1. Engage, Deliver, Sustain: a coherent approach to employer engagement
Richard Scothorne, Rocket Science
Lucinda McAllister, Fife Council
Grant McDougall, SDS

2. Outline Drivers and principles The model Components
Evidence base
Employer leadership and involvement
Single point of contact
Coordinated contact management
Employer Standard
Examples and impact
RICHARD

3. Drivers Employers: Partners needed:
Cluttered landscape around employability
Wanted single point of contact and ‘no wrong door’
Needed effective ‘recruitment service’
Partners needed:
Efficient way of engaging and transforming reach
Way of delivering campaigns/offers
To reflect the needs of employers in training/skills
RICHARD

4. Principles Employer leadership, co-design and involvement
Employers experience:
Coherent and coordinated contact
Highly responsive, professional, seamless service
Partners work closely together to deliver
Review and refine
RICHARD

5. The partnership model Fife Economic Partnership and CPP link
Coherent employer engagement
Creating single point of contact
‘Employment standard’ – describing what employers are looking for
Connecting back into schools
Active promotion of offers and opportunities
Joint effort around major job opportunities
GRANT

6. The components Evidence based – what employers need
Employer leadership and involvement
Single point of contact
Coordinated management of contacts
Employer standard
GRANT - - rapid slide – letting people read these points which will be covered in subsequent slides

7. Evidence base Evidence drawn from: All of these said that employers:
Economic development surveys
Scottish Business in the Community research
Fife manufacturing study
All of these said that employers:
Want easier, obvious access
Want organised approaches
Want to know about offers/services
Want responsive, professional recruitment service
Want up to date, accurate information
GRANT

8. Employer leadership and involvement
Fife Economy Partnership
Strong connection to CPP
Other employer feedback mechanisms to check on progress:
Regular surveys
Feedback at Single Point of Contact
GRANT
FEP is business led and dominated and is ‘the voice of business’ in the CPP structure
Keep up to date with employer experience of service through surveys and one-to-one contact

9. Single Point of Contact (SPoC)
2 full time staff plus analyst
Expanding ‘clean’ business database
Growing ‘knowledge management system’ with Q and As
Rapid dissemination of offers and opportunities – to businesses and individuals
Reached by phone, , website
Backed by client matching service
LUCINDA
building a key resource – initial cleaning reduced businesses to 2000 on database – now building back up
Providing full choice of ways of contacting
Staff recognise that they are the ‘face of the service’ - need to feel part of the team
Need to have solid act BEHIND this – this is just the connection

10. Single Point of Contact
LUCINDA

11. Coordinated management of contacts
Coordinated account management
Building relationships between partnership staff
Enhancing engagement skills
Capturing insights and intelligence
Using them to identify needs and trends
LUCINDA
Account managers are critical – join up, drive the service, work closely with employer throughout
Need to drive up the skills of front line staff – focusing on understanding and clarifying employer needs and then effective project management of delivery
These staff constantly picking up insights and clues about needs and trends – we work hard to capture and use these

12. Employer Standard Based on local, national and international research
Endorsed by Fife Economy Partnership
Pinpointing the 6 personal characteristics of an effective recruit
Actively promoting these to young people, teachers, parents, Colleges, training providers
Creating a toolkit behind it: Link to CfE, Certificate of Work Readiness, Employment Readiness Scale
Piloting with schools and employers in Levenmouth
RICHARD

13. Examples and impact Amazon: recruitment process for inward investor
Advertised all direct recruitment and signposted to agency jobs
Designed and promoted pre-recruitment course
Provided sifting and interview booking service
Follow up with unsuccessful candidates – for second try
Now developing MA Pathways and additional workforce training
LUCINDA

14. Examples and impact
Forth Replacement Crossing: coordination of catchment area recruitment process
OF processed all advertised vacancies
Promoting on the OF website
Collating CVs
Sorting and forwarding appropriate candidates and some arranging of interviews.
Significantly more vacancies in pipeline (c300 – 400 operatives and 50 administrative staff)
FRC recruitment lead: Her best experience to date, because of the account management approach backed by a significant resource for promoting, sifting and organising.
LUCINDA

15. Examples and impact
Renewables: promotion of training and job opportunities
The Renewables Energy Awareness Courses
SPoC took over 300 inbound calls about these Courses (236 bookings confirmed)
These came to the SPoC from:
Outgoing calls by the SPoC to over 1,000 employers in the energy sector across Fife
 Promotion on the Opportunities Fife website.
 Working with Jobcentre Plus to promote the opportunity to unemployed people.
SPoC resource meant possible to target contacts to ensure that those courses which had places were filled.
Those on courses contacted the day before to remind and confirm –leading to higher than usual actual attendance.
LUCINDA

16. Examples and impact

17. Next steps
College regionalisation – tackling inter and intra College competition
Building on SPoC evaluation
Embedding and sustaining the approach
Work experience service: Tailored to pupil and employer
Job Brokerage service
SDS Skillsforce and link to Opportunities Fife
GRANT

18. Questions and Discussion
Richard Scothorne, Rocket Science
Lucinda McAllister, Fife Council
Grant McDougall, SDS
RICHARD to lead