BQ2 Yorkshire Special Report on skills

2 BUSINESS QUARTER Yorkshire: Special Report - Bridging the skills gap

How to tackle the skills challenge Yorkshire’s leading experts reveal their blueprint for the future KNOWLEDGE IS THEIR BUSINESS Sheffield Hallam University is helping businesses and young people forge better and brighter collaborations

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BT is working hard to influence the skills debate across Yorkshire and create a tech savvy county

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BRIDGING THE SKILLS GAP FOR A BETTER FUTURE

CONTENTS 06. CREATIVITY FILLS THE GAP IVE’s Drew Rowlands on creativity’s role in the skills gap 12. A POWERHOUSE OF SKILLS Sheffield Hallam’s Conor Moss on how to help businesses 20. WORKING TOGETHER How Bradford College Group is using collaboration to meet businesses’ needs 27. AROUND THE TABLE BQ Live Debate on how Yorkshire addresses the skills gap 34. WHY WE’RE INVESTING IN SKILLS Norm Peterson is building a workforce to compete nationally and internationally 36. ALL WIRED UP Tom Keeney explains how BT is influencing the skills debate across the county 44. A UNIVERSITY FOR LIFE York St John wants to support its students throughout their careers

Skills have long been the bedrock of Yorkshire industry and the sturdy scaffolding supporting a bright future.

So it is a huge responsibility to nurture them, embrace them and make sure they are available at their full potential for any businesses looking to the county for answers, as well as existing businesses who are investing here and merit every ounce of support.

The success this region is having in that national skills battle is evident from the pages that follow, as we highlight the remarkable amount of work being done day in and day out to make sure no single opportunity escapes our grasp, just because we weren’t ready to respond. As other regions have found, neglect your duty and let the skills pipeline dry up and billions of pounds will go to the people who knew the challenge was coming and were ready for it.

This BQ2 magazine is the embodiment of one of the key strengths this region has collaboration. On the following pages are influential organisations who know the place inside out, have their finger on the jobs pulse 24/7, and see the value of coming together in a show of formidable strength.

They prove that a sense of unity and Yorkshire pride is deeply embedded here – and will be a vital factor as we all pull together. As Dawn Leak of the Bradford College group tells us: “We are deeply rooted in training the young people of Yorkshire, right back to the days when the college started as a textile training centre for that booming sector.

That is a proud heritage for us and is the foundation of the work we do today.”

And Conor Moss says: “We want to be a university for the broader region – creating knowledge, innovations and solutions that impact on people’s lives, and being a beacon for what a university can do for and with its community.”

Over at IVE, Drew Rowlands spotlights the main reason we are doing all this work together, to “give young people the chance to work with top-notch people as well as giving support, mentoring and advice to help them navigate, almost as a surrogate parent nurturing them towards career goals.”

Tom Keeney of BT says those young people can be huge boost to any organisation: “Not only do you get the skills of the individual, but you get the attitude and the confidence they have at their stage of life, and a tech literacy which can be important, working alongside people who may not have such a natural affinity with technology.”

Karen Stanton, vice-chancellor at York St John, realises this is a time to make collaboration count. She tells us: “It is partnership, partnership, partnership that is providing the answers throughout Yorkshire, and the same attitude from education and business will bring success.”

BQ is delighted to provide the volume for such powerful messages because, like all our partners in this skills campaign, we want to make a difference for the next generation of young game-changers and business leaders and we know that collaborating and playing to our individual strengths as well as being part of a vast matrix of experience will secure a sustainable future for Yorkshire’s businesses old and new.

Mike Hughes, BQ Editor for Yorkshire (and proud of it) In association with

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All information is correct at time of going to print, October 2017.

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Mike Hughes talks to IVE Director Drew Rowlands about the crucial role of creativity in tackling the region’s skills challenges.

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he journey of creative development agency IVE, from a strongly-held belief in the importance of creativity to a vital cog in the Yorkshire skills machine, reflects the radical changes the whole region has been through as it maps out its economic future.

For 20 years IVE (whose name stresses the importance of being CreatIVE, InnovatIVE and SupportIVE) was rooted in the education sector at the forefront of a movement that was realising the importance of creativity to allow pupils to make the most of their opportunities, and contributing to a seminal report for the government called All Our Futures.

The impact of the report led to a national programme of creativity in schools called Creative Partnerships, and to IVE advising the government on the role of creativity in education, all the time absorbing and leading the latest thinking on processes and problem-solving.

In the last two years all that learning has been developed into a series of training programmes IVE now offers for businesses and leaders which improve resilience and enhance capacity in ways that were always possible, but needed revealing and nurturing. One stark statistic driving the organisation’s passion for what they do is

that within the next 20 years up to 70% of the work in certain sectors will be done by artificial intelligence.

“The thing that keeps that stat from overtaking us is human creativity,” says IVE development director Drew Rowlands.

He is a passionate former school leader now developing programmes for business, schools and young people to make sure everyone can tap into their creative potential, and he says this most human of skills will be a key factor for growing businesses.

“We are faced with growing problems and issues and I think the only way out of it all is through our human capacity to create.

Within my lifetime the Earth will have to tackle some fundamental questions that need answering and those answers will start with us all being more creative.”

Such global challenges begin at a regional level, and it is a core part of the IVE philosophy that a creative strategy needs to start early and cover all areas to make sure the whole region can benefit and not just a small area of adopters.

Rowlands explains: “We want to reach all parts of the community so, for instance, we are a social enterprise organisation, so any profits we make go into our programmes for

s g n i r b y Creativit

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y t i l i b a l i a skills av

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“This programme is exactly what is needed to support the development of untapped potential and nurture the dreams that disadvantaged young people often can’t afford to have.”

disadvantaged young people in particular who are looking to fill that skills gap, through the pathways and opportunities we can provide.

“Sometimes our society does what we think young people want without listening hard enough to them and what their issues are. IVE has a four-year relationship with the children on our Shaping Creative Futures programme, including the transition at 18 or 19 when they are going into apprenticeships, higher education or training.

“That programme was born out of years of research and gives young people the chance to work with top-notch people as well as giving support, mentoring and advice to help them navigate, almost as a surrogate parent nurturing them towards career goals by teaching them the creativity they need to be one step ahead.”

The approach has drawn plenty of praise, not least from patron and Eurythmics founder Dave Stewart who says: “This programme is exactly what is needed to support the development of untapped potential and nurture the dreams that disadvantaged young people often can’t afford to have. It will allow us to shine a spotlight onto talent that would otherwise remain in the shadows.”

Rowlands found some of those shadows when he was working in Knowsley on Merseyside helping to turn round a failing school where the hard work of teachers just wasn’t getting results.

He worked with staff and pupils to look

at the added value of being creative and decided that a definition of ‘the application of original thought’ was a good starting point.

That allowed teachers to incorporate creative thinking into lesson plans and make a trackable difference to results and the potential of the pupils.

The idea of teaching creativity as a skill that can be acquired is still quite a challenging concept, but minds have been changed so many times now that it is fast becoming an added essential for organisations and individuals wanting to bring something exceptional to a situation.

“My background is in education and I truly believe that you can teach the creativity that can make that difference,” he says.

“The process can be broken down into constituent parts and you can train people to understand, harness and embrace that creative thinking. That means that processes towards problem solving can be taught and collaborations developed, as we found with one organisation whose engineers were highly innovative individuals, but collectively, they just don’t gel. So we can go into these places to bring out the group potential and teamwork that can be such a benefit to a company.

“We work with people to move them from divergent thinking outside that box to convergent thinking where they start identifying an action plan of what they are going to do, which involves articulating what

the problem is and making the language more positive – all facilitated within our processes,” says Rowlands.

“Once you understand what it is, you can access a creative process and start to understand how you can develop it in yourself as well as other people. It can take time but it can also happen quite quickly, depending on the dynamic within the group because we have seen before that creativity can be inhibited really quickly by the behaviour of those listening as part of a group, who are not open to new ideas.”

A good first step for an organisation getting involved with IVE is to sum up what is missing from its business and contrast that with the difference some original thinking could make. When those gears start turning and the thought process starts, a whole industry can begin to realise that thinking outside the box has never been so important for Yorkshire businesses, particularly at a time when they – and the students who will be running their businesses for them in a few years – are facing some hefty challenges.

Rowlands says: “Unfortunately, the educational landscape has become narrower and narrower in terms of the curriculum, to the extent that it is now often purely about knowledge and content. The idea of thinking and skills and adaptability is being lost and employers are seeing that when they try to recruit.

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“Part of our drive for doing all this work now is that there is a gap in the market for both employers and educators and an urgent need to develop these capacities because information, advice and guidance for people moving into employment is dire, particularly around the creative industries, which is one of the biggest growth markets worth more than £80bn to the economy.

“The knowledge of the different pathways and employment opportunities are almost nonexistent, and IVE recognises that we need to raise the profile and awareness of what is out there.

“I think it would help enormously to start by changing the language we use in education because at the moment ‘academic’ is one status and ‘vocational’ is somehow second class. Surely it is far more helpful to talk about ‘theoretical’ and ‘applied’ which would cover every subject and might even change the way subjects are assessed at schools and therefore the skills that can be gained before they leave school.

“But that is the most basic of steps, and well within our reach. I think to close that gap even more, business can step in to mentor and give students a real-life brief so they can respond to a real need and both sides win because they work in synch together to get the greatest benefit and build in a resilience, with at least one eye on the future by adopting flexibility and creativity.

“If it is going to address the availability of skills then business needs to adopt a mindset that creativity leads to innovation which leads to sales and jobs. Creativity and innovation are not the same thing - they are inter-related but it is being creative that results in innovation and when HR and recruitment divisions are doing their work, they need to understand how each one works and how it might be developed.

“People need to feel empowered to deliver new ideas rather than opportunities being missed because of how a solution might be articulated and then received.”

The warning is very timely, because one of the key points which IVE is pressing home now, is that the human side of industries is also facing a challenge from automation and artificial intelligence, one that will take over some noncreative roles. If we lose sight of our own creativity and our perception of how important it is, then more roles become non-creative functions and AI moves in again... and again.

We have discussed many times in BQ the problem of companies suffering because the people who run them work too hard ‘in’ the business rather than stepping back and working ‘on’ it. This enforces a short-term view of the operation, letting the next big opportunity pass by.

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Man of Innovation During his 34-year career immersed in technology with IBM, Rashik Parmar, the new chair of the board of trustees at IVE, has seen the power of innovations like Google and Airbnb to influence people’s lives and how it is creativity that has allowed the rethinking of how a process was carried out.

“You might think ‘well anyone can do that’ but when you look at the schooling system and the way we live our lives, we don’t have any space to be able to learn those skills,” he says.

“Some people have creativity naturally, but it can be learned, and IVE is saying that survival in the world going forwards is having some of these skills and being able to apply them in ways which solve the friction in life, but also creates value for you as a person who has an idea.”

His own value to IVE is pivotal, bringing a depth of experience that includes being chair of the business communications group on the Leeds City Region LEP, leader of IBM’s European technical community, an IBM Distinguished Engineer and their lead cloud adviser in Europe, all of which was rewarded with an MBE as part of the Queen’s 90 birthday honours for his contribution to business and innovation.

“I saw some of the things IVE was doing as a consultancy organisation and I saw how it could impact on the next wave of digitisation and automation which will affect a lot of jobs and livelihoods. Without IVE helping people access creativity skills we will have huge issues it will be a case where the regions which survive and thrive on this disruption and transition will be the ones that maximise the value of creative capability.”

For Rashik and his IVE colleagues, creativity goes way beyond the arts and culture. He is a man of innovation and sees with great clarity the effect it can have on a business hit by a downturn. Not by just sending people away for a week to ‘be creative’, but as part of an ongoing process of reimagination.

He says: “Young people need to have this instilled in them very early in their lives so they can have a fulfilling and meaningful life. Up to the age of five kids learn by playing with things and breaking them, but then the schooling system is all about being able to answer the teacher’s questions and the pupil who does it best gets to the top of the class and starts to hone their skill in answering other people’s questions.

“When it comes to university and a career you get to know more and more about less and less and then, following that strategy, you get to know everything about nothing. These young people have never been taught how to be creative and ignite that curiosity to explore and research.”

On a backdrop of radical and far-reaching changes to our cities and our lives, Rashik says competition can come from any part of the world. A young man or woman could have an idea while sat in a slum in the middle of a deprived area and make a difference to lives on the other side of the world as well as their own.

“What we are saying to young people is it is your ingenuity and creativity that can help you break out of where you are,” he says.

“It makes my eyes water and clutches at my heartstrings when I see that some people, who have never been out of their small sphere, can start to imagine a different life for themselves and for others.”

Rashik says he will be challenging the board of trustees to “amplify their value” and open up their networks to each other and he will be supporting a simplicity and clarity of IVE’s message so that it is appreciated by as many people as possible. With him leading a team that is already breaking down barriers and setting new parameters of what each of us is capable of, a wave of creativity is only just beginning.

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Thought Leader The not-for-profit creative company IVE has the skills and experience to make sure that creativity is a recognised part of any industrial strategy and that its potential is brought out at every level, from children who possess the freedom to think without restriction to the most senior leaders who have the foresight to continually adapt their businesses to stay ahead of the game.

That responsibility to place human creativity at the centre of learning, thinking and doing now rests with Rosi Lister, who became CEO at IVE only last year.

Lister’s background was just about perfect for the role, with lecturing and curriculum development in creative studies sitting alongside an enviable reputation in strategic cultural management. Her belief in creativity as a tool for personal and professional development has been shaped by her own research and a broad ranging work experience that spans the worlds of work based learning, widening participation and the psychology behind the engagement of some of our hardest to reach young people – all the time using the creative process as a compelling vehicle for positive change.

In 2007 Lister secured funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England to pilot a national project that culminated in a conference that explored creativity as a transferable, life skill.

She tells BQ: “We strive to be the go-to organisation for anyone needing to hone skills of ‘thinking outside the box’. Being creative is vital if we as a human race are to embrace the technological advances of artificial intelligence and the changes to our working practices this will inevitably mean. We need a creative, adaptable and resilient workforce who can innovate within whatever industry they are involved with. Turning our 20 years of research and development into the development of creative capacity, into a marketable training product, seemed like an obvious decision to support the business community at this time of unprecedented change during our lifetime.”

The other part of the IVE equation to produce that adaptable and resilient solution are the children and young people that have benefitted so much from an early insight into what creativity is and what it can do.

