the Model by August 2023 to drive sustainable growth and health in our organization.

Continuity in the organization

In AIESEC our board changes yearly. Therefore, it is an important process for our organizational development to ensure we have enough people applying and that we focus on the transition between one responsible and the next responsible. Therefore this year we decided to launch the local committee applications on an earlier timeline to ensure better preparation for the new term. The election process of the local committee presidents happened nationally. And we supported the local committees to elect their executive board. To ensure everyone started on the same page and with the same knowledge we organized an EB summit in december. In total we had 41 attendees.

Information management

In order to know what is going on inside the local committees, we have a state of national affairs survey. This year, we increased the number of times our local committees fill the state of national affairs survey (SONA) and we had a 100% response rate. And in order to improve information accessibility we kept using the AIESEC in Belgium hub (bit.ly/BelgiumHUB). Also, we started our internal communication plan usage more actively on instagram with the brand ONE AIESEC in Belgium and focusing on more fun campaigns. We kept the monthly membership newsletter.

Support & Campaigns

We continued the local committee coaching strategy, which was in place the year before. Different coaches were allocated to the local committees, however, the system stayed the same. Moreover, we continued the rewards and recognition campaigns and national support team management. We adapted the main drivers to what we, as generation 21.22, wanted to drive.

Brand and Marketing

Introduction

It was a very interesting year for the Marketing function as after two covid generations, AIESEC in Belgium finally had a proper MCVP Marketing. As previous year the function was MoGX - there was not a lot of focus on the AIESEC Brand and attraction alignment to our creatives and materials - and hence this year was a pivotal one to set a base for the coming years for ensuring a brand aligned campaign and attraction strategy for AIESEC in Belgium. This translated into MC focusing heavily in creating new materials, content strategy and events portfolio that can be used as a template for the network.

Universities 1965 total Sign ups on our platform

239 youth applied to have an experience with AIESEC

A lot of investments were made in terms of templates and offline marketing materials for LCs to bring back the culture and familiarity of ongrounds and offline attraction. The main strategies of the year were broken down into the following categories:

Social Media Management

This year AIESEC in Belgium focused heavily on growing the engagement on Social Media, with a focus on National Instagram. There were discussions about closing local pages as per talks by AIESEC International around centralisation of social media channels, but at the end it was not implemented as no conclusions were made in it’s favour at the national level.

Our Social Media Engagement, post consistency, content quality and reach grew tremendously in the year as we had big social media structures and a clear campaign strategy. I would like to thank the National Social Media Team Leaders - Matilde Garcia and Mariana Bolivar for their excellent work.

Several ad campaigns and physical materials were also invested for the LCs this year

National Events

We planned two national event weeks during March and April where the local committees could have their event in the day and hour that suits their reality and time better. In March, the event had the name “Go to Europe with your friend” as we wanted to focus on exchanges inside the EU. In April, the event had the name “Find your Passion” as we wanted to focus on global talent for the short term, where the value proposition is to go in a short-term internship to find if you like a specific job.

29.6% of our Sign Ups know someone else that is interested in our products or experienced them 26.2% of our Sign Ups are coming from our activities and presence in the

University Relations

Some Local Committees of AIESEC in Belgium have strong partnerships with Universities. This is one of the biggest strengths of our outgoing exchanges and should be sought by all. In each semester there was a person responsible for the development of a framework for how to manage University Relations (UR) in the Entity Support Teams (EST).

Firstly we worked to understand the level of university relations in each reality and plan activities and next steps according to that. We created a “University Relations Memorandum of Understanding” which was downscaled to the Local Committee’s responsible together with an education cycle held by the EST.

Secondly the EST responsible held monthly individual meetings with the responsible that showed interest, to align on how to explore better the partnerships and understand the current situation of each LC. Based on that, materials for support (such as the UR Management booklet) were created.

Lastly, the Member Committee was responsible for creating an “app” on Podio, where the information about the management of each LC was stored for future reference. The last report can be found here.

Our Local Committees

We currently have 6 Local Committees with 6 Vice Presidents responsible for Marketing. Different Local Committees have different strengths and weaknesses in marketing. Most of them historically have good University Relations and really good word of mouth in the market. The Belgian market is quite extensive, and many students are interested in having an internship or a volunteer experience abroad. We need to develop our knowledge on targeting promotion and improve quality leads for our focus product, Global Volunteer - and ensure relevance in the Belgian market considering the growing competitors. This year the local chapter of VUB and Campus Brussel were merged into one Market of AIESEC in Brussel, following a similar merge of 3 markets into AIESEC in Bruxelles in the previous EB Term. The new growth path and OD model will guide a new direction for our Local Committees to grow in quality SUs and brand awareness.

Conclusion

This year we weren’t focused on running all the activities properly, so it’s really important to research each activity we can run next year and in which activities we should focus on based on the external reality that we have around us. It’s really important to develop our University Relations as it can grow our operations a lot. Last but not least, it’s important to focus on our Local Committees and on their knowledge to promote our programs in the best way possible.

Financial Report

Introduction

Starting the term of 2021-2022 of AIESEC in Belgium still meant facing (the aftermath of) COVID-19. While our first semester started with some restrictions on working at the office, we were still not fully operational as an organization, which had its expected impact on finances as well. Also the ongoing issues in our legal governance challenged us this year repeatedly. Therefore, strategies were focused on maintaining a steady financial situation and focusing on improving our legal governance.

