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Exploring Barriers and Best Practice for Social Entrepreneurs Tackling Employability

Exploring Barriers and Best Practice for Social Entrepreneurs Tackling Employability

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Exploring Barriers and Best Practice for Social Entrepreneurs Tackling Employability

There are lots of social entrepreneurs out there working to reduce unemployment - like Rosie Ginday whose macaroon business employs young people who are leaving care, and David Hinton who helps people become ‘work-ready’ and find employment. These social entrepreneurs face a number of common challenges in their work to improve employment opportunities. We recently ran an event hosted by Hogan Lovells that brought together social entrepreneurs and practitioners working in the employability sector, to explore what best practice looks like in this space. Social entrepreneurs at the event highlighted key points that an employability programme should include:  

  • “Real interactions” with employers (work tasters, mock interviews, opportunities to chat informally with employers; site visits; trade mentors; volunteering);
  • Vocational skills delivery (preferably accredited and transferable);  providing support to produce professional CVs and high impact job search;
  • Quality time spent with beneficiaries understanding their needs and building a programme holistically around this;
  • Functional skills delivery;
  • Recognising soft skills and finding ways to assess them.

Some other key themes that emerged from our discussions include: 

Evidencing impact is essential

Social entrepreneurs working in this space need to articulate value and evidence outcomes in terms that funders (as well as investors) understand. Typical outcomes might include  increased confidence and motivation of beneficiaries; good sustained jobs; better pay; increased skills (soft and functional); better mental and physical wellbeing.

Measuring soft skills is key

Building soft skills like self-confidence is undervalued and needs to be prioritised by those working to tackle unemployment.

Each employability pathway is unique

Some individuals may make progress towards employment but never get there. Whilst “employment” per se may not be the objective of your programme, evidence of progress in this direction is a good thing.

Employers and job seekers need to better understand each other

Enabling employers to get into schools and actually understand how to best approach school leavers first-hand would be invaluable for both employers and job-seekers.

People need tools and support to have a chance of accessing mainstream employment

Finding better ways to give job seekers a vocational skill so they leave with something accredited would help them greatly when searching for new employment. Additionally, they need help with CVs and applications.

  In 2016 the Big Venture Challenge will support social entrepreneurs working within the Education, Training, and Skills sectors. We will continue to develop a programme of support for entrepreneurs working in this field and to share their stories. Look out for UnLtd’s next Findings Paper, due out in a few weeks’ time, which will be on this topic. If you missed out on this employability event but are interested in similar events, there is an upcoming meeting of the Institute of Employability Professionals taking place in Manchester on Tuesday 19th April 2016 at 5.30pm. This free event focuses on the Work and Health Programme and how this is going to impact on delivery approaches in the future.