Julia Gurr is a Business Skills Advisor working on the Workforce for the Future. She works with businesses and training providers across the South West to help businesses upskill their teams and plan their workforce development. We caught up with Julia to find out more about her day job and how she supports both companies and young people to succeed.
Tell us a bit about yourself; your role as a Skills Business Adviser and your career background?
My background is really mixed. I studied fashion and set up my own business designing clothes for shorter women, which I ran for about five years. After this I started at Business West as a researcher before moving into the business advisor team and I now work in the Skills team as Business Skills Advisor.
We work with companies in depth, potentially over a three-year period, and give up to 30 hours of advice and support on workforce planning. A lot of businesses are still reeling from COVID, either they’re not in a great place or they’ve had to crank up the business because it’s grown quickly. Either way, a lot of them are looking at taking advantage of government schemes to take on new people, or they’re looking to upskill their staff. We help businesses develop a growth plan, then we map out what that means in terms of staffing. Does it mean that they need to train their current staff due to technology changes for example or do they need to take on new staff in the form of apprenticeships or traineeships?
2. What do you enjoy most about your job?
Having run a business and knowing how hard it is, it’s really rewarding to help companies with anything frankly, because all of it can be so challenging. But my real passion is helping young people into work. It endlessly frustrates me that the system is broken in many ways. You can’t expect young people to be work ready without any support. There is a real lack of capacity to focus on work preparedness from schools so we need employers to support students with experiences of work like talks and placements to help expose them to work situations. Then they can learn about business and understand what work is and what employers require.
Unfortunately young people are sometimes sent on placements without clear goals and learning outcomes so they’re missing out on where it can then take them. My big passion is to try and improve this system somehow.
3. What are the most challenging aspects of your job?
Keeping pace has been especially challenging during coronavirus. It’s been emotionally tough hearing how some companies have really suffered and sad that some just couldn’t survive. All companies are at a different stage of their growth or recovery and government support and schemes are constantly changing. But I think Business West is especially good at keeping up to date with everything so it’s a real privilege to work in a role where I have the resources and team alongside me to help businesses understand how to successfully upskill their workforce.
4. Why should employers be getting more involved with schools, colleges, and universities in the region?
It’s so important to encourage companies to understand the benefits on both sides. Businesses will often get involved with doing a talk in a school for example, because they want to give something back to the community. Perhaps they had a difficult time at school, or they struggled to decide what to do when they left school and they want to give an opportunity to a young person.
But there’s also benefits to the business. For example, running live project briefs where employers will go into a school and set a real work challenge eg; ‘we’re architects and we want you to design us a primary school’. This can inspire youngsters to consider this as a job in future – and can even be an opportunity for the company to talent spot and pick up some innovative ideas to boot. Companies could also use the live project brief as an upskilling project for a new employee. This is a golden opportunity to show their boss that they have management potential. There are huge benefits for businesses and young people, and I want businesses to realise this.
5. What would be your top tip to anyone wanting to take on an apprentice?
Companies right now are looking more closely at apprenticeships because of the financial benefit. Many companies don’t realise that pretty much all the training costs are funded and there are apprenticeships covering so many areas now like marketing, data analytics and management. For young people, it’s a way to avoid running up huge debts at university. We can really support a business through the process of taking on an apprentice effectively.
I think my top tip to businesses would be to remember what it was like when you first started out. Try to make sure there is a good mentor in place - it needs to be a supportive working environment for them to flourish. You must have the time and patience to train them – young people can really lack confidence when they start out. Employers can get frustrated with young people’s lack of resourcefulness and resilience which is often just down to a lack of work experience. With proper guidance and some training they’ll be in a position to become a truly valued member of the team.
Want an appointment with Julia? You can email her or call 01275 373373..
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