5 Reasons Why Your Company Will Love Pledging

Attracting, retaining and developing the right workforce is key to any business’s success, but sometimes this is easier said than done. With over 40% of businesses in the West of England saying they found it difficult to recruit over the last 12 months and 17.9% saying this was due to a lack of candidates with the relevant skills and experience, businesses need to step up and work with education providers to ensure that the future workforce has the knowledge and skills that are relevant to employer’s needs.

That’s where Business West’s pledge programme comes in. Businesses can pledge their support to the future workforce in a number of ways to help ensure that they are work ready. This can take the form of speaking at a careers fair, taking on a work experience student, helping with mock interviews or even hiring an apprentice.

It’s simple to get involved and there are a number of reasons why your company will LOVE to pledge.

1. You’ll inspire people

Whether you’re completing a half hour talk at a careers fair or letting someone shadow your work for a week, you’ll be inspiring the next generation of workers into your industry and that’s a good feeling. With 17.9% of businesses believing the biggest barrier to people entering their industry is a lack of understanding, this is the perfect way to let people know the exact opportunities available in your sector.

2. Enjoy new skills, fresh ideas and insight

If you pledge to take on an apprentice, have a work experience student for a week or perhaps a paid intern, you will benefit from having someone new on your team who can offer fresh ideas, insight and some new skills. They can even take some of the pressure off your existing staff, giving them time to focus on other projects they may not be able to do usually. This will boost your team’s morale and a happy team is usually more productive.

3. Reduce your recruitment costs

Whilst working with the future workforce, who knows who you could meet? Your work experience student could become your newest recruit with no added recruitment costs to you and the added bonus of already knowing that they fit into your team, are knowledgeable about your company and are passionate about what they do. What’s not to like?

4. Fill your skills gap

Taking part in our pledge programme will allow you to contribute to reducing the region's skills gap whilst also helping your organisation with its own skills needs. You can focus on improving the future workforce’s skills in areas that your own business needs and connect with education and training providers who can work together with you to make that happen.

5. Make a lasting impression

Let’s be honest, pledging is just a nice thing to do and a great way to give back to the community in which your business operates. Getting involved with local education and training providers is a good way of connecting with the future workforce and a company which is seen to care about the next generation and other groups of workers is always going to be a desirable place to work. You can make a lasting impression on the skills of the region.

So far, Business West has received over 3000 pledges from over 500 organisations in the region. Moving forward we want to inspire organisations just like yours to offer your knowledge and time to benefit the future workforce.

Want to know more? Get in touch with Julia Gurr, Employability Adviser  or visit our pledge page to find out more.

Follow the Love to Pledge campaign on social media - #lovetopledge