Lister says “We care greatly about young and developing minds at IVE, focusing on building the creative potential of the next generation of business entrepreneurs. We are particularly interested in the creative case for diversity and search for young talent in some of our most challenged communities.

We know that young people are our future in terms of the skills pipeline and so we plough the profits from our commercial training packages into our ‘Shaping Creative Futures’ talent development programme. We also reach out to company CSR programmes and philanthropists who understand the economic case behind taking the time to draw out the innate creativity of every young person now, to ensure a bright future.”

Rowlands agrees and says adopting a creative culture could be the answer: “Yorkshire businesses – particularly our SMEs dealing with day to day pressures – don’t feel they have the capacity to be looking at tomorrow let alone next month or next year. We live in very uncertain times but when you look back at our times of greatest challenges, that is when human creativity comes to the fore, which is why we have to be open about looking for creative solutions. I think our organisation can enable them to take the bull by the horns now and become that resilient business that is fit for purpose regardless of what comes their way.”

IVE’s work is also helped by being one of ten Arts Council funded Bridge organisations connecting the cultural sector and the education sector. The scheme and its partners work together to give children and young people access to arts and cultural opportunities and to support schools to achieve Artsmark and organisations to deliver the Arts Award to keep standards high and visible.

Rowlands places high regard on the opinions of those young people and their capacity to lead and be decision makers who can influence their regions, so their opinions of the IVE work matter to him and his team.

“For us, success will be when we start hearing those stories from young people about their experiences with us. I am still getting to hear about children I taught 30 years ago and are now particularly successful – including three professors, several film stars and a few Premier League footballers. Something has clearly worked for them.

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“We are putting our money where our mouth is to make that all happen as soon as possible.”

“Another measure of success we are still working for is a change in education policy, to recognise the imperative of having creativity on the curriculum and the impact that this can have for businesses looking for the next generation of staff. We are putting our money where our mouth is to make that all happen as soon as possible.”

Among the projects IVE is working on now is one on health and safety and finding a way of making sure workforces are constantly aware of the issues and don’t just file it all away once the company course has finished. There is also a fascinating challenge from a Government agency which has unwanted stock it wants to deal with. With a reputation for thinking outside the box and engaging a community, IVE is being asked to help potential buyers be more creative about uses for old buildings including a magistrates’ court building.

“It is very inspiring to be working on such a range of projects and helping people realise the importance of injecting creativity at every stage,” says Rowlands.

“We want anyone with a skills issue to be able to come to us and work with us to find the creative solution. We don’t always come up with that solution ourselves because we encourage our partners and enhance their strategies to discover their own answers every step of the way.

“That’s the perfect combination for us - using our skills and experience to unlock the creative potential of the whole region individual by individual, school by school and business by business.” n

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THROUGH HULL AND CANAL WATER As IVE development director Drew Rowlands says in his interview on these pages, sometimes we are in danger of placing young people on to the same production line their parents had to endure, with no development plan in mind.

“Sometimes our society does what we think young people want without listening hard enough to them and what their issues are,” he said.

IVE is becoming the sector expert in turning that around and making the most of a young person’s talents and character; making sure the skills pipeline remains open to bring fresh new talent into the jobs market is an important part of what they do.

Across Yorkshire and the Humber, IVE is working to bridge the gaps between employers, educators and young people. Recently, much of their work has been focused on Hull, tying in with the exciting projects coming out of Hull City of Culture.

The Creative and Cultural Skills’ Creative Employment Programme sought to address a skills gaps in the delivery of a number of Hull, City of Culture projects where several junior roles existed without adequate candidates to fill them.

IVE worked to support young people through this programme to take their first steps into employment with apprenticeships or paid internships that has allowed them to gain skills,

experience and qualifications to help pursue their creative ambitions. The programme has so far filled 22 positions with several apprentices moving on to full time roles.

IVE has adapted its learning from its experience with Hull City of Culture to develop an internal programme, Shaping Creative Futures, which aims to achieve similar results across the whole of the region, providing mentoring, apprenticeship and training programmes for young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The organisation has been working with leaders from the 15 Local Authorities of Yorkshire and the Humber to address issues in relation to standards in schools. Its leadership programme saw it work with 34 school leaders to build an understanding of how a creative vision, systems and the practice of teaching creativity can drive improvement in standards and close the gap in attainment between different groups of pupils.

Teachers in Hull have also benefitted from a Teacher Development Pilot run in partnership between IVE and the RSC for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Primary school teachers worked with artists from the RSC using rehearsal room techniques and theatremaking to teach Shakespeare at primary level. Outside the direct use with drama teaching, the sessions developed teachers’

skill, confidence and ambition. They also used IVE’s ‘learning to enquire’ model of review to encourage teachers to consider how these ideas and techniques could be applied across the curriculum to impact on students’ literacy, language and creativity.

IVEs newest project, Ignite, is part of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s broader ‘Kick the Dust’ campaign, aimed at linking young people with heritage industries. Ignite will start a revolution in how Yorkshire’s industrial heritage is viewed, understood, appreciated and engaged with by current and future generations of young people and their communities.

The project goes back to one of IVE’s founding principles in making sure that young people there have their own say in their future directions. Ignite will include a young person’s board in any future projects to facilitate young people’s ‘discovery’ and ‘ownership’ of the amazing built heritage structures and feats of Victorian engineering that are along the canals and waterways connecting the three traditional Ridings of Yorkshire, which were the industrial transport routes of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Heritage partners will pilot new and ambitious ways of engaging young people, involving young people in that planning and delivery, to ensure a sustainable legacy where young people’s voice, opinion and decision making form an integral part of future organisational focus and strategy.

With these and so many other projects, IVE is building trust with young people and placing them at the heart of organisations to bring about real innovation in the way current and future generations are engaged. n

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KNOWLEDGE

is their business Sheffield Hallam University is a powerhouse of skills experience for the region.

Conor Moss, director of education and employer partnerships, tells Mike Hughes how it is helping businesses forge bigger and brighter futures.

W

hen a new business comes to Sheffield Hallam University for help in finding skilled workers and the in-depth experience that can open up global markets for them, they know they are in good company.

For years, some of the biggest businesses in the UK have asked the university to dig deep into its resources and lift them to the next level of competitiveness.

Its in-house design consultancy team has helped Marks & Spencer develop new toy packaging that reduced non-recyclable waste – and made it easier to remove the toys from their box.

Its expertise helped global market leader Quorn Foods develop an approach to sustainability that reduced their impact on the planet and delivered savings of more than £1m.

And that level of success has attracted businesses like start-up Hopcrop Ltd, who were able to develop their specialist organic fertiliser and establish it in over 50 UK retailers, improving soil quality for gardeners and commercial growers, with Sheffield Hallam’s input.

It’s a powerful client list – which is growing at the same impressive rate as the university’s knowledge base – and the job of co-ordinating it all and identifying new opportunities falls to Conor Moss, director of education and employer partnerships, who is passionate about collaborations between the university and businesses which create employment opportunities for his students – and better prospects for Yorkshire as its economy grows.

He has a bold and clear vision of where the institution’s growth will lead.

“We want to be a university for the broader region with a very applied approach to our provision for undergraduates and postgraduates, and an ultimate ambition to be a world leading applied university – creating knowledge, innovations and solutions that impact on people’s lives, and being a beacon for what a university can do for and with its community,” he told me.

“We have set ourselves bold ambitions and they have brought a focus to our work here, specifically around high-level skills and how we help to bridge that gap between providing graduates who are highly employable and impactful from day one and working hand in glove with businesses to develop their own staff and help them with their skills gaps.”

The precise targeting of the mission for Sheffield Hallam – one of the largest

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“We want to be a university for the broader region with a very applied approach to our provision for undergraduates and postgraduates.”

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universities in the UK, with more than 31,000 students, around 4,500 staff, and an annual turnover of more than £265m – reflects a complete refreshing of the education sector’s role, moving from just being a provider of the raw ingredient to a partner and leader in developing skills and students ready for the marketplace.

“We work particularly closely with the LEP to identify hard-to-fill job areas, which is where our flagship RISE programme comes into its own, aiming to increase graduate employment in small and medium sized enterprises in the Sheffield City Region,” Moss explains.

“We are expanding and developing what we do all the time, as digital and manufacturing still struggle to get graduates, so we will step in and give them more of a bursary so they

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can offer better salaries, and we also aim to place 350 graduates into employment through our internship scheme which gives them an eight-week or twelve-week placement which will broaden the employers we work with throughout the region.

“By working so closely with businesses and finding ways to introduce them to the benefits of highly-trained graduates, we get an important insight in to the wider picture and we find a mixed perception from companies that haven’t experienced it before. But once they use us or any other university they tend to come back because they see we have the expertise here to help large or small firms.”

The experience and skills on the campus can be of vital use through collaborations in the testing of processes or materials or the design and marketing of products, and the direct

“Sheffield Hallam has become an anchor institution for the region because of its fundamental work in changing the skills situation.”

provision of students to help with a specific project where fresh input can make such a difference.

“But we also want to work within those companies and help with their own people development through the newly developed degree apprenticeships funded by the apprenticeship levy,” says Moss.

“We have a long history of partnerships with Yorkshire employers to upskill their staff in sectors like health and engineering and in management or leadership, which all need a very flexible delivery model which manifests itself in those degree apprenticeships.

“There are funding, political and compliance differences with offering degree apprenticeships, but at the heart of it all we are developing people for the next stage of their career – and we have always done that and will continue to do it because we are particularly good at working with businesses to design programmes to help them grow and develop their talent.

“Sheffield Hallam has become an anchor institution for the region because of its fundamental work in changing the skills situation with an important role to play in its economic growth and health and with the opportunities we can help realise comes the economic progress we all want.

“That needs to happen in every area, with parts of South Yorkshire having high levels of deprivation and low levels of aspiration. So as we produce hundreds of teachers each year, we ask how we can convene all the schools and local authorities we work with in a common cause and raise the standards all round.

“We could just produce those teachers each year and leave it at that, but we have a bigger role to play in leading and co-ordinating the efforts of so many people and organisations.

There is a civic responsibility and we are proud to rise to the challenge.”

The latent potential in the area and its young people is immense, and it takes a trained eye to spot it at every level, draw it out and then match it with opportunities. Moss and his team at the university are discovering this potential at every level, so that any business or student who makes an effort earns the right to help, mentoring and guidance.

One of the most exciting initiatives is South Yorkshire Futures, a university-led programme to improve the life chances of South Yorkshire’s

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young people by improving educational attainment and raising aspiration.

It aims to build a shared vision for the role of education in improving social mobility in South Yorkshire, bringing a more joined-up approach and improved collaboration in three areas preparation for the early years, performance at primary and secondary level and aspirations for those in further education, higher education and employment.

Examples of early priorities include providing a leadership and knowledge exchange resource for early years’ providers, developing a high quality teacher offer to improve local teacher recruitment and retention and improving progression into higher education or work. One example of this is SHU’s approach to working with school leavers who want to start a degree apprenticeship but need to find a suitable employer to become a degree apprentice.

“We will work across the whole spectrum to match young people with the best employment options,” Moss told me.

“We will be identifying students from

“

particular catchment areas with a high level of disadvantages and will work with kids who may have a deprived background and be in a university for the first time.

“They have the ability, but for a combination of reasons they may choose not to pursue the traditional university path but are attracted to getting a job and a qualification. We know from our experiences the level of work we need to do with them to get them through difficult interviews and assessments and keep their drive to find work. We need to bring those two halves together – student and employer – and that means also recognising that nobody wants an homogeneous group of new workers out in the market, they want individuality alongside the skills.

“The partners we work with like Morrisons are absolutely leading on this issue and want diversity in their staff with more than just academic ability. They want them to come from the communities they serve with the different experiences they bring from their own particular journeys.

“With that diversity of people and employers, the region as a whole is doing well with particular specialties in each of our cities.”

“With that diversity of people and employers, the region as a whole is doing well with particular specialties in each of our cities including Leeds with its booming tech and financial scene, then here in Sheffield with high quality digital and manufacturing talent. It is part of our role to identify any pinch points as we project our growth forwards and make sure that talent pipeline is ready for the success that is coming.

“I think we all have a really interesting few years ahead of us, embedding a lot of what we have been doing.”

The anchor institutions across Yorkshire represent what the region stands for regionally, nationally and globally and how they conduct their business and the directions they decide to take affects us all.

For Conor Moss and Sheffield Hallam – as a key employer of some of the most innovative people in the region and a skills engine that is building up speed all the time – knowledge is their business and the region’s prospects are all the brighter for having them here. n

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Oliver Scott Apprentice Quantity Surveyor, FME Solutions

I’m currently training as an apprentice quantity surveyor at FME Property Solutions, working regularly with a team of trained and student quantity surveyors, preparing quotes and shadowing numerous project managers on site visits.

Through doing this I have the opportunity to interact with clients and build up critical skills such as communication – something that can’t solely be built up in university. I believe this is crucial for my job as it’s important to deal with clients and suppliers on a daily basis.

I find that being an apprentice is a more engaging way to learn rather than studying full-time. By being an apprentice, you can see how what you are learning at university is applied in the real world. For me, this helps me to realise and remember how and why things work; aiding me when studying for my exams.

Apprenticeships were introduced to us during our first year at sixth form. As soon as we were told about the various options available to us, I knew an apprenticeship would suit me best. I’ve always felt that I learn best by doing rather than watching or listening; and an apprenticeship provides just this.

Because of the nature of my chosen career I think that hands-on experience is crucial, as with any other job in the construction industry. If I had chosen to study full-time at university, I feel that I would have gone into a new job with minimal experience, and so would stand out less than those who had been working in the profession for several years.

Apprenticeships also provide the opportunity to ‘earn while you learn’. This means that, unlike ordinary students that leave with several debts, apprentices can earn a wage whilst studying and have nothing to repay

L&P Springs, a global bedding component company, is a key employer within the Sheffield City Region.

Our partnership with various stakeholders across the region including Sheffield Hallam University, Enterprising Barnsley and Skills Made Easy, has enabled us to play a pivotal role in shaping our organisation and our people’s futures.

Enterprising Barnsley has supported L&P for over a decade, assisting with relocation, further expansion and development of our leadership and management team. More recently they have supported the organisation with our succession planning, including an introduction to Sheffield Hallam University, which has led to the upskilling of two existing staff and three new recruits via a Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship, which started in October 2016.

We worked with the University’s Business School to develop a programme that aligned with our business objectives and allowed staff to move around various departments. The new recruits were sourced via Skills Made Easy, who made the process easy and took the hassle out of recruiting. They

in the future.

