To ensure that we continue to deliver high quality programmes and our work stays relevant to the lived experiences of young people, we need to include them in our decision making. Our annual Youth Summit is an important event to enable this, providing an opportunity for us and our employer network to hear first-hand the views of young people who have recently or are seeking employment.

This is an opportunity for us to collate insights from young people and use these to help shape the future of the Movement. We believe there is a place for work experience – particularly for those who are furthest from the job market – however the Youth Summit provides a platform for open and honest conversation with young people on what this should look like and how we can best support them to enter the workplace.

Latest ONS statistics (July 2022) show that youth unemployment has fallen on the previous quarter. Despite recent recovery, the number of workless young people (not in employment, full-time education or training) is 905,000 (increasing by 24,000 on the quarter), representing 13.3% of the youth population). With employers hiring at record levels but still struggling to fill their roles (there are now 1.0 unemployed people per vacancy), it’s imperative that we continue to do everything we can to help every young person fulfil their potential.

This event will bring together HR and youth outreach professionals from across the Movement to Work network (existing members and prospects), together with young people who are:

currently not in employment, training or education [how do we engage this group?]
currently job-seeking, in employability programmes, or have overcome barriers to work and are now in employment
recent graduates of a Movement to Work programme.

Aims and objectives

• Provide a platform for young people to share their lived experiences in a safe and supportive environment
• To collate insights from young people and:
  • Implement into the Movement to Work strategy
  • Share with key decision makers to drive responsive action
• Offer business leaders an opportunity to listen to young people, understand their journey to work and encourage them to use these insights to drive best practice
• To refresh and deepen Movement to Work’s understanding of what a quality job and career pathway means to young people today and the barriers that need to be addressed for more young people to enter the job market
• Demonstrate the power of quality employability programmes in driving positives outcomes for young people trying to find work
• Encourage more employers to join the Movement.

Please keep your eye out for more on our Youth Summit 2022

Huge congratulations to all the incredible organisations and individuals who submitted nominations for the upcoming Movement to Work #YouthEmployabilityAwards 2022. We have been blown away by the stories and cannot wait to celebrate all your achievements on the 28th March!

Employer of the Year

Accenture

BAE Systems PLC

Carers Trust

Department for Work and Pensions

Department for Transport

Greene King

Marks and Spencer PLC

Recruiting Group – Partnership between The British Army and Capita

Thames Water

The Princes Trust

Wates Group

Mentor of the Year

Nicholas Burnett, Standards Coordinator, Thames Water

Helen Goodman, Library Manager, Health Education England , Project Choice

Viviene Bish-Bedeau, Operations Director, Essex Youthbuild

Thomas Munn, DWP Movement to Work Delivery Lead, Department for Work and Pensions

Imogen Jones, Mentor, The Princes Trust

Samantha Bentley, CDIO, HMRC

Michelle Spalding, Early Careers & Talent Development Lead, Trust Payments

Victoria Rowland, Early Careers Manager, Sage

Partner of the Year

Children’s Book Project

Salesforce with Catch 22

The Princes Trust

Creative Alliance

Qube Learning

Carers Trust

People Plus

Springboard

The Launch Group

Premiership Rugby

Individual Impact Award

Daisy Falconer, Young Carers Programme Manager, Carers Trust

Kate Johnson, Store Manager, Marks and Spencers PLC

Rhian Lloyd, Regional Operations and Pre-Employment Partnership Manager, MOD

Michelle Spalding, Early Careers & Talent Development Lead, Trust Payments

Thomas Munn, DWP Movement to Work Delivery Lead, Department for Work and Pensions

Ketki Sawant, Business Operations Senior Analyst, Accenture

Anastacia Jamfrey, Project Manager, BAE Systems

Megan Stuart, HR Specialist, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency

Shelly Larsen-McHugh, Youth Programme Manager, Manpower Group

Mark Straker, Material Management Team Lead, NHS

Gee Uddin, Work Ready Design & Delivery Lead, BT

Chris Gallon, Programme Manager, Sage

Breakthrough Star Award

Naman Chandra, Data Analyst Apprentice, Thames Water

Jacob Adu, EYB Graduate, Essex Youthbuild

Megan Ferguson, Healthcare Assistant, Graduate of The Prince’s Trust Health and Social Care Programme in partnership with Health Education England and DHSC