Not only as a National team were we struggling with the above mentioned issues. The financial setback of COVID-19 in combination with the past years before COVID-19 have not worked in the favor of our Local Entities. This has made us a less sustainable organization over the years, while reserves have diminished due to continuous costs but no revenue being generated in a steady manner either. The financial situation in our Local Entities was definitely our biggest challenge being taken on by education and auditing.

As an organization providing youth exchanges all over the world, bringing youth to Belgium is made possible by the Single Permit process. Therefore, maintaining strong relations with the Federal and Regional government in Belgium was of high priority this year as well.

Strategies

To make sure we could tackle the issues mentioned above, the following strategies were put in place:

• Educating the Local Entities on (general) Finance & Legal management

• Auditing the Local Entities for improving their onground financial management

• Stronger Single Permit process and change management shift

Sustainability, as our main goal as a National team, is embedded in all three strategies and came back in all actions we have taken financially.

Our Local Committees

As mentioned before, our Local Entities have been struggling for years, even before COVID-19 started. This made the past period an extremely challenging one for our organization. Making financial decisions was the center of our financial operations and nothing was done unless it contributed to overall sustainability. Therefore education was given to the LCs on financial sustainability and how their actions impacted this directly or indirectly. Proper financial management is definitely a big part of becoming sustainable, having an overview of their financial situation and knowing what good or bad decisions are to maintain on this uphill road.

Besides education, two virtual audits and one physical audit were conducted in the past 12 months. During the virtual audits, all aspects of the Finance Standards were checked and feedbacked. During the physical audit, follow-up was done and help was given to continue these improvements on ground as well, e.g. in their physical bookkeeping. The average in the virtual audit went from 65% to 79% overall.

The National Committee

Starting the term in August 2021, the focus was maintaining our financial situation, as the past year a lot of improvements were made. Therefore, a most consistent approach was taken to re-use tools from the past year that were made and linked to each other. Improvements were made to adapt the tools to the ongoing situation but overall this helped in achieving 117% budget execution. With the amazing efforts of the BD team, we managed to improve our cashflow with around 80K by the 31st of July 2022.

Maintaining the same position also meant that the team had to be more involved in the financial situation and understand their position in this process. Therefore, a focus was made on clear communication, graphics and transparency in our finances during the past 12 months.

Conclusion

Overall, the seeds are planted for sustainability in the financial department. Not only through education and auditing of Local Entities, but maintaining our financial position as a National Team in order to support the Local Entities in this process. This trend will continue in the next term, where sustainability stays the priority.

Vision for the future

The term of 22.23 is formed by the following individuals

• Isha Jerath, MCP (center)

• Luana D’arc, MCVP BD

• Victoria Li, MC BD Manager

• Fredericke Decoster, MCVP F&L

• Wafa Benzamouche; MCVP iGT

• Daniel Rodriguez, MCVP OGX

• Maria Esperanza, MCVP TM/OD

• Stephanie Kersbergen, MCVP Marketing

We had our first touchpoint together as a team in May and from that point in time we were building the team. In June we had the MC to MC transition with both generations. This year this transition was delivered hybridly due to delay in visa processes of some international members who were not able to get to Belgium in time.

After the transition between the teams, MC 22.23 went into planning mode. We had in total 7 days of planning to ideate the future of our entity and to define the strategies to get there.

For the term 22.23 we aim to strive to empower more youth leadership in Belgium by committing 247 youth to a cross-cultural & life-changing experience through AIESEC in Belgium. We will do this by focusing on Outgoing Global Volunteer and Incoming Global Talents as our core products this year. Our big hairy audacious goal is to be the first choice organisation for youth leadership development globally.

We have a 3 year long term vision for AIESEC in Belgium focused towards:

1. Enhancing Membership Experience: By 2025, AIESEC in Belgium’s members have advanced capacity and enhanced experiences. Our members strive to become leaders for AIESEC and their society.

2. Upscaling Brand Presence : By 2025, AIESEC in Belgium’s brand is known for being the top leadership development organisation for youth and a top organisation to connect with youth for partners.

3. Faciliating Quality Operations: By 2025, AIESEC in Belgium delivers quality experiences that allow our customers to have high value experiences towards leadership development.

We will work towards the vision particularly this year by ensuring we improve our membership capacity and experience by encouraging leadership roles, by increasing our market representation among youth and by improving the implementation of standard operating procedures in our functions.

As MC 22.23 we are Reliable, Empathetic and Committed and actively working towards a culture of Ownership, Trust and Unity for ONE AIESEC in Belgium. We are passionate about our mission and strive for our goal, we are MC Ardent, committed to “Drive the change, Unite to impact.”

Belgium

Generation

SPRINGCO IN APRIL 2022: Spaceship of Leadership

Hereby we would like to present to you the seven individuals of the national team of AIESEC in Belgium 21.22.

Laure-Ann Vanautryve Finance and Legal

Aishwary Chauhan Marketing and Brand

Isha Jerath Business Development TL

Emina Mehic Business Development Director

Milena Jovanovichs Talent Management & OD

Bruno Mendonça oGX & UR

Yasmine Khadira

Incoming Global Talent

In 2023, AIESEC in Belgium will complete 75 years of developing youth leaders, Join us, in our mission and help young people around the world develop their leadership potential, and let’s strive to keep our WHY relevant, for another 75 years.

One AIESEC in Belgium, creating a sustainable direction. - Member Committee Liana 2021-22, AIESEC in Belgium.