Great day on our Orientation today. Alex from the 18th programme of Growing Talent back in 2018 was onsite in his newly promoted role – what a photo opportunity!
Lee joins @Honeywell from next week and will bump into Alex a lot – a great friendly face when you are new.
Watch this space to see how Lee gets on…….
Test driving anything before you commit to it makes logical sense – doesn’t it?
Why doesn’t this apply to a job?
Well, it does at Growing Talent. A role is ring fenced upfront for you which you train in before being employed. Learning all aspects of the role, team, client, culture of the business before being employed.
After selection and before going on site, a week long ‘boot camp’ of empowering workshops are delivered, building confidence and a qualification in positive mental health and wellbeing.
In addition to being paid by the employer during this ‘test drive’ period you retain your benefits and have your travel paid.
What’s not to like?
To apply: must be over 18, have Right to Work in the UK documents in place and be able to give details for a minimum three year checkable history. For the global course in mental health and wellbeing, access to a desktop/laptop is crucial.
All jobs are permanent, based in Central London within corporate or operational environments
Interested to learn more? Join our virtual information session – details in the feature pic.
Growing Talent gives the space, nurturing, coaching to enable confidence to flourish and true abilities to be revealed.
She is thriving under the guidance of her manager Pedro at Pertemps and, from her third appraisal, is clearly giving equal support to the team and candidates in her care.
An inspirational journey of growth over a few short weeks.
Friday 17 June was a balmy, sunny and sticky day in London. Temperatures were high so was the positive energy in this room as our Employer Speed Dating session got underway.
This is the first selection stage of Growing Talent which removes the potential for assumptions to be made by removing cvs and formal interviews. This enables the real person to be seen rather than any ‘labels’ they may have.
For employers, it enables a collaborative, unique way to tap into a hidden talent pool bringing diversity, inclusion, commitment and belonging into their business – which can only be good, right?
Passionate employers driven to uncover diverse talent for their roles that they can grow and nurture to be empowered employees defied the heat of the trains to get to our venue at London Bridge. Let’s face it, they could have given their roles to traditional agencies – wouldn’t that be easier? Probably, but easier isn’t always best!
Some had taken part previously and knew the fun ahead. For some, it was a completely new experience! No cv? No formal interview? No Job Description? What a leap of faith they took to step out of their comfort zone to join us!
Equally impressive was the integrity and commitment of the fabulously talented, but currently unemployed applicants who arrived enthusiastic, keen to meet employers without the shackles of traditional recruitment but unsure what was going to happen and of course a little glowing from their journeys!
What gave me the biggest kick was seeing Ella and Kieran from previous Growing Talent programmes now employer side! How fabulous is that!
There’s always a little tweak to be done in the setting up of these events. As usual the amazing Julie from #Portico Welcome Team was on hand to help me! Of course, on the front desk welcoming everyone to the event was Alex – from a previous Growing Talent programme! #inspiring for the applicants.
Within minutes of entering the room to start the timed table changes – the chatter and laughter was rising as any nerves melted away.
Ricky & Sharon from #RestoreHarrowGreen seeking new talent for their diverse roles.
Lois #SwissPostSolutions & Lesley from the global financial services organisation that sponsors Growing Talent joining us to explore some potential NEBOSH H&S Executives. Both have been involved in Growing Talent from the start and of course gave tips and pointers to those they saw who didn’t quite know what to say at first.
Ella and Paul of Master-FixProperties looking for fabulous new talent to join their business. Ella of course could give some insight of the Growing Talent journey that lies ahead for those going forward.
Michael #ISS looking for new talent to join his team
Laura & Emma #OfficeConcierge joining us for the first time to look for those hidden gems of talent we have amongst our unemployed communities.
Soraya, Kieran and Rosie #SPS looking for a new team member. Like Ella, Kieran has been on the Growing Talent journey and knows what it’s like. Although when Kieran did it, Growing Talent was three months long not five weeks!
Rosie is part of Lois’s team at SPS. Together they have given opportunities to around 38 people through Growing Talent since the first programme in early 2014. Many are still there and in supervisory positions.
Always time for one more photo! – Anna – longstanding cheerleader from JobCentre Plus, Ella and Paul #MasterFix and Sharon #RestoreHarrowGreen. Over the years, Sharon has taken over 30 people into her business and watched them grow and develop.
This week sees the second selection stage take place with 1-2-1s – mainly virtual thanks to the rail strike! Nothing detracts Growing Talent – there is always a way!
Looking forward to meeting these fabulous employers this week are: Abbas, Alex, Dimitrios, Edward, Frank, Martin, Rosanna, Shari and Sharon.
Check back to find out how they get on.
Growing Talent is a collaborative way for employers and their unemployed communities to come together on a level playing field journey to permanent jobs. Find out more on the Growing Talent tab on this website or check out http://www.growing-talent.co.uk.
Some years back, I was introduced to Adam who had just started working with Jamie at a national recruitment company.
Sharply dressed, seemingly able to talk to anyone at any level confidently and make up really good raps for audiences ‘off the cuff’. A real ‘presence’ in the room, Adam was late teens when I met him not sure of the path he would ultimately take.
