You may already have a successful employability programme in place – but these 3 steps might still help you look at what you are delivering and offer some insights for continuous improvement.
- Assess your community needs
Before diving in, it’s crucial to understand the specific employability needs of your community and define clear objectives for your program.
You will have data from DWP for your local labour market, but this may not be as up to date as you need.
You can enrich your insights with engagement with employers, employees and residents. You can also use up to date job vacancy data, if you have this available.
You can conduct surveys, outreach groups or even just ASK people about the specific challenges you see in your community.
Based on this assessment, you can identify the key groupings of challenges for your community and begin to identify next steps, these could include:
- increasing job placement rates,
- providing skills training, or
- enhancing career insights and development opportunities.
2. Identify Partners and other stakeholders
Building relationships with external organizations and securing resources (both financial and people!) are vital for the successful sustainability of any employability approach.
Can you collaborate with local businesses, educational institutions, and training providers to offer workshops, internships, and job placement services?
These partnerships can also provide mentoring and career advice.
Identify the local, regional and national funding opportunities from government bodies, philanthropic organisations, and corporate sponsors that support your challenges in delivery of employability and skills development programs.
We know programms run and are not always full with the right people, or people find them hard to access.
Connect and communicate your partner delivery with your employability teams and communities to get the most impact from your work establishing these partnerships.
Your community may not always be using your website – we have seen low website hit numbers for tenants. You may want to find other ways, such as QR codes, or mobile friendly apps, to make access as easy as possible. For those not familiar with digital communications, support your workforce to provide access to information as easily as possible, for instance, with leaflets or signposting.
- Create a systemic approach for your defined services
Create a comprehensive curriculum and range of services tailored to the needs of your residents. This should cover various aspects of employability, from job search strategies to skills development.
You can include:
- Essential components such as CV writing workshops, interview preparation, job search techniques, and skills training relevant to local job markets.
- Additional support services like career counselling, mentorship programs, and networking events to help residents navigate their career
- Provide online services for tenants and support workers to connect support
You can deliver these services through your employability team, or you can enhance consistent delivery by using employability and skills software to build your own community offer.
Promoting the services you provide is where your success lies, making it easy to access, helpful and repeatable means your residents can build trust in what you offer to them and they can simply use your services to improve their own outcomes.
If you have experience of managing change for people, you will be well versed in the effort needed here but if you are not used to managing change like this – find supporters inside and outside your organisation to help you define your best ways of engaging people.
Ongoing improvement – monitor and improve your approach …
Starting a programme can feel daunting, but starting is the important part. You don’t have to have everything, but over time you can create a robust initiative that enhances the career prospects of residents and contributes to their overall well-being. Identify small improvements regularly and you’ll be offering a continually improving service for your community.