In addition to this, upon completion of your degree apprentices will hopefully graduate with a full-time job in the career that they want – this is the greatest benefit in my eyes.

In my case, by having five years’ experience upon graduating, I can apply to become a chartered surveyor.

This is something that most QSs aspire to and means that I have the potential to earn considerably more.

Those who choose to study full-time will have to work for a minimum of two years upon graduation to reach this status, and those who do not complete a degree in quantity surveying will never have the opportunity.

I feel that apprenticeships produce more competent professionals simply by having more experience in the field. This is crucial for the future of all industries and, more importantly, the future of my employer. By having competently trained staff, my employer is able to work to a high standard and continue to provide an excellent service.

To anyone considering becoming an apprentice I’d say make sure you are set on your career choice. I’ve learnt that experience is the most effective way of making this decision. By having practical first-hand experience, I find it’s much easier to identify whether you will enjoy and progress in your chosen career.

I also think it’s important that you find an employer that suits you. Unlike having an ordinary job, with degree apprenticeships you are tied into a contract for the duration of your degree. If you decide to leave your employer or the course, you will most likely have to pay back a portion of your degree. Fortunately for me, I found an employer that suits all my needs and that I enjoy working for. n

provided an all-round recruitment service, which included identifying eligible school leavers, filtering and prepping the candidates, providing advice and guidance and arranging interviews.

Degree apprenticeships are perceived by various managers across the organisation as an invaluable asset and they have generated some great feedback so far. We’ve noticed a great improvement already. Recent work undertaken by an apprentice has enabled us to create a more efficient and streamlined way of working by eliminating duplication – this kind of discovery is invaluable.

All apprentices are given the time and support they need from L&P including a clear training path, opportunities for work shadowing, time off to study and an open door policy to talk through any issues that may arise. Apprenticeships are a great way of investing in your talent pipeline. My advice for any company would be to just go for it. Sheffield Hallam delivered a programme that met all our objectives and ensured we received maximum benefit right from the outset. We’d definitely do it again. n

Catherine Brown HR Manager, L&P Springs

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Karen Elenor Director of Enterprise Services, Sky Betting & Gaming

We’ve had a presence in Sheffield for a few years now, enabling us to broaden our access to talent in Yorkshire and a relationship with Sheffield Hallam developed due to the proximity of our office to the campus and a number of joint projects. Sheffield Hallam is a respected university for technology graduates and we’ve successfully worked with two interns on a placement year which proved mutually beneficial for the students and our business, it also fostered an appetite to develop our relationship with students even further.

We worked with Sheffield Hallam to develop our postgraduate Software Academy and we are hoping that an on-going partnership will cement our aim to be the best technology business in the UK and help us to retain and grow talent within the region, whilst providing us a sought after academy offering that appeals to a broad reach of candidates. The calibre of candidates we have access to means they bring fresh ideas and creative suggestions that can be implemented immediately.

Students will be onsite learning while working in a commercial environment, which provides context and should therefore be more engaging, which will help them to learn more effectively.

Working with an established partner like Sheffield Hallam gives us a great commercial advantage to get access to the best talent before they get into the job market and help to shape the curriculum to narrow the gap between course material and technologies. As technologies evolve and change so quickly, it’s important

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to ensure course material reflects this, so students are properly prepared. It also provides a good platform to try and improve the diversity pool by making female students aware of the wide variety of technology roles that exist post-graduation. We also have access to the University’s academic resources, teachers, course materials, online learning support and infrastructure to lean on to support our students’ continued learning. We can also partner with the university at national level to help them draw down funding and to shout about the great things that make Sheffield, and Yorkshire, a key destination for tech careers.

As a business, setting up a scheme like this takes careful planning and consideration. You need to be prepared to understand what outputs you want from the graduates.

We have worked hard to identify which technologies are important to us and we worked with Hallam to agree what students need to obtain for their Master’s qualification. You have to make the material relevant to the business, so we had to consider how we structured the content so students can form a useful part of the team quickly.

I would encourage other businesses considering setting up a degree or Master’s level apprenticeship scheme to consider Sheffield Hallam as an academic partner. They are extremely proactive and pragmatic in terms of the approach to the partnership, there is a strong commercial sensibility and we worked highly collaboratively and in a timely manner. n

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TACKLING THE PROBLEM

of hard-to-fill vacancies

Lisa Clark, senior economic policy manager at Sheffield City Region.

What are the reasons that hard-to-fill vacancies exist in the local labour market, and how can Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) work together with candidates and employers to fill them?

That’s the question we at Sheffield City Region (SCR) have considered in depth, and have set out our response in a recent report, which has been written after extensive collaboration with businesses and jobseekers alike.

We know the problem of hard-to-fill vacancies isn’t one confined to the City Region.

Nationwide, the average number of vacancies considered to be “hard to fill” is 33%, compared to 31% within SCR. But we also know that to reduce unemployment, and to give businesses here the help they need to grow and thrive, we need to make sure that people have the skills they need to find jobs and progress in their careers.

When setting out to look at this problem of hard-to-fill vacancies, we knew it was crucial to work with all those affected by the issue.

So we spoke to more than 250 employees,

and more than 250 representatives from the business community, asking them to engage with us through two questionnaires and six workshops.

In terms of attracting people to the region, responses generally showed that people want to live here, but felt there was a lack of perceived career opportunity.

Meanwhile, employers said they want to grow businesses, but claim they can’t attract people. There’s a sense of a tension, and a disconnect between these two perspectives, which needs to be resolved.

Employers were also vocal about the misalignment of the skills that people leave education with, compared to what industry requires. Curriculums are perceived to be outdated, and lacking the appropriate scope and depth. Equally, candidates felt that recent interviews had not given them the best opportunity to present their full skill set and they felt that transferable skills were overlooked by employers looking for a specific match.

Meanwhile, responses also showed that soft skills such as innovation, critical thinking and time management are key to employers, but not currently prioritised by young people.

Our report makes a raft of recommendations around six themes – to attract, to employ, to develop, to retain, to educate and to advise.

Companies such as McLaren and Boeing have chosen to locate here, which is boosting our reputation, but we still need to attract more jobseekers. We know that Sheffield City Region is a great place to live, work and be educated – but we need to demonstrate this desirability to others.

Once people are here we need to educate them, employ them, develop their skills and then retain them in the workforce – until they then change jobs and begin the cycle again, or perhaps retire and come back to mentor people at the start of the cycle.

This has to be done with everyone involved in the process, including schools and colleges, businesses, jobseekers and local authorities.

And we’re doing all we can. For example, we’ve set up the SCR Jobs Board, where employers ranging from McLaren and Tesco to SMEs are finding the right candidates.

Together, we are making Sheffield City Region a place where we grab each opportunity and make the most of it. n

For more information contact lisa.clark@sheffieldcityregion.org.uk 0114 220 3472

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AMBITION FOR ALL TO ACHIEVE “We want to support the creation of – not just more jobs – but better jobs for our young people and all of the three million people who live in Leeds City Region” Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, Chair of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Leader of Bradford Council.

The Leeds City Region employment and skills plan Skilled People, Better Jobs 2016-2020 works to develop a pipeline of talent from primary and secondary schools to entry-level employees and career progressors to eliminate the City Region’s skills shortages, increase the productivity of its businesses and create economically viable careers to the people who live and work within it.

A LEADER IN THE NATIONAL FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS In July 2017, the Combined Authority, a leader in the national field of employment and skills, announced a landmark partnership with the West Yorkshire colleges. The partnership is based on a joint plan to align college training provision and the spend of the annual £56m Adult Education Budget with the needs of the

Leeds City Region economy.

This, the latest in a long list of achievements, follows the successes of the City Region’s careers, apprenticeships and Skills Service programmes, including: • creating more than 21,000 opportunities for young people to be inspired by local employers by connecting 130 of the City Region’s 160 schools with businesses; • reaching 10,739 young people between 11 and 16 years old by improving digital teaching in schools; • up-skilling almost 10,500 employees in 849 businesses through the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP’s) Skills Service; and • supporting more than 1,200 businesses to offer apprenticeships.

A STRONG HISTORY OF PARTNERSHIP: • In 2010, nine of the City Region’s universities, 14 colleges and other training providers, established the Leeds City Region Skills Network to communicate to approximately 600 organisations and institutions, across 10 districts.

ON THE HORIZON: GROWING, ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TALENT Over the next 12 months the City Region plans to continue its ambitious programme to grow, attract and retain the skills the economy needs.

In late 2017 the Combined Authority will launch an innovative careers campaign to raise the awareness of careers in three key employment sectors (digital, manufacturing & engineering and construction) among the City Region’s 11 to 18 year olds.

Careers, apprenticeships and training provision will also continue with aims to connect all 160 City Region schools with a local business leader, an offer to support businesses with the government’s new apprenticeship levy, and deliver robust skills diagnostics and plans.

A new programme aimed at training career changers in digital skills will launch in 2018, followed by a drive to encourage an influx of skilled digital workers into the region to support the economy’s growing digital business base.

The impact to date must be attributed to the strength of collaboration across the region. By working in partnership with training providers, local authorities, businesses and central government, people’s lives across the City Region are being transformed. n

• In 2015, the UK’s first Head Teacher Advisory Network was formed of head teachers from across the region to inform the Combined Authority and LEP’s work with schools.

• Working with eight of the 14 City Region colleges, £79 million has been invested to develop worldclass college facilities since June 2015.

• The West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges, seven colleges united by a Joint Venture agreement, recently secured £5.5 million for projects to support progression for people in-work, informed by the City Region’s Employment and Skills Plan and the Leeds City Region labour market report.

• UK-first partnership agreements are in place between the Combined Authority and seven West Yorkshire colleges to realign the spend of the annual £56 million Adult Education Budget with the needs of the economy.

Photography: Carolyn Mendelsohn

For more information and to find out how you and your business can get involved please visit the-lep.com/what-we-do/skills/ or contact 0113 348 1818.

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Collaboration is key Dawn Leak tells Mike Hughes how the Bradford College Group is leading the way in proving that collaboration is the key to bridging the skills gap.

T

here is hard work from every quarter to make sure the Yorkshire skills gap becomes a thing of the past.

The students are making their voices clear as they sign up for different courses, the educators are swift to react to any opportunities to update their curriculum and the employers are being innovative as they expand and are crying out for people to master the latest technology.

Stretching over all that is the essential element to make all that effort pay off – collaboration. Working in silos and being pleased about one part of that chain is pointless if it doesn’t lead to our young people getting long-term sustainable jobs.

Bradford College is showing the way by building its own collaborative model in the Bradford College Group, made up of educators, trainers and industry experts. By working seamlessly together at the very early stages of a student’s time in education, the group has done much of the hard work in moulding people ready for work and keenly aware of the employment landscape stretching out in front of them.

The group’s component parts – developed over the last few years as a result of the expansion of Bradford College and the changes in the economy, employment and policy environment – are a microcosm of the wider regional picture.

At the core there is the college itself, providing FE and HE to more than 20,000 students, and the Bradford College Education Trust which sponsors two academies. They work hand in glove with City Training Services, a successful

apprenticeship provider, and Beacon Recruitment, an employment and placement agency.

Backing up all that firepower is Inprint + Design, an expanding commercial design and print company jointly owned by the college and the University of Bradford, and The Apprenticeship Training Agency jointly owned with Bradford Metropolitan District Council.

That influential combination gives the group the strength to build the most constructive relationships with businesses, and now Dawn Leak – the group’s director of employer responsiveness (ER) – is working across every level of the college to make sure a pioneering ER strategy is embedded at every stage.

“We are deeply rooted in training the young people of Yorkshire, right back to the days when the college started as a textile training centre for that booming sector. That is a proud heritage for us and is the foundation of the work we do today,” says Leak.

“The group structure that is proving so successful was formed only a few years ago to give us the flexibility and responsiveness organisations like us need to react to such a diverse employment market and the varying needs of those that we serve.

“Our focus now is on the college’s three divisions: FE, HE and now ER, which is all things employer and commercial facing. All three working together means we can cover

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“

“We are deeply rooted in training the young people of Yorkshire, right back to the days when the college started as a textile training centre.”

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the full scope of learning from all ages and all communities and then have employer engagement running through it all.

“Collaboration is the future of our battle to bridge the skills gap, whether that is within or outside the group because we will all have so much more effect if we work together, as we do with the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges, which provides a collective bidding opportunity to tap into the strengths we have across the region.”

Those on the front line of that battle see a path forwards from crisis to challenge and then on to solution and, like Leak, they appreciate the urgency of getting to that second stage quickly so that the third remains achievable.

“The skills situation is permanently on our radar as a priority for the LEP and the Combined Authority, and their hard work means the college can benefit from plenty of data and see what is on the horizon and match

“

the learning to the skills that will be required for the next five, ten or fifteen years,” says Leak.

“That skills-matching is easier in some sectors than others, with particular challenges coming from engineering which is facing an ageing workforce, health needing staff across all areas from care workers to doctors, and then the digital and IT sector which is the newest of them all and needs breakthrough technical skills in place.

“Requirements are changing so fast that even if you look back two years the kind of digital apprenticeships being delivered were completely different because the sector has evolved into so many mini-industries within IT, all needing a separate set of skills. But students and businesses, wherever they are based and in whichever sector, can trust that we are getting on with the job and filling those gaps.”

For the Bradford College Group, that end link

in the skills chain, working with businesses to offer careers rather than drop-in and drop-out jobs, is the result of many years of experience and an earned respect from industries keen to become part of a reliable staffing and expertise pipeline that can tackle short-term issues as well as offering long-term benefits for the regional economy.

Leak tells me: “We have connections with about 3,000 employers across West Yorkshire and of those we actively work with about 1,200 every year, not just as employers but as ambassadors who support our awards and are on our sector groups. With that depth of involvement comes the insight we need to know how to design what employers need for the future.

“With their help, we are able to plan on a three-to-five year cycle, so that when one year is done, we are already well into the pipeline for the next and then on to the one after that.

“Requirements are changing so fast that even if you look back two years the kind of digital apprenticeships being delivered were completely different.”

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We don’t even know what some of those skills will be yet, which shows how fast technology is advancing, but by looking at the prospects together, we can be prepared for change and can react more quickly to help those people we are working with benefit from every opportunity.

“We have to be in a position to get courses designed to meet new needs, find the right people to teach it and then line up the input of students that employers need. For us, the partnerships we build are ones of co-creation and co-investment which means that very few of the courses we can offer here will be launched without significant collaboration with employers.”