Several different jobs over the years followed before Lockdown hit. At Christmas 2020, after almost a year of uncertainty the global pandemic has brought us all to trying degrees, Adam took the massive, in my view, step of getting on a plane and going to Tanzania. Without a job/home to go to there, Adam wanted a complete change.
He reached out to me to discuss his next moves and explore his thoughts – I was honoured.
I was shocked by the reality of Dar es Salaam from the photos Adam sent me which were the polar opposite of my perceptions of what this African City would be like.
Curtesy of Adam, I share a photo of his new home City:
According to Adam the pace of life is much slower compared to London and has given him time to think what he really wants to do.
Taking the time to ask ourselves ‘are we happy?’ and ‘does it feel right’ enable us to take the pulse of where we are and helps answer those questions of whether to keep going down a certain path or change.
Adam’s had the time and space to figure out his next move by relocating to Tanzania – even if to some of us it feels like a step too far.
Of course, it may not be practical to relocate to the other side of the world to find what we want to do. We don’t have to. Giving ourselves some space alone to think about our own happiness and whether what we are doing ‘feels right’ will give us the same ignition for our own next steps.
I firmly believe there have been many positives to the global pandemic as well as the many well known negatives.
The world has learned a lot from each other sharing knowledge, information, research as well as stats and their process of handling infection rates. This collaboration has produced two vaccines cleared for rollout as well as India’s home produced vaccine about to be rolled out in India.
Whilst there is still a long way to go until the pandemic is managed via immunisation, I wonder if Governments will learn from the collaboration to date and continue with this going forward. Think of the positive changes that could be made.
Watching the Focus item on French 24 tv this morning, I wondered if the changes Italy is going through is something we can learn from in the UK on ‘levelling up’ areas of deprivation and past industries such as our mining towns, coastal resorts, previous manufacturing areas and so on.
Sicily experienced decades of young people leaving to work in the more prosperous North leaving. behind a growing older population and economic degeneration.
Focus explained the pandemic saw many younger people who had migrated to the North for work, returned to their parental homes in the South at the start of the pandemic. Working from co-working hubs socially distanced with fast fibre internet connection, they can work as well as if they were in their office in the North.
What they’ve noticed is the economic regeneration locally. Municipalities are rolling out fibre optic networks in their best locations to entice this positive change to become permanent. One featured a ceramic museum which now has the dual purpose of being a co-working space with fast internet and great views across to the Aeolin Islands. The quality of life for these young people has increased, there is no ‘brain drain’, older generations have their families around them and local businesses are experiencing regeneration.
The North of Italy will continue as a buoyant business hub with offices thriving after the pandemic is over. But they are aware the benefits presented by the pandemic will be permanent – a true ‘levelling-up’ of the country.
The UK has spent a lot of money because of the pandemic. Surely it’s vital to spend a little more to invest in fast internet across the UK to not only enable people to work anywhere, if their job supports remote working, but also ensure every child has access to technology to enable them to develop their careers of the future.
We have seen pockets of the UK experience decades of deprivation as businesses/industries have closed with nothing replacing them. The below picture is typical of a lot of towns left behind when businesses/industries closed or moved. We see many high streets have lost their vibes as big chains moved in and now those big chains are failing. Many high streets over the decades has lost their independent stores to large chains, pubs and betting shops.
Isn’t this an ideal time to turn the tide?
What could these communities look like with the right investment?
Have you heard the name David Richards? Went to Silicon Valley to learn the IT trade, set up a college course for young people to get into IT in Sheffield, UK and headquartered his IT company WANdisco in both Sheffield and California… me neither. Why?
Why hasn’t the media picked up on this insightful business acumen from David before? Why has he not been used as a positive role model for young people living in areas where they can’t see a way to progress?
Setting up businesses in areas where there is deprivation means you have an untapped talent base locally who would be committed with the investment of training leading to genuine jobs they can build their futures on.
Check out David on Wikipedia and copied and pasted feature below shown on BBC News website this morning.. Imagine if every area of every country had insightful employers like David? The opportunities for true social mobility are endless. What do you think?
Image copyrightDAVID RICHARDSDavid Richards was mocked when he chose Sheffield as the European headquarters for his computer firm.
He says that explains a lot about the lack of social mobility in the UK.
“Most of my friends in London thought it was some kind of staged joke,” he says.
Raised in what he calls a “lower middle class” home, David emigrated from Sheffield to Silicon Valley in the US aged 23 to work in IT.
The company he went on to found, Wandisco, is now worth £400m and employs 300 people.
When he wanted to bring the firm home, he chose Sheffield, where he sponsors a course at Sheffield College, which trains students for careers in computing.
But as a new report is published showing sharp differences in life chances for less well-off children around England, he says private companies must shoulder some of the blame.
“The private sector in particular needs to recognise you can’t just create companies solely in London,” he says. “You just cannot do that.”
The way firms cluster in the South East might explain part of the problem – but the Social Mobility Commission says it is complicated. Life chances for many in the south are poor too.