Merry Selemun, Customer Assistant, Marks & Spencer

Josiah Davies, Customer Assistant, Marks & Spencer

Siobhan McManus, Outreach and Assessment Coordinator, Springboard

Jon Challis, Bar Tender, Diageo Learning for Life Graduate

Gavin Phipps, Work Coach, DWP

Kyle Lynch, Customer Assistant, Tesco

Ffion Owen, Customer Assistant, Tesco

Tommy Davis, Customer Assistant, Tesco

Luc Donaldson, Customer Assistant, Tesco

Rising Star Award

Natalie Taylor, Healthcare Assistant, East Lancashire Training Hospital Trust

George Haverhand, Support Worker, Graduate of The Prince’s Trust Health and Social Care Programme in partnership with Health Education England and DHSC

Jack Parker, Care Assistant, Project Choice, Health Education England

Yasemin Kose, People Experience Coordinator, Unilever

Aarushi Vishnoi, R&D Assistant Manager, Unilever

Aaron Christie, Temporaries Controller, ManpowerGroup

Yaamin Nanlawala, Engineering Aerospace Degree Apprentice, BAE Systems

Bernard McGeever, Software Developer, Resonate

Nikita Morris, Production Technician, BAE Systems

Gaby Day, Advanced Engineering Apprentice, BAE Systems

Reece Lee, Hospitality Intern, Ayrshire College

Chris McLarry, Bar Tender, Diageo Learning 4 Life Ambassador

Michelle O’Neill, Application Development Analyst, Accenture

Scott Keegan, Social Mobility Apprentice, DWP

Zara Khan, ESOL COVID Project Officer, Walsall Council

Blaise Hughes, Customer Assistant, Tesco

Hasan Alkhawam, Customer Assistant, Tesco

Harrison Marbrook, Dot.com Delivery Driver, Tesco

Aoife O’Reilly, Customer Assistant, Tesco

Innovator of the Year Award

The Launch Group

Recruiting Group – Partnership between The British Army and Capita

Greene King

Department for Work and Pensions

Access Generation

BAE Systems

Premiership Rugby HITZ

Gee Uddin, Work Ready Design & Delivery Lead, BT

Congratulations!

Please get involved on social media @MovementtoWork #YouthEmployabilityAwards and shout loud and proud about your involvement!

Check out the comms pack with social media images, email badges (for nominees and winners) and various other assets to help bring your posts to life! For further tips and guidance, please head to Page 10 in the full briefing document.

We would love your support by being active via your own personal social media channels and rallying the support of your organisations digital teams to further amplify content. Please ensure the right people have the pack to use this moment to celebrate the Movement and encourage others to join us!

⏰ Haven’t registered? Make sure you have your place confirmed by 22 March – tickets are going fast! Book here.

Key Details

 What: Brolly Marketing Presents: Digital Marketing 101

When: Tuesday 25th January 2022, 4-5:30pm

Where: This will be a hybrid event so there will be multiple locations:

• Online via Zoom (with informal networking/Q&A afterwards on Remo)
• In person at PwC Watford, Clarendon Road
• In person at Enemy of Boredom in Letchworth Garden City

The Mission:

To try and help young people understand, via an interactive workshop, what working in the digital marketing industry involves, what different areas and roles look like, and how to get into this sector. This will help them to better understand the type of marketing career that they may like to go into – you’ve got to see it to be it.

The Attendees:

Our target audience is young people who have an interest in a career in digital marketing.

We also welcome anyone else who wants to find out about this area, whether they are:

• Careers advisors
• Parents
• People looking to change careers
• Digital marketing professionals wanting to find out how to reach young people
• Those who work with young people.

The Speakers:

Speakers will include a range of young digital marketing professionals, including representatives from:

• eBay
• One YMCA
• Enemy of Boredom
• DWP
• Iconic Digital Marketing Consultants
• Creative Alliance
• Sage

The Agenda:

The speakers will collectively cover a range of areas within digital marketing, including content creation, the gaming industry, graphic design, and advertising, among many more.

There will be plenty of opportunities for Q&A sessions, so that the attendees can ask any questions and get the most out of the event.

After the main session, there will also be the opportunity to move onto the Remo conferencing platform, where all speakers and attendees will be able to ask and answer questions, hold private discussions, and network more informally.

We will also send out information packs to attendees after the event.

How to sign up:

Please sign up through Eventbrite:

Virtual Event  –  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/brolly-marketing-presents-digital-marketing-101-tickets-216328282717

PwC Watford  –  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/227018437257

EOB Academy Letchworth  –  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/227039209387

Communications and Promotion

We would be very grateful if you could amplify and publicise this event within your own networks and social media channels – this will mean that we can reach as many young people as possible.

You are welcome to create your own content for this, however we have created some graphics and template posts for ease of use and consistency.

Please post and publicise before the event, to encourage attendance, as well as afterwards.

Please use any/all of the below suggestions, adapt our suggestions, or create your own, but please remember to tag Brolly Marketing on LinkedIn, as well as our speakers.