That is the key part of Leak’s role here, heading up the ER division and working with stakeholders at all levels including a marketing and internal and external comms role to get that message out, that the Bradford College Group is the place to start your enquiries, whether you are a jobseeker or a headhunter.

Communicating is an increasingly important skill in itself, and the college is experienced in offering events to involve as many organisations as possible, and it is no surprise that Brexit has been a recent theme there, with training and skills organisations needing to be at their best to deal with uncertainties and changes of direction from affected employers. Working with a trusted host who can arrange meetings, networking and discussions has the potential to make a big difference.

To further enhance that influence, the college is also a patron of the Yorkshire Enterprise Network which has more than 3,000 members and provides another marketplace to exchange best practice through a variety of promotional opportunities for members, including forums, presentations and exhibitions.

But as Leak says: “All of that hard work has to be centred around an individual student and getting to know him or her and what they want and what their potential is. Irrespective of what kind of student they are, there have to be levels of enrichment and employability skills to match because we know that it is one thing teaching a subject to someone and quite another for that person to then function well in a workplace. As well as the pure skills, we have to bring out a resilience, flexibility and adaptability so that they become a perfect fit for employers.

“We will build all those into tutorials, activities and events as well as taking them out to premises and letting them experience problem-solving and interview skills so that the people who leave Bradford College are rounded and are equipped to move quickly to the next level in the industries we have identified as the most fast-growing and capable of more job creation.

“At the moment these include construction now that it has recovered from the recession and is seeing significant growth, not only in the traditional trades, but in the wider infrastructure such as conveyancing and project managers which demand those personal and leadership skills we can help develop.

“Health and Science is another strong sector with jobs in meditech and ophthalmics and in dentistry which we are supporting in our new Dental School.

That is an investment of £500,000 which happened because we saw the way a relatively niche sector was starting to develop into a potentially major employer.

“I spend around 40% of my time establishing skills and needs so we know what is coming next. I meet employers, go to conferences and gather as much intelligence as I can from many different sources to find the next destination on the map. That involvement across Yorkshire means our influence and responsibilities are to the wider region as well as the college campus and I know from my own experience that the region is working hard to pull together and collaborate.

“Of course, each college within the region has got its own specific measures and outcomes to meet as part of the West Yorkshire Delivery Agreement, part of a plan to align college training provision with the needs of the Leeds City Region economy, but we can also work much closer together finding a clear

Great way to build a team The reputation of the Bradford College Group along the skills pipeline, which stretches from one side of Yorkshire to the other, is backed up by hard evidence and a county-wide band of supporters who recognise the difference that can be made to their businesses.

These supporters include Nikki Cohen, one of the owners of the Pharm-Assist Healthcare group of Yorkshire pharmacies.

The group was established 20 years ago and has grown to become one of the UK’s leading introductory services in the sector. This small family business’s sole area of work is providing pharmacy staff, with each registered locum allocated their own personal co-ordinator to find the most suitable positions.

Pharm-Assist employs a number of Level 2 and 3 apprentices from City Training Services, part of the Bradford College Group, and Nikki says the adaptability of the apprentices, who see themselves as part of a team working to find them careers, has brought a new dimension to the company.

She said: “It means we can train in our own way these young people who come into our business with no prior experience and show them how we do things at the same time as giving them a good opportunity to learn and develop. It is such a bonus to get an extra pair of eyes and an extra pair of hands with someone who will muck in and be part of our team.”

Nikki says the first incentive to take on an apprentice was the financial support from the Government, which meant it was an economically sound way of bringing in new staff.

“We then started interviewing students and taking them on and I quickly realised that young people were going to be the route to our succession planning throughout the business because as they come through many of them have stayed on so that there is now one member of staff in each of our pharmacies who started out as an apprentice. It is a great way of building a team and bringing in new blood.”

City Training Services start helping firms like Pharm-Assist in the recruitment process by identifying applicants who not only have the right qualifications, but also the right attitude and potential for each business. They will then monitor the progress to make sure apprentice and employer both get the most out of the experience and follow that all up back at the college so that a placement becomes the first step in a new career.

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Leaders are never too old to learn As well as opening up every possible opportunity for young people to gain experience of the industries they will be moving into to make them ideal candidates, Bradford College also works with experienced workers who need to refresh their skills, or even try new ones if they have decided on a change in direction.

With more than 20,000 students, it has delivered Further and Higher education and training for more than 180 years and is one of the biggest FE colleges in the country and one of the largest providers of HE outside of the university sector.

For businesses wanting to upskill their staff, the college currently offers three management apprenticeships: for Team Leaders and Supervisors, for Associate Project Managers and for Operations and Departmental Managers. Each is tailored for specific needs to make sure those new skills can be sent back into the workplace with the most precise targeting.

For those with leadership on their minds, the Level 3 Team Leaders and Supervisors apprenticeship is aimed at aspiring professionals taking their first step into line management as well as those with some experience of managing a team, process or project, whether they are professional team leaders, first line managers or supervisors from any sector and any size of organisation. The college wants to have a long-term impact on the businesses it deals with and sees the importance of developing a range of essential management skills in a real working environment, so that future leaders can then have the capability to motivate teams and influence performance and growth.

The entry requirements for Level 3 are 4 GCSEs grades 9-4 (A* - C) including English and Maths.

An associate project manager has a different role, directly responsible for what needs to be achieved, how it will be achieved, how long it will take and how much it will cost. This apprenticeship helps them work with a project team to achieve the required outcomes within different contexts and across diverse industry sectors.

The entry requirements for Level 5 are 5 GCSEs grades 9-4 (A* - C) including English and Maths The Operations/Departmental Manager apprenticeship is ideal for individuals who manage teams or projects and are responsible for achieving operational or departmental goals and objectives as part of their organisation’s strategy. Level 5 managers are responsible for everything from creating and delivering operational plans, managing projects, and leading and managing teams, to managing change, financial and resource management. At Bradford, they can develop an ability to lead, motivate and inspire to drive better results.

The entry requirements for Level 5 are 5 GCSEs grades 9-4 (A* - C) including English and Maths.

strategy, including a way of explaining issues like the Apprenticeship Levy, which has confused many employers who need to know how it can help and what they can do with it.”

At the other end of the timeline, the college’s Student Outreach Team works with pupils in their early teens who may not have started considering their career options. What the team is finding is that more schools now want that engagement to be with the parents as well, to make sure everyone sees the wide range of possibilities where this next generation of Yorkshire wage-earners could make their mark and whether it is higher education, apprenticeships or whatever route that offers the best solution for each individual. Knowing the route as well as the destination can be a vital step forward with so many young people competing for jobs.

“It is challenging for us and for them, there’s no doubt about that, but I can see progress all the time and that is inspiring us to push further and further,” says Leak.

“We made a strategic decision a couple of years ago that ER was the way ahead and that a division focused on employers’ needs would be a huge benefit for everyone involved in the skills chain and merited an enormous amount of work and a significant investment – this year alone we have brought in 17 new programmes.

“We will always be involved in whatever the next challenge is for employers and young workers, and I find that level of influence exciting and rewarding as Employer Responsiveness seeks to seal that gap in the middle of the skills pipeline.

“I would say to any employer – if that is a new firm setting out and needing new staff in an emerging technology or an existing firm wanting to expand – talk to us first. If they have an existing strategy, we can help them fulfil it, and if they need help drawing up a plan, we know how to do that and can point them towards funding pots and other groups who can support them.”

That level of commitment also applies to every young man or woman who decides that Great Horton Road is where they want to start looking for a career. It can be one of the most challenging and bewildering times of their young lives, but such personal care given to each of them and the tailor-made support the college will have for them can make a life-changing difference and ensure more highly skilled and motivated young people become part of the region’s bright future. n

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ON THE JOB In our main interview, Dawn Leak of the Bradford College Group identified Health and Science as a strong growth sector promising long-term careers for Bradford students, and the college has been innovative in the way it has identified and supported this growth.

A pilot project working with the Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust has allowed six trainee mental health care workers to experience life on hospital wards after the two organisations joined forces to run a 14-week education and training programme.

Having completed their month-long collegebased learning, which has included sharpening their maths and English skills, the half dozen trainees will now continue their learning in hospitals by carrying out work placements on mental health wards alongside experienced staff and each with an assigned ‘buddy’.

The aspiring health workers, aged from 18-24 and recruited through City Training Services

– part of the Bradford College Group – will carry out placements at Airedale Hospital and Lynfield Mount Hospital and will receive recognised qualifications in the form of an NCFE level 2 Certificate in Awareness of Mental Health Problems and the Care Certificate.

They will also have the opportunity to be added to the trust’s staff-bank register and potentially take paid shifts and progress to an apprenticeship in Health and Social Care.

The tailored training, the clarity of the pathway’s top qualifications and a new career has proved very popular with students and employers.

Danielle Turner, a mum-of-one from Keighley, hopes the course will be her route to a career in mental health.

She said: “I am really excited to get started on the wards. I have always had an interest in mental health and believe it is an area that is understaffed and under-researched. I hope

to move onto the apprenticeship after the traineeship and establish a real career for myself in this area.”

For the experienced staff working with young people like her, the chance to give trainees a look inside an industry they are interested in is an important bonus.

Neil Harris, staff-bank resourcing manager for BDCFT, said: “Being a short course the traineeship gives potential staff a glimpse into the work without them committing to a lengthy course. If they enjoy it and see a career for themselves they can progress. These are the mental health nurses of the future. It may take them time to get there but it is possible.

“Outside of this programme they might not have had the chance to do an apprenticeship or have the qualifications to do a degree.”

And at the college, Wesley McGlinchey, head of department for health and social care, said: “We are proud to be working with the trust to help develop the future workforce to serve the local community. The course offers a great combination of classroom-based learning and on-the-job training to enhance the trainees’ employment prospects and career options.” n

Back row from left: Lisa Peacock, tutor at Bradford College, Lara Urso, Leigh Holdsworth, Rebecca Burrows, Danielle Turner and tutor Patricia Knight.

Front from left: Saniyyah Kazmi, Neil Harris from BDCFT and Shabana Akther.

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HUGE RANGE OF APPRENTICESHIPS AND COMMERCIAL COURSES TO MEET YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS FROM CONSTRUCTION, ENGINEERING AND HEALTH CARE TO BUSINESS, DIGITAL MEDIA AND MANAGEMENT.

The Bradford College Group is one of the UK’s most successful educational and training groups, operating from a state-of-the-art city centre campus, with a turnover circa £60 million.

Further and Higher Education

bradfordcollege.ac.uk •• 01274 433333

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LIVE DEBATE

THE VOICE FOR BUSINESS DEBATE The issue: “How can we ensure that the private sector, government and academia pull together to address the skills gaps across Yorkshire, and how do we address our priority sectors to ensure that the Yorkshire region continues to compete on the world stage?”

BQ editor Mike Hughes opened the discussion by saying that there was a shared responsibility to bridge the skills gap.

“The people around this table are highly skilled themselves in finding routes across the gap with skills that include the traditional skills, cutting-edge skills and those we have never even heard of yet. This is now about a joint responsibility – collaborations that can increase the volume of the debate.”

Leading the introductions about successes and ambitions to get an overall view of the issue, Karen Elenor, director of enterprise services at Sky Bet Gaming said: “We recruit at a very high volume and very quickly, so it is key to us to utilise the attributes people bring

and teach them the skills. We are working with Sheffield Hallam to bring one of the first Level 7 programmes utilising the Apprenticeship Levy and offering our grads the opportunity to gain a Masters at the end of their three-year programme.”

Rob Powell, regional partnership director for Yorkshire at BT Group, added: “TLA - the Tech Literacy Agenda – is one of our lead programmes because young people are consumers of tech, but often only screendeep, so we use programmes like Barefoot to bring them into the workplace better prepared with the right digital skills.”

Craig Burton, executive chairman of The Works Recruitment.com has placed more than

15,000 people into work across the North of England, he said: “As a recruiter, we are engaged to put square pegs into square holes, so we are looking at young people to see how they work and learn and we are hearing from them that they can’t imagine working for the same employer for more than 12 months, which is really scary. So we need to look at what we are doing now at a very young age because we do not have the luxury we have had for three generations of just picking the low-hanging fruit.

Drew Rowlands, director of development at creative agency IVE, used to be a secondary school headmaster and said the state of the sector at the moment was dire in terms of

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Taking part...

Rosi Lister, CEO IVE Drew Rowlands, director of development IVE Asa Gordon, assistant principal of employer responsiveness at Bradford College Andrew Atkinson, business development manager at Bradford College Conor Moss, director of education Sheffield Hallam University Karen Elenor, director of enterprise services Sky Bet Gaming Jo Burgess, business development manager York St John University Rob Hickey, executive director for innovation and growth York St John University Martin Edmondson, CEO Gradcore Rob Powell, regional partnership director for Yorkshire BT Group Phil Orr, general manager BT Managed Services Ltd Cllr Carol Runciman Norman Peterson, CEO, Growth Capital Ventures Craig Burton, executive chairman of The Works Recruitment.com IN THE CHAIR: Caroline Theobald, chair, BQ Live Debates TAKING NOTES: Mike Hughes, editor, BQ VENUE: The Boardroom, Dakota Deluxe Hotel, 8 Russell Street, Leeds LS1 5RN.

BQ is highly regarded as a leading independent commentator on business issues, many of which have a bearing on the current and future success of the UK economy. BQ Live is a series of informative debates designed to further contribute to the success and prosperity of the economy through the debate, discussion and feedback of a range of key business topics and issues.

skills development. “We have now developed a whole consultancy and training wing of our organisation around developing creative capacities and problem-solving. One of the big challenges is that we are using the wrong language in trying to tackle the skills issue and if we change it we can make a difference.”

Norman Peterson, CEO of Growth Capital Ventures, invests in early-stage businesses, who face a recruitment challenge. He told the guests: “It is very difficult for these small companies to attract talent in from the large firms, so we are big advocates of putting in training plans and using technology such as Hive HR to do pulse surveys and increase output and engagement. One of my passions is getting young children ready to be entrepreneurs. Some schools want all their pupils to go to university, but my view is that some should never be allowed near a university, but should consider starting their own business in their twenties.”

