What’s the problem?

With UK businesses experiencing a record high in the number of job vacancies, it’s apparent that companies in every sector are struggling to fill vacancies since the pandemic.

The number of job vacancies in August to October 2021 continued to rise to a new record of 1,172,000, an increase of 388,000 from the pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic January to March 2020 level, with 15 of the 18 industry sectors showing record highs

Research from the Office for National Statistics shows that every industry has shown positive quarterly growth from Q2 to Q3 2021. So, it’s clear that with the reopening of the economy, businesses are busier than ever but as you’ve probably experienced in one way or another yourself, staffing issues are a huge problem.

However we then have the other side of the equation, the job seekers and in particular the young people entering work. According to the latest House of Commons survey an estimated 728,000 young people aged 16-24 are listed as NEET (not in education, employment or training) in the UK.

The coronavirus outbreak has particularly impacted on the labour market status of young people, with a large fall in employment and a rise in unemployment amongst 16-24 year olds. Studies have shown that time spent NEET can have a detrimental effect on physical and mental health, and increase the likelihood of unemployment, low wages, or low quality of work later on in life. This perpetuates the industry struggle to get access to skilled resource later on.

These statistics seem to indicate a problem…there is clearly a talent gap that needs addressing and we believe we have the answer!

How does The Platform Project help?

If you need a bit of background as to what we do, we help young people get work-ready and bridge the gap between education and employment. In fact, we’ve helped hundreds of 16-24 year olds to get into paid work, self-employment or go on to higher education in the past five years.

We offer an experiential environment where young people receive training, mentoring and can complete projects in line with our internship programme. They’ll do things like build a website, attend virtual and in-person meetings, write blogs, complete spreadsheets, send emails and more – all things that ensure they can hit the ground running in the workplace.

As we’ve been busy training up our young people and sending them out into the world, we’ve seen a huge 89% of them go on to launch their careers, so we thought we must be doing something right!

Our organisation is working hard to reduce the number of young people that are NEET in Swindon (and hopefully UK wide in the next year). We need employers like you to work with us and take advantage of the huge benefits you get when you hire young talent.

What are the advantages of employing and developing young people?

The benefits of employing young talent and nurturing them within your business are plentiful, we’re always amazed at their attitudes and approach to work. Here are just a few of the advantages;

·       Growing your workforce via young talent is cost-effective - nurturing and developing talent is cheaper than buying it

·       Having a young person start out with you means you can build your own talent pipeline

·       Young people can be a positive breath of fresh air and bring unique skills to your business

·       Young people bring diversity into your workforce, provide a new perspective and investing in young talent elevates your reputation as a local employer

With the Government Kickstart Scheme running until March 2022, it’s the ideal option to start your journey as a employer of young talent. Beyond this, there are also plenty of options around apprenticeships and grants to fund employment and training.

We’ve developed four offerings that you can use to get the most out of employing and developing young people. Think of us as an extra recruitment and training arm to your business, we have the skills you need to create an up and coming talent pool within your company that will help you grow and achieve your long-term goals.

Our services for employers

Search

Tired of scouring the open market, wasting time reading CV’s & taking interviews?

We train our interns to be work ready and we can also match them to your recruitment requirements. This gives you the right talent when you need it and the assurance they have developed a set of transferrable professional skills when they start with you.

Benefits of hiring our interns...

·       They are work ready, with good technical and interpersonal skills

·       Quick access to entry level, highly capable talent

·       More time and cost effective than open market searching

·       Helping to reduce the number of young people out of work

By choosing our skilled interns to fill your vacancies you can be assured of their work readiness and capability.

Start

Have you found a young person that’s perfect for the role but they don’t quite have the skills to be productive from day one?

Start gets your entry level hires work ready – fast! This employability skills programme is perfect for before or just as they start working for you. It takes around 4 weeks and is a combination of working with us and you, so they can still integrate with your organisation from the start.

Benefits of the Start programme...

·       Ideal for young people with little or no work experience in a professional work environment

·       We train them in the key professional skills they need to thrive

·       Reduces the time you need to spend building their basic skills

·       Develops the work-ready confidence they need to integrate into your team

You recruit them and we and we get them working to their full potential.

Stretch

Are your managers finding it hard to adjust to an entry level direct report or struggling to develop them?

Stretch is our training programme for managers on how to get the most out of your entry level talent. It’s not always easy teaching someone the ropes (no matter how old they are) so we’ve developed a range of practical skills-based training programmes to help managers embrace and excel at managing young people in entry level roles.

Benefits of Stretch training...

·       Improves management skills and engagement for productivity gains

·       Improves new starter retention by reducing people management challenges

·       Adopts tried and tested approaches to balance the management time spent on developing entry level talent

·       A range of individual specialist CPD workshops also available in topics such as managing additional learning needs, supporting mental health in young people and safeguarding practices

We build the skills that your managers need to help young people thrive and stay productive within your business.

Support

Are your managers too stretched to spare the time to support a young person through their probation?

Our Support offering is 121 structured support for young people in their probation period. We provide trained coaches who follow our new-starter development programme that supports young people to adapt and excel when they join an organisation.

The programme includes...

·       Managing work and time effectively

·       Building relationships with stakeholders

·       Having a confident presence in key workplace situations

·       Self-awareness and reflective learning for continual growth and other key topics

Our tailored support programme helps improve retention during the probation period and increases young people's effectiveness in the early stages of starting work. Management resource is then freed up to work on other areas of the business.

Alternatively, we can deliver this programme as a training course for your managers, they can then learn how to apply our model to your new starters directly.

How much do you charge?

We pride ourselves in providing a market leading service with budget busting prices to fit every need. So, although these services are commercially charged, they certainly won't break the bank. We’ll work out a cost-effective price depending on your individual requirements.

Plus…any small profit we make goes straight back into our not-for-profit model to fund the charitable work we do to help reduce youth unemployment. We choose not to make huge profits on our services so you can help us to change the world, one young person at a time.

What are the next steps?

Get in touch with us directly if you’re looking to make a difference and embrace the huge benefits of employing entry level talent in your organisation. It’s amazing what young people can achieve and seeing it for yourself is the best way to start, so we always welcome all local businesses to come visit us and see what we get up to day to day.

If we all work together, we can make a difference for our young people in Swindon, helping them improve their prospects, unlocking talent, increasing their confidence and helping them to create a better future.

Just contact us on 0300 030 1232 or email partnerships@platformproject.co.uk and start your journey!