“At BT, we team hands on work experience with activities to help young people build the skills and confidence they tell us they need to thrive in our increasingly tech driven world. Thousands have joined our programmes and we’re delighted to have helped them take their first steps into work. I’m proud of our track record supporting young people from all walks of life to achieve their aspirations.”

 

 

Model: BT run employability programme centrally, with local businesses hosting participants for work experience.
Funding: Company funded
Delivery Partner: In-house
Scale 2020: 149 (reduced from 662 in 2019 due to the pandemic)
Success Rate: 23% into jobs or education (60% pre pandemic)

BT: Work Ready Programme, partnering with their commercial network

Prior to the pandemic, BT was piloting an innovative new programme where it would partner with other local employers to provide joint work placements to young people. It was their intention that local firms take a minimum of three young people at a time for the on-the-job experience, whilst classroom training with BT would run centrally.

This programme would also feature a careers fair at the end, where BT and local employers would meet the young people on a more informal basis.

This approach would enable young people to experience multiple workplaces and gain multiple work experiences, all whilst improving general employability skills.

This would also allow SMEs without the resources to coordinate a placement or source young people to access young talent, whilst fulfilling their social mobility ambitions.

The Face to Face aspects of this scheme were paused during the Pandemic.