Moving on to the university sector, Conor Moss, director of education at Sheffield Hallam, said the natural progression of schoolcollege-university was being disrupted and the sector needed to explore how people got to their degrees in different ways. He said: “Hallam is positioned to work alongside small, medium and large employers to deliver degree apprenticeships and that is disrupting the market. We work with students from a deprived region to give them a sense that they can attain, and have aspirations and that we can find them employment, so whatever we do in the skills sector we need to think about social mobility and diversity when we recruit and develop.”

And Jo Burgess, business development manager at York St John, said: “We have two

clients – the students and the economic regions that we serve and while we hear a lot about the brain drain, 82% of our students come from Yorkshire, Humber North East and North West and they go back to those same places. We are progressively exploring the different options we have, all in line with what our regional economic partners need us to develop and one challenge we face is how businesses manage the 20% ‘off the job’ training requirement for degree apprenticeships, not to the detriment of their workforce and without changing entire policies and procedures.”

Taking the viewpoint of the colleges, Asa Gordon, assistant principal of Employer Responsiveness at Bradford, added: “We are developing people with the right skills for employment and drive the apprenticeship and traineeship programmes and show there are pathways into high-level apprenticeships rather than creating a system where, at 19, they are not able to progress. The challenge we are tackling is that we have 2,500 apprenticeships for 4,000 leavers.”

As CEO of recruitment and employability group Gradcore, Martin Edmondson described his company as “a Robin Hood business” which began through Yorkshire Forward. He said: “As a region there is some good stuff happening here, including RISE, which we work on with Sheffield Hallam, as a graduate scheme bringing better innovation and productivity for SMEs. The region has been obsessed for a long time with retention of talent, but in Yorkshire we keep more talent than we lose so the issue is in doing something with it and having the ambition to release its potential.”

Andy Atkinson, business development

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manager at Bradford College is the link between the businesses and employers and the college and was working in “really interesting times”. He said: “It is interesting to see how the strategies of large employers vary so much – some would love to bring in new blood, but can’t afford the extra headcount after being hit with the cost of the levy. So they are going down the path of upskilling, but are then facing the 20% requirement Jo mentioned. I think one of the challenges for us all is to understand whether employer expectations are too high for a Level 2 or 3 apprentice who will need some mentoring, or are they not prepared enough by their schools?”

IVE, formerly known as Cape UK, is now led by CEO Rosi Lister, who was brought in 14 months ago to diversify the model and look towards specific needs now and in the future. She told her fellow dinner guests: “My challenge is to find out where the mismatch is between DfE policy stripping arts and culture out of the curriculum and the industrial strategy that has entrepreneurship and innovation on practically every page. Why are those conversations not happening and where is creativity on the agenda in terms of driving a growth strategy forward?”

Rob Hickey, executive director for innovation and growth at York St John University – the fastest-growing university in England – manages the non-academic side of the city centre campus. He admitted to being relatively new to education, having come from the railway industry, but said: “A lot of our growth has come from applied creativity in industries such as film production and computer science, which is where we seem to have struck a chord by linking it all to local business needs. What we need to do in this sector is create an offer which is truly business-focused and explore what would happen if we had a totally blank sheet of paper with no boundaries. What would a degree or a equivalent qualification look like then?”

Phil Orr, general manager of BT Managed Services, was next to set out how his work was adding to the debate. He said: “The big challenge I have is helping people understand that these clever and complex technologies are in hubs and not locally distributed. I bring these highly-skilled people to our hubs in Cottingham and Wakefield and get them motivated, but I don’t want to lose them in

“

“We in Yorkshire need to realise we can’t educate everybody to degree level, we’ve got to have Level 1, 2 and 3 in the workforce and put in skills at all levels.”

three years, so I want to work with universities to look at refreshing adult skills. There is a great opportunity in Yorkshire to really start to import and create some centralised hubs.”

As Councillor for the Huntington and New Earswick ward in York and serving on the Education and Skills panel on the LEP, Carol Runciman has the wide experience to give an overview of the situation in Yorkshire.

She explained: “The LEP looks at what we have got, then identifies the gaps and what we need, so there is a lot of market analysis and a tremendous amount of information is sent back and analysed. We need to look at manufacturing areas as a priority, and construction – not just brickies and plasterers, but right up to Level 4 and 5 courses to change the perceptions of people who see it as just a dirty-handed job. We also need media, computing and IT, but what is very interesting to me is the growth of robotics which is coming up fast for sectors like healthcare. We in Yorkshire need to realise we can’t educate everybody to degree level, we’ve got to have Level 1, 2 and 3 in the workforce and put in skills at all levels and move away from children expecting to be what they see – what their

fathers and mothers and aunties and uncles do – and raise their awareness much higher.”

Debate chair Caroline Theobald stressed the importance of the dislocation between and industrial strategy and some of the remarkable efforts being made to tackle the skills issue, to which Craig Burton – who is also an enterprise adviser to the LEP – responded: “Young people who are exposed to four businesses or more when they are at school are ten times less likely to become NEETS, but it can be difficult for an SME to connect to education establishments, even though we know that just that little bit of exposure can bring about a big shift and change someone’s outlook.”

Theobald challenged Rosi Lister to say what she would do about the situation, as it perhaps needed the ‘thinking outside the box’ approach her organisation was known for. Lister said: “There is a completely artificial divorce in terms of the creative economy, even though a united voice for creativity might be an injection into the industrial strategy. No one knows what we will be dealing with in the future, so we have to adapt in a way that enables us to encounter the unknown.”

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Martin Edmondson said: “Firstly, there will be a national careers strategy, but that has been shelved and shelved and shelved, so it would be nice if someone actually did that. Secondly, what we need to be looking at is developing a set of underlying attributes so that every student – as we do with Hallam – has emotional intelligence, resilience and creativity to future-proof them against a situation where a lot of jobs will change radically.”

Conor Moss proposed: “The solution to the skills gap isn’t policy and government, it is business and academia doing things regardless of what the policy is. The more enlightened companies are saying ‘we will take control’ and use policy to our advantage.”

Rosi Lister agreed, adding: “It is private businesses that really understand the needs.”

Sky Bet was held up as shining example of taking attributes and turning them into skills and Karen Elenor told the guests: “The right organisations work to develop people so they can keep the good people. I am a trained accountant who now works in technology, so I have transferable attributes that have been developed in me over time. People don’t need to come to you with the skills, they need to come to you with the attributes and then you grow people.”

Drew Rowlands suggested that we had yet

to see the full impact of Government policy and added: “When they are truly bedded in, I think it is going to be a real eye-opener. The creative ability is being narrowed and narrowed and as the children come through it is going to be a real challenge to open it back up again because they are being taught purely to the test and it is getting worse.”

Craig Burton criticised the way careers were highlighted, saying: “Leeds has always been a city of 1,000 trades, but if I was at a university careers day you would think there were five employers here. How do we coach and tease out SMEs and help them make the right connections?” and Norman Peterson of Growth Capital Ventures added: “We recruit for attitude and want people who will have a go at things and have an open mind. They embrace an opportunity and many of them have been to university but have learned their skills at home, coding in their bedrooms at weekends. We are looking for people like that who can be in employment with us and be entrepreneurs at the same time.”

Jo Burgess said this was the benefit of having ‘intrepreneurs’ – entrepreneurs working in a business – and she agreed with Rosi Lister about the importance of fusing together technical skills and creativity, adding that York St John’s pairing of the creative sector and the

STEM sector enabled them to look at things in a different way and turn STEM into STEAM, against a backdrop of decline in the creative curriculum in secondary schools.

As an example, she said: “We are working with a window manufacturer who knows that in order to stay ahead of the game and diversify their product, they need to bring in people who can think differently and are prepared to take risks. But they are not Sky, and don’t have people queuing up to come and work for them, so they need to differentiate their proposition. They have told us that they have missed the creativity and innovation element of their business – and that’s where we need to move to.”

“If you can read music, you can write code because that is how your brain is wired,” Karen Elenor told the guests, “so it is a really sad thing that it is diminishing and I find it astonishing as a parent and private sector employer that they can take a clear-cut road into the digital sector by taking out the IT GCSE level. When you try to draw out what young people don’t know are their skills, they bring that difference and creativity to an organisation.”

Caroline Theobald challenged BT to say what they are doing that is different, to give opportunities to people within their workplace.

Phil Orr said they had developed a rotation

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programme for graduates so they can learn different facets of the job, explaining: “I look after managed services, so I have to factor in how to attract business, how to price it up and how to make sure it lands well in the market and becomes profitable.

“What worries me is that if we suddenly have a knee-jerk reaction, taking those skills out of school too early, we will end up with a mismatch between what employers want in terms of skills and capabilities without the basics, and we will be back to the early 1980s when people had to be taught to read and write when they started their apprenticeships.”

His colleague Rob Powell added: “We recruit diversely, including the armed forces, so that we get different skill sets from as wide a pool of talent as possible.”

From Bradford College, Asa Gordon said there was a need for fundamental change to make a large enough difference: “We are seeing the majority of the businesses we are working with – SMEs and micro-enterprises – have expectations of clocking up GCSEs during a recruitment rather than asking what the skill of that person is. The whole process is wrong.”

Rob Hickey said: “The national industrial strategy is skewed away from this region and does not fully reflect it and its needs, and I see more issues on the horizon. If Government intervenes that could be to the detriment of us securing the skills and attributes this region particularly needs. We have two great LEPs in Yorkshire who have done a lot in a short space of time, but they will find it increasingly difficult to provide the skills if their hands are tied by a STEM-dominated national agenda.”

Bringing in the local authority and LEP viewpoint, Carol Runciman agreed that creativity was a common thread. “If you want to be a good mathematician, you need to be creative, if you want to be a good technologist, you need to be creative – you cannot think in tramlines. Maybe it is the mandarins of Whitehall who see STEM and creativity separated, but somehow we need to get the message across that it is not like that. When I was in further education we were talking about key skills, and it was all about teamwork and communications, and businesses are still saying that is what they want – and somebody somewhere isn’t listening.”

Drew Rowlands said the language being used was not helping people on all sides understand

what was needed. “The current Government is obsessed with the word ‘academic’,” he said.

“Technical or vocational is a second class citizen. But if you look at a definition of academic, it means theoretical, which suggests science has no application, maths has no application because they are nothing to do with being practical, and that music has no canon of knowledge that needs to be learned.

Part of the solution to what we are discussing is to change the language and rather than academic and technical or vocational, we start to use the idea of applied and theoretical and break down barriers and blur boundaries.”

Rowlands went on to describe how the careers guidance on offer was dire, and that instead there should be a drilling down to find the attributes needed and feed them in using mentorship and support. Conor Moss said the situation was a national disgrace to under-fund information and guidance which led to pupils being put on courses they should not be on.

“

“We start to use the idea of applied and theoretical and break down barriers and blur boundaries.”

Karen Elenor said her latest cohorts love the blend of the academic and theoretical and what the business brings to them. “And I like the fact that we do a level of the teaching because that is development of our own people and giving them opportunities as part of a different culture.”

Martin Edmondson agreed about not being too restricted: “We get hung up on our systems, structures and levels, but actually it is all about early talent if you blur those lines. For the last 40 years there has been an organisation called the Association of Graduate Recruiters, and I joined their board last week on the day that they became the Institute of Student Employers. That change isn’t because all their members have changed but because there is a much more blurred sense of what a learner, educator, employer partnership looks like, so you get models that are a fantastic hybrid.”

Jo Burgess also backed the principle of a

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major rethink of how skills are managed: “With SMEs what we are finding is that the Levy is being managed by their FD, with no HR infrastructure in there and we are being told ‘don’t ask me about workforce planning or talent strategy – I have no idea. Help us.’

Andy Atkinson from Bradford College praised the work of Sky Bet and said he was an advocate of getting that vital balance right between experience and attitudes. He told the guests in The Boardroom: “I was with a large employer this morning with no experience in apprenticeships who faced the challenge of who carried out the work – was it HR? Finance? Training and Development? It just gets passed around, diluting the knowledge of what is involved. But we have met with them and they have decided that, with 22 departments, they will start with one and bring in a young person, make that first person a success and then roll it out.”

But he made the point that it can be hard to share best practice because organisations were at such different stages in different markets, and Rob Powell agreed, saying: “For every Sky Bet and every Clifford Chance that are pro-active businesses that want to get involved, there are dozens or even hundreds who don’t have time and don’t have a clue, so there is a lot of free value being lost. I wonder whether there is a case for some regional infrastructure to be co-ordinated about getting out to those businesses and providing a more coherent offer.”

Rosi Lister said IVE was also working a lot with SMEs and helping non-levypayers engage with apprentices and pick up a broad creative agenda, to the extent that there may be a branch of the organisation that specifically looks after apprenticeship training to provide that missing infrastructure and “surrogate parenting” for apprentices with smaller employers who don’t have the capacity.

Phil Orr said there were still synergies with much larger organisations: “Only half of BT is a monolith,” he said. “There are 30,000 to 40,000 employees in OpenReach and I run an SME, making the decision on whether I bring in two graduates this year. So we need to identify techniques to break down the barriers into larger companies.”

Mike Hughes said how illuminating it would be for the people around the table to meet again to see if it was possible to have made specific progress together in the meantime. He said: “It is a real privilege to have heard all the input, but it is the very start of a very big conversation.” Caroline Theobald took that point and asked if there were practical issues that could now be tackled.

“If there are examples of good practice, why are they kept somewhere that means someone who

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could benefit can’t access it, and if we are going to change the language, where will we do that? ”she asked.

Rosi Lister offered to facilitate a reunion of people, opinions and achievements and the table agreed that should happen, with Conor Moss saying: “We have been down these pathways before, trying to get universities to play with businesses. We are all locked in a higher education business model where we get fed with a steady stream of students, but what has changed even in the last 18 months is that there has been a tightening of competition between universities and the expectation of a young person is ‘I have a choice’.

“Two years ago, schools wouldn’t talk to us.

Last year a couple came to us to talk about degree apprenticeships, and this year we could go out every day talking to them. We

are nowhere near that cliff edge, but we are certainly in a different space.”

Karen Elenor agreed and said this was the time to make real change. “It is a space where all parties have the potential to benefit massively and here the candidates coming in to the job markets should get the best of both worlds if we can work together to get that right mix.”

Rosi Lister said quality had to be a keyword to help change the status of apprenticeships and reflect the Quality Assurance Agency model used in higher education.

Jo Burgess and Asa Gordon both highlighted the need for action in the Health and Social Care sector, which have great difficulty coping with the need for 20% ‘off the job’ training.

They warned that in 12 months time this could be a major issue because one of the biggest

sectors can’t do apprenticeships any more.