Comms Pack

Please download social and digital media imagery for use here OR here

Suggested Posts:

[POST 1]

Looking forward to the @BrollyMarketing Presents: Digital Marketing 101 event, where we’ll be hearing from young marketing professionals about their roles and finding out how young people can get into the industry.

[POST 2]

Digital marketing is a growing industry that a lot of young people are interested in – but how can they find out what it’s really like? This is what the @BrollyMarketing Presents: Digital Marketing 101 event aims to achieve – helping young people to get their foot in the door – which is why we’re proud to be partnering this event.

Contact Information

For more information about the event, please contact Sharon Shapiro (sharon@brollymarketing.co.uk) or Jessica Norton (jessica@brollymarketing.co.uk) at Brolly Marketing.

Movement to Work is delighted to formally announce that Sebastian Munden, Executive Vice President & General Manager of Unilever UK & Ireland, has joined our Steering Group.

Our steering group is a collective of senior leaders from public, private and the third sector, brought together by a desire to create systemic change and level the playing field for young people.

Whilst Sebastian is relatively new to our Steering Group, Unilever was a founding member of Movement to Work and are committed to helping to grow the programme and to offering more work experience placements every year. Their support of Movement To Work is part of their wider and long-standing mission to help boost social mobility in the UK and to support young people from all backgrounds to gain the confidence and experience to find long-term sustained employment. Earlier this year, Unilever announced a global target to equip ten million young people with essential skills to prepare them for job opportunities by 2030.

Unilever’s Movement To Work scheme offers a tailored work placement across a range of business functions at four of their UK sites. Alongside exposure to a real office experience the candidates receive formal training on CVs, LinkedIn and networking to support their future career progression. In addition to a one-to-one line manager, each candidate is paired with a buddy to provide a friendly face and extra level of support. As part of their commitment to create a fully inclusive workplace with equal opportunities, successful candidates on the Movement to Work programme could have an opportunity to be fast-tracked on to the Unilever Apprenticeship programme.

Sebastian has led Unilever’s UK & Ireland business unit since 2017, pioneering more agile ways of working, and building digital and data-driven capability which have enabled new growth for the business. He champions cross-industry collaboration on packaging, waste and decarbonisation, and is a strong advocate for diversity, youth employment and social mobility programmes.

Sebastian is also on the Champion’s Board of the Inclusive Economy Partnership (Government, business and civil society working together to unleash potential through a more inclusive society); and is Deputy Chair of the UK Advertising Association, and Chair of its Ad Net Zero Climate Change Steering Group.

Upon joining the Movement To Work Steering Group Sebastian said the following:

“I’m delighted to be joining the Movement To Work Steering Group, to have the opportunity to give back and be of service to young people. When young people are able to create a better future for themselves through work, in a way that is inclusive and meaningful, we all benefit. I look forward to being able to champion the movement and its continued growth even more at a time when getting work experience is so challenging for so many.” – Sebastian Munden – Executive Vice President & General Manager, Unilever UK & Ireland

Click here to visit Unilever’s website

Click here to view our full Movement to Work Steering Group

• SEB MUNDEN PROFILE ON MTW WEBSITE

https://www.movementtowork.com/our-leadership/sebastian-munden/

 

Deborah (Debs) Gordon who came to MTW from Centrica in 2018 and since then has put her heart and soul into developing our partner network, creating an impact-driven ecosystem of training providers and youth outreach entities to support MtW’s employer members with their employability programmes. Deb shares some thoughts as she moves on to pastures new…

Starting a role with a new employer presents me with excitement plus a flutter of nerves. As I progress my career, the balance of excitement and nerves change but they are with me.  Imagine these feelings for a person who has faced barriers to employment and is about to commence a journey that can change their and their family’s lives. Movement to Work (MtW) has helped to facilitate that opportunity to over 125,000 people since it started in 2013 with 60% positive outcomes (for WEX and Direct Entry). MtW is a coalition of UK employers advising other employers on best practices to successfully recruit and retain those who would fail the usual recruitment process. This additional channel to attract candidates creates a pipeline of overlooked talent on our doorstep and helps develop a diverse workforce representative of the UK population.

Whilst employed at Centrica, my journey with MtW also started at its inception in 2013. As MtW matured, the Steering Group realised employers needed more to support those facing barriers to employment. Then and now, the questions are: How much will a new channel to recruitment cost? Which funding stream and employability programme suits our needs? Which training providers should we approach? We have staff and/or skill shortages, what can we do to augment our talent pipeline? How does all this fit in with our current recruitment processes? In 2018, MtW commenced the development of the Approved Partner Network (APN) to answer the above and more. Then in 2018, I was fortunate to be selected to move from Centrica to Movement to Work and manage the development of the APN.

