Attracting School Leavers & Apprentices 2019
Christos Orthodoxou
Bringing employers together through roundtables and building innovation recruitment strategies
Following the success of this event in August last year, which attracted over 35 employers and training providers in London, it's back once again.
What was discussed last year?
- Apprenticeship salaries. Often internal stakeholders and old practices prevented employers from posting apprenticeship salaries, but it was accepted that they should do so. For those offering minimum wage, a slight increase can produce more applications.
- The apprenticeship levy. There is a range of uses for the levy, all deemed equally valuable. Many employers are not using all their levy fund which was generally accepted considering the levy is still new. Many felt overwhelmed by the volume of training providers and so a few were undertaking internal consolidations.
- Internal stakeholders. Senior managers are often hard to influence and have outdated views of how things should be done. More work with this audience via research/case studies can help to shift views.
- Assessments. Assessment procedures are often intimidating and confusing for young people so many employers were looking at rebranding assessment centres and adding personal touches to make it less intimidating.
- Engaging with schools. This does not always produce a clear ROI but many accepted it was valuable and needed to be done. The Gatsby benchmarks (whilst not perfect) provided good opportunities to do so.
The 2019 event
After the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, apprenticeships are set to grow over the next five years at a huge rate yet challenges still remain in regard to how employers can attract school and college leavers.
This event aims to bring together a select number of employers in an open round-table style event. It is designed to be a combination of talks, networking and open sessions for employers to gain practical solutions to current challenges.
The event will be designed around those attending and it is expected to include the discussion of:
1. Engaging with schools and colleges
2. Attraction channels
3. What students want to know from employers