There was a general consensus that doing something about the 20% would be a major step forward in opening up the market.

As the debate drew to a close, Phil Orr said the refreshing of skills for adults should be on the agenda for the next meeting, and Carol Runciman said she would be taking the details of the discussion to the Education and Skills panel on the LEP and talk it through with them.

Mike Hughes closed the debate, saying it had been an inspiring evening.

“We always need to have mature arguments to get things done and then find a way to communicate to people that something is actually happening,” he said. “And the idea that we will meet again and that more might happen, and then more again, is absolutely what we should all aim for.” n

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INVESTING to close the skills gap

Yorkshire based entrepreneur Norm Peterson shares his thoughts and plans around the skills agenda and how the businesses he’s involved with are building a workforce to compete nationally and internationally.

Launched in 2014, Growth Capital Ventures (‘GCV’) is a Financial Conduct Authority authorised investment firm that has managed a number of successful investment rounds for high growth businesses. GCV has raised capital from an extensive network of both online retail and offline private investors.

GCV recently secured a £1.1m investment from Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s leading Private Equity Firms, which has enabled Norm and his co-founder brother Craig

Peterson to recruit a skilled workforce across key areas of the business.

Norm added: “Maven’s investment has allowed us to recruit and strengthen the marketing, investment and tech teams. We set out on our recruitment drive with an open mind as we were well aware that finding the right people to match our needs could be difficult due to a lack of skills and experience in technical and development positions.”

One of GCV’s key hires is Jordan Dargue,

head of operations and investor relations who has an extensive background in skills, training and recruitment. She has been recruited into the business to assist the senior management team with not only ambitious recruitment plans but also the retention and development of teams.

Performance and development are key drivers for success, and rigorous robust plans are in place for each employee to ensure training and development needs are addressed

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and a pipeline of opportunity is available.

Norm highlighted: “We have ambitious plans right throughout our group of companies, and we want the best people to join us. In today’s environment, we know attracting this talent goes beyond the financial aspect, and it’s because of this, we want to go above and beyond to make sure every employee grows and stays with us throughout our continued journey.”

GCV originates investments across property, clean energy and high growth SMEs; impact driven investment opportunities are at the heart of everything they do. GCV is on a mission to make investing for financial growth and impact both exciting and accessible, underpinning the need to drive societal impact.

Sourcing investments that meet the needs of growing markets, it focuses on the ‘four pillars’ that support impact driven investments - sustainable living and working; employment, skills and training; health, wellbeing and care; and environment, energy and efficiency.

Jordan highlighted: ‘’A key driver for us is to work with high growth businesses that generate jobs, skills and training in underserved markets.

We are now moving into property investments backing real estate projects that deliver much needed low carbon homes. One thing that is extremely important to us as a business is facilitating investment opportunities that have the potential to deliver sustainable investment growth alongside the ability to deliver positive social, economic and environmental benefits’’.

Norm and the team at GCV have recently facilitated an investment into Hive.HR, a Software-as-a-Service (‘SaaS’) business that demonstrates both its high growth and positive impact potential. Norm continues to take an active role as Chairman, and will be working with Hive to facilitate their next round of investment.

Norm said: ‘’Hive helps businesses improve employee engagement. There’s a real pressing need to support a business like Hive. With over 66% of employees being reported as disengaged or actively disengaged, employee engagement in the UK is clearly a major problem. Hive fulfills two of the core impact themes GCV look for – employment and training, and health and wellbeing. Hive itself has created a number of high quality jobs in the North East, as well as helping other businesses attract and retain talent in other areas of the UK’’.

The Hive software helps employers understand the current skills gaps that exist in

their business and highlights the training needs of their workforce.

Skills and training is clearly an area of interest to Norm and one that genuinely runs through the entire ethos of all of Norm’s portfolio of companies, including Carlton & Co, a luxury house building company.

Established in 2007, Carlton & Co is today the development arm that will develop the property-based investment opportunities structured by GCV. Norm said: “Investors want to have the ability to diversify and invest not just in businesses and high growth SMEs but also to invest into projects such as residential developments – that’s why our business models of GCV and Carlton & Co are so well aligned.”

Carlton & Co is growing and plans to recruit a range of positions from senior managers through to skilled site workers. The construction industry is facing a drastic skills shortage, and as such Carlton & Co is keen to address and support Yorkshire’s governmental training initiatives. This is in addition to establishing partnerships with universities in the Yorkshire region and local apprenticeship providers by recruiting experienced staff and apprenticeship-level teams into the business.

A clear commitment from the business will allow Carlton & Co to plan its work flow and identify skills gaps early enough to ensure suitably trained young people and experienced professionals are available and ready for work when they are needed. The business will work in close collaboration with local training colleges throughout Yorkshire to help ensure upcoming shortages are addressed. Increased skill levels will ensure that the much needed workforce meets the needs of the business.

To align the North Yorkshire County Council Economic Growth Plan, Norm and the team at Carlton & Co will be developing projects in the Yorkshire region and will work with local educational providers to create a clear pathway for young people from education to training and employment. They will undertake measures to support the development of the workforce that meets the social and economic needs of the County.

Norm was instrumental in raising the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI) to Sedbergh school where his son Luca, was the first pupil to undertake the course.

Jordan said: ‘’As part of both GCV’s and Carlton & Co’s skills and training strategy we are keen to partner with local training institutions to support the current skills gaps from degree apprenticeships and creative learning, through to management and leadership programmes.’’ ‘’We plan to tackle the construction skills gap head on, creating a better future for the region, driving job creation and working with our employees to make the most of their potential. We are keen to collaborate with local apprenticeship providers giving young and enthusiastic people the opportunity to learn a trade and develop their knowledge and ability in this exciting sector.’’ n

Co-invest in deals with real purpose.

To find out more about investing into high growth businesses and projects, or to find out more about raising capital visit www.growthfunders.com or call 0330 102 5525.

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FORGING THE LINKS TO GROW OUR SKILLS Tom Keeney, Chair of BT’s Yorkshire and The Humber regional board and head of employee relations, tells Mike Hughes how its influence on the skills debate reaches from the smallest country lane to the information superhighway.

A

mong the key collaborations that are changing the skills landscape across Yorkshire, BT’s work with schools and small businesses is a flagship model of how to combine scale and passion for the good of the region.

With a wide-ranging impact that starts with young children being encouraged to showcase their innovations and continues to degree level apprenticeships and support through every stage of a business’s development, they are a vital element of the wider picture.

In Yorkshire Tom Keeney is a key influence, as chair of the regional board, head of BT employee relations and a member of the LEP board. He knows where the issues are and can bring in considerable resources to help find solutions and keep the skills pipeline flowing.

“There is a demand for a wide variety of skills in Yorkshire, but with so many years of experience at the forefront of the industry, BT’s focus is on what a deeper, almost granular understanding of the situation can bring to the tech sector,” he told me.

“We have led a number of initiatives here and over the years have identified a wider need to prepare young people for the world of work as well as just equipping them with the right skills. I am particularly keen on helping them fit

into a new workplace, being part of a team and building their confidence, so we spend a good bit of time on that personal side.

“Whether they are younger people or older ones coming to us for retraining, that first induction period is critical to how they will perform. For any organisation it is hard to get the right people in the right role, but retaining them is also a key focus. We hear a lot about skills acquisition, but skills retention is also a key target and BT is proud of its strong record here in making sure workers are fulfilled, happy and engaged with their work and what BT is doing.

“This asks a lot of our trainers, in embedding the importance of personal skills as well as technical skills, but our apprenticeship schemes have been going for 50 years now and over the last few years we have been offering 1,000 places a year across a range of sectors, so the trainers have an instinct about dealing with the people as well as the skills.”

BT is still the organisation people look to be a pioneer and early adopter of the latest technology, and training its own staff can be the ideal place to implement it. At their latest recruitment event, Openreach, the wholly owned and independently governed division of BT Group – neatly summed up by Keeney

as being much more than ‘up the poles and down the holes’ these days – ran a trial letting its possible new workers look at life as a field engineer using virtual reality. Each candidate got a headset to experience what exchanges look like and what work might lie ahead, which immediately engaged these eager young minds.

“Because we take health and safety very seriously what these emerging technologies also help us do is take any possible risks away.

You can’t replicate the dreadful weather some of our field engineers have to work in, but you can give new recruits access to a lot of what they could be working with in a safe environment,” he said.

Such a level of engagement is important for people who aren’t sure about stepping out of their normal environment and taking this next step from education to employment. It is important that those of us who are more experienced and further along the careers path help them make that transition as smoothly as possible.

By equipping their new staff with a fullyrounded skill set and bringing out the best in their individual characters and personalities, BT is also identifying its future leaders – those young people who could become managers

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and continue that long BT tradition of having senior staff who know the business from the ground up. There is a career to be built here that can last for 40 even 50 years, with the early investment in young talent paying off at every stage, wherever it takes place within this vast organisation.

Keeney explained: “On our apprentice scheme alone, we will be offering roles from engineering, computing and finance to security, customer service, cyber security and HR. One thing that I hold dearly is that they all bring something fresh to BT, because not only do you get the skills of the individual, but you get the attitude and the confidence they have at their stage of life. They also bring in a tech literacy which can be important working alongside people like me who have the experience, but not such a natural affinity with technology.”

BT’s operation – with more than 100,000 staff helping generate profits of more than £3.5bn – has the sort of scale that can change the fortunes of a region, so managing their resources so that the smallest customer and the largest multinational are kept connected takes an understanding and passion for the area.

“I am a believer in bringing new people in so that other people can experience those new elements, and I know from my role on the

“I am a believer in bringing new people in so that other people can experience those new elements.”

employment and skills board at the LEP over the last five years that much of what we are doing with BT has a much wider regional impact across Yorkshire and around the Humber,” said Keeney.

“I am proud of that effect and will always be a passionate ambassador for the area – it is a great region to be in with everything going on here, which means we are starting to see graduates staying here and not just jumping on a train to London. That means there is a big demand for skills and employment here and we need to manage that at BT and within the LEP and work with the private and public sector to bring long-term success to the region.

“I think across Yorkshire there are successful elements of the skills battle and some that we still need to work on. There is a very strong understanding of what is required here, underpinned by good data to make sure we get it right. The whole place seems vibrant and is attractive for people to live, work and stay here.

“But that success brings demand in a lot of areas, not least housing and skills, that need to be fed and managed with a simple target of matching supply to demand to look after the whole picture of what it means for someone to work here. We are still a hidden gem to some extent, so when people like me discover it, we

tend to love it and stay and we must look after those people.”

BT has always worked closely with young people, well before they might consider their career options, on hugely-successful projects like Tech Factor, where innovative schools and academies can win £10,000. It speaks to hundreds of schools and colleges every day to understand the role that technology plays in the education environment, and see how schools are preparing students for the future by making them more tech savvy.

At the other end of the education ladder, the company is constantly investing in high level skills to ensure a permanent supply of trained staff for itself and eager companies looking to invest in the area.

Its flagship apprenticeships make sure that there is a clear progression plan from any starting point, with Advanced Apprenticeships working towards Level 2 or 3 NVQ and a knowledge based qualification such as a BTEC, then Higher Apprenticeships for Level 4, consolidated by a foundation degree, and then Degree Apprenticeships.

The initiatives BT has developed to increase Tech skills have had an influence over the whole sector, from the fresh approach of young people and young businesses to the

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experience of skilled operatives and globallysuccessful partners.

“I have seen through my LEP role that we have a lot of small businesses in the region and they have a significant effect on the economy, so it’s vital they have the right access to skills and education to grow their businesses, said Keeney.

“Funding can be challenging because smaller businesses don’t necessarily have the clout and the support to see training and skills as an investment and a priority, but I see the LEP make a particular effort here because there is so much potential for the region and you just never know in those early days what these companies will grow into.

“In BT we have formal programmes like the Infinity Lab where we invite start-ups who could one day be our partners and suppliers to showcase what they are doing.”, “In our Superfast BB we have technology which enables them to transform in terms of their future success because it can give them access to important things like online training which can make such a difference in a

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competitive market. That can help all businesses, but it will impact smaller firms much more.

“We see it as more than just a commercial operation for BT. There is real purpose here, and not just in the skills arena but in education and healthcare and so many more sectors where access to technology is a vital tool. We have an ambition to reach five million children by 2020 to help develop robotics and coding skills that will be vital for their futures.

“Now, there will not be five million people coming to work for BT, but we know that by working with that number we can send hundreds of thousands out into industry and into their own businesses. This has a positive progressive effect for the whole region because these tech-savvy children are becoming techliterate and understanding how their hardware does what it does.”

The pulling power of BT is important here, attracting partners from all over the world to share best practice and form collaborations with far-reaching effects for Yorkshire youngsters who are just starting to realise the implications of breakthrough technologies like the Internet

of Things and are at the earliest stage of planning careers, which might make them the innovators of the future and a key asset for the region.

“We employ around 7,000 people in Yorkshire and have a strong affinity with the young people here and the communities they are growing up in, and what we can do to help them, either as part of the skills debate or by building a connected future for them.

“We are proud and happy to step up to that goal and recognise what it can mean when the Openreach van pulls up outside a primary school with a tech literacy need or a small village business wanting to grow its skills base or share a solution. There are certainly some location challenges, but we have been massively successful in getting out to more than 90% of the county already.”

Clearly Keeney, backed by BT’s breadth of support and experience, believes passionately in the tech sector as a pivotal part of the regional economy at every level and sees the nurturing and guidance of future talent as a responsibility and an investment we all have to make. n

“There is real purpose here, and not just in the skills arena but in education and healthcare and so many more sectors”

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TECH LITERACY CHALLENGE BT recognises the importance of ensuring its people are fully engaged in terms of skills and knowledge. It is also actively engaged in schemes that help people outside of the company develop skills that will help them in the world of work especially digital skills. The UK has enormous untapped tech potential, and its future prosperity depends on harnessing it. But our ability to do that and ensure that the tech revolution does make a better, more inclusive world, depends on having people who are tech literate. And the reality is that we don’t have that yet. We see the urgency of this challenge, and we are helping to address it.

This is not just about a skilled workforce for high tech companies, though that matters too.

This is about opportunities for young people in a world where their prospects will be shaped by tech. It’s more fundamental than just knowing how to use an app or upload an image, it means being fluent in tech thinking, computational thinking and problem solving.

The nation faces a ‘tech literacy paradox’: from an early age, kids grow up surrounded by technology, their world is ‘always connected’ with information and entertainment at their fingertips. They are tech consumers but they’re not tech literate; they don’t know how it works.

