Train New SME Funding

Train

New SME Funding

The world of work has been profoundly affected by COVID-19. Businesses and organisations are facing unprecedented levels of uncertainty and change, and our new world of remote and blended working requires innovative thinking, new ways of connecting , collaborating and developing new skills.

Reskilling and upskilling form a critical part of response and recovery plans and SMEs can now access up to £5k support via Ayrshire College. The Fund forms part of the Scottish Government’s Flexible Workforce Development Fund and is open to SMEs from the public, private and voluntary/charitable sectors.

Ayrshire College offers a diverse training portfolio tailored to suit employer needs and highly relevant for today’s environment.

If you are a sole trader, micro or growing business employing up to 250 employees, register your interest https://www1.ayrshire.ac.uk/business-and-training/sme-support/

Ayrshire College is ready and open for business!

“This is a fantastic opportunity for small and medium sized enterprises to take advantage of government funding to upskill/reskill their workforce. We have attracted a range of interest from businesses and organisations across Ayrshire and keen to support more.” - Nuala Boyle, Head of Business Growth @ Ayrshire College

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Building the Future with WorkingRite Apprentices

WorkingRite works in communities across Scotland - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, East Ayrshire and Argyll & Bute - delivering a mentored training and work placement programme for young people to become work and life ready. Our programme provides them with the soft and hard skills needed to bridge the gap between school and a fulfilled and happy working adulthood. This involves an induction phase - preparing and Despite the restrictions, training young people for the area of work they want to pursue, followed so far more than 20% of by a mentored work placement in a business they are interested in. The the young people ultimate goal is for this to lead to an apprenticeship place, job or further participating in the education. For those that complete the programme – 80% succeed in programme have doing this. successfully begun apprenticeships. In the This year, during Apprenticeship Week, the focus was on preparation for previous year this was starting a placement and working towards an apprenticeship. Sessions 30%. were all done on zoom – and covered topics such as choices, perceptions, first impressions, benefits of working, planning & preparing for work, key skills & qualities, strengths and CV writing. In addition, many undertook online training – including the CSCS card, customer care, retail skills, manual handling, asbestos awareness and COSHH. We rely on SME businesses in the local communities to provide the mentored work placements and it is because of the amazing relationships we build all of our partners – and their belief in the WorkingRite programme and our young people - that we have continued to secure both placements and apprenticeship places. And that belief means young people are able to build their future through apprenticeships.

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Meet the WorkingRite Apprentices

Take Reis for example – who finished a work placement with a joiner in Glasgow in 2020 and started his apprenticeship with them. Unfortunately by Christmas, the business was unable to continue and in February he was desperate to find another joiner to take him on before the college had to offer his place to someone else. Through our relationships with the local community and the BNI network – we were able to find him a new employer - Mortons Joinery - and Reis is back on course.

On the other side of the country – our Project Coordinator was delighted to find former trainee Nathan at his door to undertake the legally required PAT testing as per his landlord. Nathan secured an apprenticeship with Grampian Technical Services in 2018 and has now been an employee for 2 years.

The WorkingRite programme works –and we know that the 59 young people we are working with right now are building their future. You can find out how to get involved at the WorkingRite website— www.workingrite.co.uk