Children from less well-off families are likely to end up in low-paid jobs no matter how well they do at school in some parts of England, its report says.
Those in the areas where social mobility is easiest earn twice as much as those where it was most difficult.
The commission says persistent poverty means some families risk being “locked into disadvantage” for generations. It is demanding the government does more to boost social mobility.
Children who went on to the lowest salaries were raised in places that were typically more deprived, had fewer good jobs and fewer outstanding schools, according to its report.
Much of this is obvious to less well-off young people living in Sheffield.
“In my school, teachers didn’t really motivate you. Their way of motivating was kind of like: ‘You’re not going to pass’,” says 17-year-old student Jamanuel.
16-year-old Jasmine adds: “My school did not have work experience, so if I got to look for a job now, I have no idea what I’m doing… We didn’t have that support at school, so I do think the city is divided.”
The father of one of Sheffield College’s current star students stacks shelves in a supermarket for a living, David Richards says, but builds computers in his spare time.
“Opportunity is not spread evenly in the UK,” he says.
“If he was living in Silicon Valley… he’d be working at one of the big tech companies.”
The Social Mobility Commission report – drawn up with the Institute for Fiscal Studies – compares how much people who received free school meals as children earned at the age of 28 in different parts of England.
Their median wages in the best performing areas were more than £20,000. In the poorest performing, that figure was less than £10,000.
A government spokesperson said: “Now more than ever, our focus is on levelling up the opportunities available to every young person in this country and we will do everything possible to make sure no-one is left behind as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.”
According to the commission’s report, life chances were best for disadvantaged children in places including East Hertfordshire and Wokingham in Berkshire.
Bradford and Hartlepool were among the worst performing towns. So too were West Devon, and the Chilterns.
Researchers only examined the earnings of men, the commission says, because data for female earnings would not have been comparable.
We’ve seen the misery inflicted on ‘A’ level students with the release of predicted grades last week and it seems the same is set to follow those receiving their GCSE results this week.
Students who worked massively hard and got great grades in their mocks and from their teachers were marked down on the basis of the overall history of their school’s performance. Does it necessarily follow that a student attending an underperforming school who works hard, studies long and has positive role models in their life cannot soar? I don’t believe it does. Many people experience deprivation and barriers in their life but are able to focus on their goal, work hard and get where they want to be.
Education is seen by many adults the world over to be a passport out of deprivation for their children. Unfortunately, not all children see this when they have free education offered to them. But many do. Many want to rise-up, work hard and move forward.
The one piece of positivity I noted this weekend was the story of strong apprenticeships – see feature photo. I don’t mean the administration or customer service year long apprenticeships we’ve become used to but quality apprenticeships that lead to great careers and move people to where they want to be without judging them on what circumstances they were born into.
The feature picture reminded me of a meeting I had last week with a London Council. Their apprenticeships are broad and varied including Surveyor, Engineering – two years plus and starting salaries of £21K+.
University is a passport to a better life for some. But so are Apprenticeships. There is more than one solution. Look at apprenticeships on offer including at your local council. The ideal opportunity for you could be nearer than you think.
We all know the pleasure and the pain that Coronavirus has brought. Although we’ve all been in the same sea trying to get to the other side, we’re all in different boats.
It’s been a rollacoaster for everyone – maybe just to different degrees.
For those able to work from home, there’s maybe been the challenge that others in your family have been doing the same! Home schooling for those with children has been an added dimension – not all bad but not all good either!
Some of us have been forced to look at our own wellbeing. If we’re lucky enough to have gardens – they are likely re-designed and weed free! Some may have set some space aside for a veg plot having seen the advantages of growing your own – especially in a pandemic!
Some have taken the time to learn new skills – learn a new language, bricklaying or joined an online choir or logo class.
For some living in rooms without their own space or garden the initial lockdown is particularly tough.
Now we’re nearing the end of lockdown and the end of the furlough scheme which is seeing the unemployment figures rise exponentially. Graduates and those who have finished A levels are leaving full-time education. There has never been so much untapped talent in decades.
The poison chalice of unemployment quickly strips away self-worth and belief even in those previously highly confident with solid work histories. This needs addressing. It won’t work for everyone being put into a job without a programme of rebuilding their self-esteem – enter Growing Talent!
After six years collaboration with Job Centre Plus on Growing Talent, I was approached by two key cheerleaders of Growing Talent – also managers at JCP! – to run some programmes to address this self-esteem void along with knowledge for job searching to give those looking for work the edge wellbeing and so on.
Next week kicks off a week long programme for Jill – JCP manager at Bromley for some of her customers. Followed by two sessions the following week specifically aimed at Graduates. We’re really pleased Sophie and the team at Smart Works are joining us on these session to showcase their amazing offering.
In August a week long course is deliver for Rajen of Job Centre Plus in East London.
Meeting and exceeding the Government’s Kick Start programme our partnership will deliver empowerment to participants to sustainably move forward.
Ask any Growing Talent Associate or Graduate – we’re never deflated and always ready for any challenge!
Can’t wait to get started!Deflatd