And most of them don’t appreciate the impact tech will have on them and how it is shaping the world. Technology advances can provide solutions to some of society’s major challenges, social

inclusion, health and the environment. Countries and businesses all over the world are calling for people who are tech literate.

BUILDING A CULTURE OF TECH LITERACY BT is convinced that the only answer to these challenges is to ensure everyone grows up with the know-how for the jobs of the future, and to shape a more inclusive society. We have made a commitment to build a culture of tech literacy with our first target to reach five million kids by 2020. That means helping young people to become curious about how technology actually works, in control of it, and ultimately active creators with it. It’s all about preparing the next generation to thrive in a digital world. Doing this can help create more open governments and more active citizens, and provide the basis for prosperous economies, competitive business, and improved life chances for individuals.

We need to start with the next generation, that’s why we’ve designed our tech literacy programme around the goal of supporting young people. We see three crunch-points where we should focus our collective efforts to build that culture of tech literacy: • early education and primary school, where we must harness the enthusiasm of young minds, and embed it as a foundation skill that’s as important as English and maths • teenage years, where we must inspire young people to want to build the tech skills they’ll need in a digital world, and empower them to be

confident in navigating that world • transition to work, where we must show young people that tech will be in every job, and is the new way to get ahead.

Tech literacy is a shared challenge, which can only be tackled by working together across sectors.

Many organisations are now devoting effort to this, we need to join up those initiatives, to scale up what’s working well, to make sure each intervention is responding to real needs, and to share learning. We’ve taken that collaborative approach in everything we’ve done so far.

THE BAREFOOT COMPUTING PROJECT FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS One example of collaboration is the Barefoot Computing Project, www.barefootcas.org.uk which helps primary school teachers become confident with the tech literacy concepts through a combination of free teaching materials and volunteer-led, face-to-face training.

CONNECTING TO POPULAR CULTURE IN THE TEENAGE YEARS Teenagers are voracious consumers of technology, and they take it for granted. Many of them think tech know-how is boring, and not relevant to their future. It’s vital we demonstrate that tech is part of the activities that this age group loves, to bring alive the wide range of opportunities that can be unlocked by getting tech literate. The BT STEM Crew initiative with Ben Ainslie Racing is another way we’re using sport to interest kids in the role tech plays in careers. It provides teaching materials

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that bring alive topics within the STEM curriculum through the lens of performance sailing. A new BT STEM Crew programme has also been rolled out in Yorkshire and the Humber. To date the programme has engaged with 38 teachers at 27 Secondary Schools in the region – which equates to 2,525 children reached.

READY FOR THE TRANSITION TO WORK Our Work Ready programme helps 16-24 year olds, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, get prepared for work. Young people not currently in education, employment or training join BT for seven weeks of skills development and work experience in a workplace powered by tech. Since January 2017 in Yorkshire and the Humber at least 59 young people have started on a work placement, 33 completed/ graduated, 18 of the 33 completed/graduated have moved into employment/ education or Training (55 And 75 further places are planned between now and the end of the calendar year. In total 134 places will have been on offer for the area.

Gemma Blewitt, is a warehouse operative in Supply Chain, and joined the team based in Northallerton, North Yorkshire. Gemma has featured in the national press, as a role model for young people making a real success and change in their lives with our traineeship scheme. Gemma explained how the scheme has helped her.

“During the traineeship I covered various topics, and exercises including team work games that helped us find out more about ourselves as individuals so we could then improve our CVs and how to present ourselves to potential employers. We were also given the chance to improve on our English and Maths functional skills and we were able to take a test in both. We also gained work experience by spending two days a week in the warehouse, and we were also given the task to make a presentation and present it to a members of staff. We were given a problem and we had to try to find a solution to it using continuous improvement. The presentation not only gave us more knowledge of continuous improvement but also gave us more confidence in presentations as it was quite challenging for a few of us.”

Gemma added “I would highly recommend the traineeship to anyone; it is a great experience and great opportunity to get you into work by learning and gaining expertise along the way. The traineeship builds your confidence and opens so many doors, an overall brilliant experience that I would do all over again.”

WORKING WITH OTHER PARTNERS THE CYBER SCHOOLS PROGRAMME The Government has chosen BT to help deliver a £20m programme to give talented teenagers cybersecurity skills. The Cyber Schools Programme from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will encourage young people to learn cybersecurity skills alongside their secondary school studies. The programme will launch in England in the autumn. We’ll help deliver it through a nationwide network of extracurricular clubs, activities and a new online game with help from BT Volunteers.

COLLABORATION WITH UNIVERSITIES/RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (R&D) BT is the third largest investor in R&D in the UK over the past 10 years. BT works with universities through UK Research Councils, collaborative programmes and directly funded research, including Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and York universities in this region.

SKILLS TO SUPPORT WIDER SOCIETY/BT’S PURPOSEFUL BUSINESS ACTIVITIES BT is also helping with skills to benefit the wider society. The last published UK Business and Digital Index showed that only 51% of charities have Basic Digital Skills and 53% are now accepting online donations, suggesting there are significant opportunities for charities to leverage. BT’s MyDonate platform enables charities to raise money online, with over £8m being raised by charities in the region. We also provide technology to support charities such as the BT Community Web Kit which helps smaller charities build, manage and update their own websites – over 1,200 websites have been set up by smaller charities/community groups in the region.

Employees across the region volunteer to share a wide range of skills with local charities and by running workshops with charities across the country, BT has been sharing business skills and knowledge to help charities. n

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Apprenticeships and Graduates Our BT apprenticeship ‘frameworks’ include computing, cybersecurity, software, network engineering and digital media, which show just how important tech literacy is to our modern workforce.

Our apprenticeship scheme has been in place for over 50 years.

With EE having joined BT we will be recruiting around 900 apprentices each year.

Nick Woodward, age 46 from Barnsley, South Yorkshire joined Openreach as an Apprentice Infrastructure Engineer. Prior to joining he had been a selfemployed chef for 22 years.

Nick had always had an interest in engineering and originally started down that path with his career but lifestyle choices got in the way, wanting to learn a new skill before he was too old he returned to engineering. Nick has now completed 24 months of his 30 month apprenticeship and is enjoying his new role building, testing, maintaining and repairing both the fibre optic and copper networks. Nick said “Having been self-employed for 22 years and feeling like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders one of the things I like most about the job is being part of a TEAM” Si Cunningham, 26 is a Project Manager with Global Services.

Si went to Leeds Beckett University where he graduated top of his class with a Business Management degree. He chose to apply for the BT graduate scheme because of BT’s reputation and brand, the industry, career opportunities, corporate culture and training and professional development opportunities (which were highlighted more than other schemes he applied for). Si project manages delivery of complex technical products and services to a variety of global customers. He also coaches and acts as a mentor for new project management graduates. Si has undergone a variety of training with BT, including Leadership Development, Project and Programme Management, Coaching and Mentoring and Commercial and Finance training alongside extensive online training available to BT employees. Si said “I love the dynamic aspect to the job, every day is different and every day I learn. BT’s investment in our learning and development I’ve also found of great benefit. And with a young family the flexibility of agile working has given me a good work life balance”.

Si has attended graduate fairs at York University and Leeds talking to students about ‘non-legal careers at BT for law graduates’.

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Supporting the older workforce The Humber LEP is delighted to announce that it is one of eight LEPs involved in delivering new careers interventions for older workers.

This innovative pilot is being delivered by the National Careers Service and involves working with employers to assist them in their own workforce planning strategies. According to the CIPD, the true cost of recruiting new workers is around £6,000, so a focus on keeping the talent of older workers makes good business sense too. This pilot is just one of the various skills and employment initiatives that the LEP has helped to deliver and develop over the past three years.

It complements the LEP Employment and Skills Strategy that was published in 2014 after considerable consultation with partners, including the four local authorities, employers and education and training providers. The strategy is designed to reduce the current skills gaps in the region by up-skilling more Humber residents and ensuring that employers increase productivity. The strategy has several areas of focus, including the improvement of careers services, the support of skills developments within SMEs and the increase of apprenticeship participation in the region.

The new offer for older workers recognises that the ageing workforce is a reality and workforce planning is key to ensure continued success. The service offers a range of options, including a careers health check for employees and use of several online planning tools for the employer.

As part of this project, the National Careers Service will offer businesses an on-site visit free

of charge to discuss how they can provide help in the management of an ageing workforce.

This will also include inviting employees to participate in an in-depth Information and advice guidance session to ensure they are considering their own skills and talents and helping to deliver business success.

The areas covered in these sessions can include skills, mid-life career reviews, information on training and more, with further help for both employers and employees to review flexible working approaches and practice to encourage retention, progression and improved productivity.

In the Humber area SMEs are also supported by the LEP Skills Support for the Workforce Programme which offers bespoke solutions for training for employers that meet criteria at no cost.

Phil Glover, Humber LEP growth hub programme manager said: “The value to business of a balanced workforce can’t be underestimated. Our Humber Growth Hub is extremely supportive of this project as we can see the positive impact that this will have on local business growth.

“As an employer this pilot will allow you to specify your business needs and work with us to employ, retain or retrain your current workforce resulting in greater productivity essential to growth.”

Gill Dillon, employer and partnership manager at the Department for Work and Pensions

said: “We’re delighted to be working with the Humber LEP and the National Careers Service on this initiative.

“At the Department for Work and Pensions we realise the importance for employees and businesses of having a diverse workforce. This of course impacts positively on employability levels in the region and aids businesses’ growth alongside our economy.

“I am looking forward to working on this project to support our older workforce which supports the Fuller Working Lives strategy.”

Tonya Ward, National Careers Service area director in Yorkshire and the Humber added: “This gives us at the National Careers Service the opportunity to deliver our services to more adults in work – we are delighted to be supporting this project.”

This is just one of the many skills initiatives the Humber LEP has in place to support a rapidly growing economy in the Humber region. n

To find out more about the Humber LEP’s Employment and Skills Strategy and more please visit www.humberlep.org/priority/askilled-and-productive-workforce/ for more information.

To find out more about this free service, please contact us at the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) on info@humberlep.org – alternatively contact michelle.peacock@aspire-igen.com

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Boost your business with the tools to train your team The York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership has invested £20m to help employers train their workforce and give them the tools to develop their staff.

Annabel Jelley, the Local Enterprise Partnership’s head of skills, said: “The funding is helping our businesses fill skills gaps, address succession plan worries and prioritise staff development.

A highly skilled workforce is vital to increase our area’s productivity and this investment is instrumental for helping us to achieve that.

“The value of a workforce is calculated in the amount of experience they have, the connections they bring and how specialist their skills are. That’s why we’re working with our colleges and training providers to deliver projects that make it easy for businesses in the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding area to invest in, and develop their staff. We’re putting businesses in the driving seat to select training that increases the value and productivity of each member of their team.”

York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership’s Growth Hub, How’s Business, provides the single point of contact

for accessing business support and advice.

The team work with business experts and support organisations, training providers and colleges so that businesses can always find the right solutions without having to scour the internet. The How’s Business website www. howsbusiness.org/ details all the support on offer for businesses.

Ashley Mason, chief officer of YorMed, came to the growth hub looking to train his staff so that they were all able “to have more flexibility and take on more contracts” in his business.

After assessing his needs, the How’s Business team connected Ashley with Skills Support for the Workforce, a programme offering fully funded skills training. Ashley was able to access fully funded management training for two existing and two new employees.

Over five courses, Ashley’s employees were able to pick up skills on everything from appraisals, business planning, engaging staff

and much more. Whether businesses need industry-specific training, or more general business skills like marketing or managing, Skills Support for the Workforce will work to identify specific skills gaps and recommend bespoke training. Businesses can find out what fully funded training they could access by emailing support@howsbusiness.org.

Additional training and support can be found through the Yorkshire Apprenticeship Hub. Apprenticeships offer a solution to address technical skills gaps for the existing workforce, or to grow a team. Apprenticeships are a cost effective way to increase skills levels, offering training right up to degree level. For businesses facing a loss of vital knowledge through an ageing workforce, apprenticeships can address replacement demand and enable future growth.

With government reforms, the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and the support that’s available through the Yorkshire Apprenticeship Hub, it’s an excellent time for businesses to benefit from apprenticeship training for their workforce.

The Yorkshire Apprenticeship Hub will provide advice and guidance about each stage of apprenticeship training. By accessing support through the Hub, you’ll receive a fully funded skills health check to ascertain where your skills needs are, get support to secure the right training and provider, as well as ongoing apprentice and employer support during the training.

You can find out more on their website: www.yorkshireapprenticeshiphub.co.uk n Skills Support for the Workforce and Yorkshire Apprenticeship Hub are co-financed through the European Union’s European Social Fund and the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

If you’d like to find out more about what funding and support you can access to upskill your staff, train new employees or grow your business, email support@howsbusiness.org.

Their support team will be able to assess your business needs and put you in contact with the best support provider for your business.

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“It is a relationship we want to develop with each student, offering support to individuals that we know may go on to have three, four or five careers.”

A whole life strategy to unlock individuals Professor Karen Stanton, Vice-Chancellor of York St John University, tells Mike Hughes how the core values of the institution combine with powerful business collaborations to make it an influential force in the regional economy.

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s thousands of new students arrived at York St John University for the start of their first term, their minds were buzzing with the challenges of the next few days and weeks, new friends to meet, lecturers to listen to and subjects to explore and all in the centre of one of the country’s most beautiful cities.

In a university whose reputation and profile has grown so much in the last few years, ViceChancellor Professor Karen Stanton views the start of every new semester with the same excitement and positivity, but as well as her team’s focus on the newcomers they are also looking at the longer view.

As a crucial section of the skills pipeline that will underpin the economic future of the region, York St John starts planning for the working life of its students as as soon as they step through the door – and staying true to the principles it has held for more than 175 years the university refuses to wave them off at the door with only a degree in their hands – but offers so much more as well.

This is a place of individuals. From the staff to their students, it is a collection of personalities and ambitions that are each carefully nurtured to make sure the full potential is achieved and a fully-rounded person steps out of the door at Lord Mayor’s Walk capable of making

a difference in their world and eager to get started.

“For us it is about being a university for life,” said Prof Stanton, who became VC in September 2015 and has overseen an extraordinary rise in regional and national impact.

“It is a relationship we want to develop with each student, offering support to individuals that we know may go on to have three, four or five careers. We want them to start an association with the university now and then maintain it so that we can enable individuals to dip in and dip out of education throughout their lifetime and become their place of learning.