Reflecting on the last 3.5 years, MtW has augmented its offering to employers and now provides specialist advice on all the above questions. Particularly important to me is that MtW provides impartial advice. The MtW Steering Group has always advocated free advice to employers, and partners join the APN by merit not by one-off charge or subscription.

Reflecting on my time at MtW, I have been and still am humbled by the magnificent work completed by our employer members and partners. MtW is an important part of the process of brokering the connections and supporting the process to BAU but it is the effort and courage shown by employers and partners which speaks volumes evidenced by the growing number of case studies.

As MtW progresses towards its next aim of supporting another 100,000 opportunities for those facing barriers to work, I am sure new employers will make contact to share their best practice and accelerate their learning on how to both increase and diversify their workforce. Never in my career has it become so important to look at new channels and levels of support to help those facing barriers to employment. Part of the excitement I mentioned at the start of this blog is my continuing involvement with MtW. Returning to a talent acquisition role, MtW will be a source of up-to-date advice and a safe place to chat through ideas.

Thank you to all involved in MtW. You have enriched me as a person and a professional and l look forward to the next stage of our journey together.  #YoungPeopleWork

It’s summertime — so working is probably the last thing on your mind. After a long and strange year of being either stuck working or learning at home under some pretty bizarre circumstances, you’re undoubtedly due some well-earned fun and freedom!

However, there are many great reasons to turn your attention to your future career and get you out the house this summer and into the working world. After all, summer represents a rare opportunity to bulk up your work experience, and the advantages of doing so cannot be overstated!

Here are a few things to be aware of from our Guest Blogger Olivia Wood

It informs your future career decisions.

If you’re still not sure what you want to do in the future, that’s understandable! It’s an especially uncertain period for young people. The good news is that work experience placements can help you define what you’d like your career to look like – as well as what you’d like to completely avoid!

According to Glide’s advice, to find your placement you should first start by researching sectors that are related to the course you study or even your hobbies. Even if your work experience placement doesn’t directly relate to your future field, it can still give you a taste of different workplace and help refine your preferences. You’ll undoubtedly learn a lot about yourself throughout your placement.

It puts your learning into practice.

You’ve undoubtedly accumulated a lot of knowledge this year. A work experience placement will give you the chance to put that knowledge into action and learn some new things too.

Learning at work is a very different experience from learning at school, college, or uni. When you learn through doing, you’re actively involved in every stage of the process. You’re not just answering questions; you’re also asking them, investigating ideas, testing theories, and evaluating your results.

This process is called experiential learning, and it can be far more challenging and enjoyable than typical academic activities. Seeing how your education can be applied in the workplace might motivate you toward further personal development, too.

It helps you to develop soft skills.

Even if you’re very academically gifted, you may still have some work to do when it comes to your soft skills. Soft skills can be defined as non-technical skills that relate to how you work. They determine how you interact with others, how you manage the pressures of the workplace, and whether you can independently manage your workload.

Soft skills are transferable, meaning they can benefit you in every aspect of your life. They’re not just about impressing employers, although employers appreciate candidates with enhanced soft skills! They can also help you develop stronger personal relationships and to handle stress.

It enables you to build a network.

Who you know still matters in the world of work. A strong network of connections in your field can bring many benefits when it comes to your career development. For a start, it raises your visibility. This means people are more likely to think of you when exciting opportunities arise. It also provides you with the support and advice of mentors who are experienced in your industry. This can be an invaluable resource!

Why wait until after you leave education to start building these crucial connections? You can get a foot in the door at an early stage through summer work experience placements. Open a LinkedIn account and add every professional you encounter. You’ll be amazed by how quickly your network grows!

It makes you attractive to employers.

This has to be the most obvious advantage of summer work experience placements. Research has found that a staggering 91% of employers look for work experience in any potential hire, so you should consider it a must-have to succeed in a competitive job market.

Work experience doesn’t necessarily have to relate directly to your dream job to hold value. If you want to be a lab technician but you can only find work experience in a café, don’t panic! You’ll still develop skills that any decent employer will appreciate.

Think about it: while taking orders, you’ll practice paying attention to detail and recording responses. Cleaning the café each day will require strict adherence to standards. It’s easy to see how this very different knowledge and experience could still translate to the laboratory.
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Surely, you’re now convinced of the merits of summer work experience. Why miss out on this amazing opportunity to enhance your skills, build your network, learn about yourself, and improve your future job applications?

Olivia Wood is a recent Business Management graduate, turned freelance writer whose primary focuses is providing advice and guidance to young, aspiring adults on the best possible work opportunities. In her spare time, she enjoys a good book, socialising with friends, and numerous amounts of iced coffees.