“It is a very different approach to some years ago and it positions us at the heart of the Government’s industrial strategy, where they talk very encouragingly about the importance of lifelong learning. Times have changed and we now need the opportunity to teach people flexibly and almost create a ‘learning account’ where they can gain credit either towards a qualification or to hold in the bank for CPD or shorter courses.”

That continual development of its alumni can take many forms, from post-graduate qualifications to challenging research posts

or part-time courses. For Prof Stanton, a postgraduate return or continuation of study is an investment in reaching the career her students want – either by strengthening existing knowledge and skills, or taking on a whole new direction.

The challenge that this presents in tailoring education so precisely is substantial, but it is one that inspires the staff here to make York St John one of the UK’s best new universities.

Four of the main areas their plans focus on sum up the university perfectly: Quality, Community, Resilience and Growth. With the first three already perfected the fourth is well under way, on a foundation of the strongest links with business so that there is a clarity and understanding of what each needs to do for the region to perform to its full potential.

“It is partnership, partnership, partnership that is providing the answers throughout Yorkshire, and the same attitude from education and business will bring success,” said the VC. “It is about working together on co-creation and generating ideas and opportunities so that we can all unlock individuals and realise the collective potential that is here for the good of the region.

“To maximise what we can offer and

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differentiate ourselves in this space, we are looking at apprenticeships at all levels, more distance learning opportunities and short courses. All of these are ways of moving away the barriers and enabling students to connect to the university and make that journey into employment, realising that you can always be a part of York St John no matter what stage of your life you are at.

“For businesses it is about enabling them to release their employees if they want to develop particular skills for their organisation and working very specifically with them to see what their own requirements are and meeting their needs as well as those of the individuals.”

The dexterity required to embrace this ‘whole life’ strategy for its students is what sets the university apart from its rivals and the agility it has to adapt to new sectors and emerging technologies and underwrite their future growth with a commitment to keep them staffed with the brightest and broadest minds, is a game-changer for the region.

Postgraduate research at York St John provides an important ‘laboratory’ of new ideas and cutting edge technologies that support the region’s businesses, help draw in new companies keen to be at the centre of a cluster of opportunities, and provide them with staff who already know and may even have helped create the processes they are using.

As a postgraduate researcher – either self-funded or through a limited number of scholarships – students gain access to the university’s Graduate Centre and receive comprehensive training in research methods and highly transferable skills. Workshops and seminars are supplemented by an annual internal research conference for staff and students to share ideas with colleagues outside of their specialist area and help spread best practice ideas. It is an approach that is clearly working, after the Higher Education Academy’s 2017 Postgraduate Research Experience Survey found that an impressive 95% of YSJ students gave the courses high marks.

“There has been a major refresh of our offer to postgraduates, including a discount for alumni who graduate with us so they can go immediately on to a Masters programme, and we want that to work on a sliding scale, where those who graduate with a First get a 50% discount on their Masters,” explained Prof Stanton.

“We are also expanding the programme quite significantly to reinvigorate what we do for our

students and, very significantly, that will have an even more defined business focus with a Grad2Director scheme for students who don’t necessarily want to go into further education, but want to set up their own business. We want to make sure they have the highest level of support from us.

“They might be studying art and design now, but might not have a business background so through this programme we will help them develop the business skills they need to fulfil an ambition of running their own enterprise and developing a career for the future.”

The university has defined clear priorities to help students get the most out of their time in York, including Be Clear About Career which addresses the main goal of all high-quality educators – employability. Prof Stanton says this is much more than just a sit down and a chat about options.

“It is about helping students throughout their undergraduate time with us, and having a conversation with them in the first or second week after they join us about the next chapter for them. That is a key priority for us, as shown by the fact that 93% of our students are either in employment or further study within six months of leaving the university. And in the Government’s new Longitudinal Employment Outcome study, looking at the long-term earning prospects of students in sustained employment, we are in the top thirty in the country. That is a real achievement for us, underlining the amount of work we are putting in to make sure there is a long-term benefit to

being a York St John student.

This is the sort of outcome the larger universities aim for, and it is the combination of these high-profile achievements and the personal care taken with each student here that is making such a difference and pushing it so much higher up the list of options for students looking for so much more than the grades at the end of term. Maintaining that balance is another priority for Prof Stanton and her team. Without either the level of academic achievement or the holistic approach to the years spent here, this would just be another university.

“We are now developing a strategy for 2026, which marks the 20th anniversary of us gaining the official title of York St John University.

When you compare us to what others might have achieved, many are already 20 or 25 years old so I have said to the team that we need to focus on what we want to be in 2026.

“We are one of the smaller universities and that gives us one of our strengths when attracting students and an agility when dealing with businesses. But like any strong organisation we want to grow – and last year we were the fastest-growing university in England – so we are moving quite quickly and assuredly as a result of us continuing to review the portfolio that we have and make real changes around the curriculum. Our ambition for 2026 is to be a campus of about 10,000 students which will include an online population off campus of around 2,000.

“They will be studying a wide range of subjects, and we have particular experience in

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identifying and reflecting the swift changes in trends for what people want to come here for and how we can help them develop a career. A good example of that is that last year and so far this year we have seen a 50% rise in applications for Art and Design. Anything around the creative space is massive for us at the moment and Media and Media Production is also up by as much as 36%, but also Social Sciences and Psychology are up by more than 40% in the last two years. So we have introduced new programmes to meet that demand such as Criminology and Policing Studies which start this year in a space that will be enhanced by Politics and Law to make sure we are building where there is real sustained growth and a very strong prospect of long-term employment.

“For example, lots of business schools offer an MBA. But we don’t want to move into that general space, we want to offer something different with an MBA in Social Enterprise, working with Hiscox and the WaterAid charity and one in Disruptive Leadership, reflecting what is out there in the marketplace and looking at how managers can operate in such an environment, and in Creative Leadership to accommodate the surge in interest for our Art and Design courses.

“Having that agility is an area where we have developed a USP over the years, and the increase in numbers demonstrates how successful that has been. We are working with businesses and the third sector and the public sector, to understand what their requirements are and mining the market intelligence about what students want to study and how they want to be able to study in a way that suits them, using every component of what we have to offer.

“Students want to see that we are working closely with the industries where they see their futures and that can be very quick to market with new programmes for undergraduates and postgraduates because we realise that the work they move into may be in a sector that is not even developed when they start learning with us.

“There is a lot of talk about Artificial Intelligence and how that will change numerous jobs and we have just been talking to one major financial institution about how looking through and assessing a company’s books can be automated to an extent, which means the implications of that need to be added to the basic skills set for our accountancy students, who may not be required to do certain tasks by the time they graduate.

“What such employers are looking for is an outstanding set of skills, and the ability to be able to deal with clients – which can’t be automated. Because of the way we do things we are in a very strong position to deliver that well-rounded character in an employee and are be very cognisant of these changes

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The New Apprentice

How universities can plug the skills gap It’s no secret that British business needs a skills boost to continue competing on a global stage. The government’s target of having three million apprenticeships in place by 2020 demonstrates their commitment to making that boost possible. What’s less well known is how degree apprenticeships can address high-level skills gaps and improve business performance.

Apprenticeships are nothing new, but the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in April 2017 has catapulted degree apprenticeships into the spotlight. These higher education apprenticeships mean employees combining on-the-job training with flexible study can now get a foundation degree, bachelor’s degree or even a master’s degree in some sectors.

With 1.3 per cent of the UK’s employers now committed to paying 0.5 per cent of their wage bill into the Apprenticeship Levy pot, it’s no wonder that businesses now need to know how to make the most of the funding available.

Developing a good apprenticeship programme means employers can attract employees with potential, enabling them to recruit from a larger pool of talent. Degree apprenticeships are also an opportunity to train existing staff in new knowledge and technologies, or to retain high calibre staff who are already motivated and engaged. The Chartered Management Institute (CMI), estimates that the average leadership and management apprentice can increase productivity by £214 per week and that 71 per cent of apprentices stay with the same employer once qualified.

This approach is also hugely attractive for employees. With tuition fees covered by the Apprenticeship Levy, candidates can earn as they learn, leaving them without the student loan debt accrued by their contemporaries.

Bob Gammie, Dean of York Business School, thinks degree apprenticeships can deliver a valuable solution to a range of businesses. “For employers who see apprenticeships as an integral part of their talent strategy, degree-educated employees can become a vital part of addressing higher level skills gaps”, he says.

It’s not just new hires that would benefit from degree apprenticeships. “At York St John University we offer a consultancy service to help identify those existing staff who’d benefit from investment in their skill set”, he adds.

“We also provide a range of pathways to higher education qualifications that can be tailored to suit anyone in an organisation, no matter what their current education level”.

Universities and colleges undoubtedly play a pivotal role in meeting industry needs and offer an increasing spectrum of higher and degree apprenticeships. York Business School at York St John University has launched its Chartered Manager degree apprenticeships including a bespoke BA (Hons) in Management and Leadership and Level 5 Diploma in Management and Leadership. The CMI accredited courses reflect the knowledge, competence and professional values required for management roles.

Higher education continues to evolve hand in hand with the demands of businesses of all sizes and qualifications are increasingly aligned with industry needs. Working in partnership is key, and York St John University is well positioned to respond to the needs of businesses that want to shape the direction of the qualifications on offer. Employers committed to responsible business practices will value the university’s ethos of social justice and sense of community and employees will gain a flexible approach to learning combined with coaching, mentoring and all the benefits of the student experience on campus.

“Degree apprenticeships are set to become a fact of life for both businesses and universities so it’s incredibly important that we work together to create a well-qualified workforce”, says Dr Gammie. “Apprenticeship Levy payments have a two-year time-limit so if you’re already paying for it – use it, or lose it”.

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“

“It is partnership, partnership, partnership that is providing the answers throughout Yorkshire, and the same attitude from education and business will bring success.”

when we design our programmes and deliver those graduate attributes.”

The university’s strategic objectives alongside Be Clear About Career – which includes an aim of every course having a work experience element – are Inspiring Learning and Impactful Research, which the titles speak for themselves in outlining the York St John approach to a lifelong relationship with businesses and students.

“There is a global context out there and we have a social responsibility to understand businesses and how they operate and what they need over and above the essential core skills.”

This leadership in a time of a skills challenge means there is an opportunity for educators to be creative themselves and work with LEPs and other anchor institutions on a strategy for the wide region and therefore the whole

UK economy. The willingness is already there, but the hard work is in building a seamless collaboration to make it all happen.

“One of our concerns in looking at that wider picture is that we need more graduate-level jobs in this region,” said Prof Stanton.

“Our students love it in North Yorkshire and they want to stay, but we suffer from a brain drain where they feel they have to go elsewhere to get a real graduate-level career. Then they are likely to come back once they have built a career, which is wonderful, but it shows the gap which exists at the moment.

“There is always more we can do, and we thrive on that sort of challenge. I have had an interesting couple of years so far, with radical changes in the higher education sector and the context we operate in. But we all work really hard here and are really delighted with the new agenda and its focus on the next decade and

where we want to be in 2026.

“That means creating sustainable partnerships to bring together employers and their future employees and always putting the ethical principles of York St John at the heart of what we do, whoever we are working with. It gives us a great sense of continuing pride that almost 40% of the people on campus are either the first in their family to go to university or come from backgrounds where higher education would not necessarily be an option.

“That is a big responsibility for us to give any person coming to us the very best experience and every possibility of achieving the careers they have always wanted and they can all be assured that in changing the size and shape of the institution, our commitment to them and opening our doors wide to welcome anyone with a desire to learn remains the absolute core of York St John.” n

READY TO ENHANCE YOUR CAREER? SO ARE WE Business is changing and we’re changing too. York Business School at York St John University now offers a bolder, broader suite of postgraduate courses designed to give you the skills to challenge convention, spark innovation and bring out the best in yourself and others.

Whether it’s marketing or mentoring, a modern MBA, or a refresh of your management skills, our comprehensive offer is widely accredited and highly regarded, with a record of producing results.

“The York St John University course was accredited, affordable and rich with content. It gave me everything I desired all in one place” Nuraddeen Audi, MA Leading Innovation and Change Take a fresh look at our postgraduate opportunities and get ready to move your personal and professional development to the next level.

Find out more on our website: www.yorksj.ac.uk/schools/york-business-school | Email: admissions@yorksj.ac.uk | Phone: 01904 876922

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From Learning

The government recently announced that almost half of all 17 to 30-year-olds in England now go on to higher education, the highest number since the introduction of £9,000 fees in 2012.

But why is the number of university students on the rise when tuition fees, student loans and graduate debt are so often considered a deterrent to higher education? After years of study, graduating with debt will be a major reason why potential students, and their families, ask themselves if a university education really is the best way to start a career.

Employability The answer lies in graduate career prospects.

All universities have an increasing duty to give students the skills, confidence, knowledge and networks to maximise their professional opportunities once they graduate. At York St John University, we want to ensure we are doing everything possible to give our students the experiences and expectations to operate confidently and successfully throughout their careers.

As well as creating even more work experience prospects, placements, internships and volunteering opportunities, we’re introducing a number of bespoke initiatives for our recent graduates including a new Grad2Director

to Earning

University education continues to be the route to a better job. programme for those wanting to start their own business.

The Grad2Director initiative offers graduates a free, expert-led programme providing online and face-to-face coaching opportunities to turn a good idea into a real business.

Developed in partnership with Dr John Park, an international expert in product and service innovation, the programme takes graduates step-by-step through the stages of planning, testing and implementing their business ideas.

“We’re using digital technology to deliver on-demand education”, explains Dr Park. “By building this support around the needs of recent graduates, we’re providing the start-up coaching, support and funding so vital for creating the next generation of entrepreneurs”.

Well-paid work For many students, going to university is a life experience, a chance to be part of a community of learners, to conduct research or find out how to think like an entrepreneur.

The personal growth that students go through

by attending university is about so much more than just honing skills for a future career, but ultimately, the primary reason most students give for going to university is to get a good job.

Here’s why: in 2016, graduates earned on average £9,500 more than non-graduates. And despite the myth that there aren’t enough jobs for graduates, employment data shows that most graduates get jobs soon after leaving university.

A university for life At York St John University, we have a strong record of graduate employment. Around 93% of our graduates are in work or further study within six months of graduating. We pride ourselves on providing career support that takes an individual and bespoke approach for each student. And whilst many universities offer careers support for a number of years after students leave, York St John University is committed to supporting its students for life to raise their individual and economic aspirations. n