Transcript
Speaker: Welcome, my name is Shona McCready and we're here to talk about the North East Workforce Skills Programme.
Speaker: The North East Workforce Skills Programme is to support employers within the Tynanwe and Northumberland across all sectors and across all levels of qualifications.
Speaker: We're here with the partners today to go through their offer, what they found has worked in the first year and what they're going to look forward to doing in the next year.
Speaker: So I'll start now by asking questions to the partners.
Speaker: So the first question to, I'm going to say to Access Training, Kerry, what is your most popular course?
Speaker: Okay, so from Access Training's point of view, our most popular course is...
Speaker: 100% being leading teams and managing performance.
Speaker: We sort of marketed this out April time to see what the sort of field would be from employers.
Speaker: And we had a lot of employers who were looking to do some additional training or some brand new training with some newly appointed team leaders.
Speaker: So we found pretty quickly that this was definitely going to be one of our really popular programs.
Speaker: We've put almost 100 people through this program so far.
Speaker: So it covers lots of different things.
Speaker: It will look at how to motivate staff, team management, looking at different challenges within organisations and being able to look at the bigger picture and to ensure the vision, values and goals aligned with organisational strategy.
Speaker: So it's been an excellent course.
Speaker: It's followed by coaching and feedback.
Speaker: And I would say going forward next year as well, we're already speaking to a number of employers who are wanting to put their staff through it as well.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: And has that opened up more businesses to access training through that course or are you just working with your current businesses?
Speaker: So initially we were starting with just our own organisations.
Speaker: We did quite a lot of promotion on LinkedIn about some of the success stories from people who had been on the programme.
Speaker: We've had a lot more companies come on board, some large levy paying organisations, which from Access Training's point of view has been absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: Within the last two years, and specifically within the last year, we've grown our levy provision by almost 50% on what we were working with.
Speaker: And a lot of that's been down to this programme.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: And can I ask the same question to Chris from TDR, please?
Speaker: Yeah, so our most popular courses have been the electrical courses, which are City and Guilds accredited.
Speaker: So the Level 2 Inspection and Testing and the 18th edition wiring regulations.
Speaker: So what we've seen is we've seen levy companies taking up this training all the way down to the one-man barn, self-employed electrician.
Speaker: And this has been in the past where they've had to pay for this course provision and now they're getting it fully funded through the North East Workforce Skills Programme.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Zahra, what about you?
Speaker: How is it working for the university?
Speaker: I would say probably ours relates to probably one of the hottest topics of 2022.
Speaker: So we're promoting a menopause in the workplace masterclass, which again is just a two and a half hour, very much based around wellbeing and supporting
Speaker: people who would be going through the many stages of the menopause but also with a workplace slant so allowing managers and HR professionals to look at things like policy and best practice on how you actually do support your workforce who would be going through this particular stage in their lives and as we know that particular topic especially over the first few months of this year has been massively massively popular and I think a lot of businesses have welcomed an open and honest discussion within their workplaces and
Speaker: They're trying, they're harder to navigate through pulling together things like policies and best practice because it's unfortunately been a subject matter that hasn't been massively discussed, but massively affects a lot of women within the workplace and can be really detrimental to women forging on with their careers.
Speaker: Unfortunately, some of the statistics that have been released within this particular course have been quite dominant.
Speaker: It shows that a lot of women come out of work because
Speaker: they're really struggling with this particular stage in their lives.
Speaker: So I think if nothing else, a bit like what Michelle's saying, this is a short and sharp piece of work for somebody to come along to, but actually the effects and knowledge that it can give you massively can be affected really well within the workplace immediately as well.
Speaker: So I think that's been the most popular for us.
Speaker: Or remembering why you went to the fridge, to be honest.
Speaker: There's a lot of that.
Speaker: Simon, how's codes coping and what's the most successful course for you guys?
Speaker: So cybersecurity and Microsoft Teams, I think have been our biggest uptake.
Speaker: I would say Microsoft Teams is pretty self-explanatory with COVID, what happened, everyone went through, and there's been loads of advancements and there's huge amounts of features within the program that we're not really aware of.
Speaker: I think we've all definitely mastered how to do phone calls, et cetera.
Speaker: But when we start to use it for saving documents and
Speaker: using it in its more collaborative way to get people really working.
Speaker: I don't think we all know as much as that, and it moves at such a pace.
Speaker: And then cybersecurity, which was a bit of a surprise to me, but I think it's just tech's moving so quickly and cyber's becoming more and more important.
Speaker: And I think organizations across the region have always had a nod to it and done that like 10, 15 minutes cyber training.
Speaker: Normally e-learning,
Speaker: online but it doesn't really embed anything it doesn't really give it that extra detail and I think we're now a lot more aware of what can happen there's a lot of organisations suffering from cyber attacks and it's becoming more and more common so those are our two most popular ones at the moment.
Speaker: Yeah the university knows only too well what happens when a cyber attack happens and it wasn't fun for anybody that lived through it it wasn't fun
Speaker: And Newcastle College, Jo, what about yourself?
Speaker: Hi, thanks, Shauna.
Speaker: Yeah, so first aid has definitely been the most popular course at Newcastle College.
Speaker: So far, we've trained over 250 participants, and that's been every size and kind of organisation.
Speaker: So some bigger organisations, some very small organisations.
Speaker: from taxi drivers to customer service to a whole plethora of organisations.
Speaker: And I'm not quite sure whether COVID's had an impact on that, whether people have reflected on health and wellbeing and, you know, how particularly around mental health and that's possibly been a real trigger.
Speaker: One of the other courses that we're finding is really up and coming now, though, is around equality and diversity themes around, for example, the use of the correct pronouns, which a lot of organisations are just a little bit wrong.
Speaker: unsure about, very worried about offending colleagues and offending their customers.
Speaker: So we're finding that that's quite a hot topic.
Speaker: A little bit like Zara was talking about with the menopause, that seems to be an emerging theme and we're getting a lot more requests for participants on that type of programme.
Speaker: And Jo, is it expanding the employers you work with?
Speaker: Are you just currently working with the employers you have always worked with?
Speaker: No, absolutely.
Speaker: We're getting calls from employers that we've never had access to.
Speaker: So this has been fantastic for us.
Speaker: And that's also helping us to support some of our other types of delivery.
Speaker: So we're able to open up some other opportunities to those employers.
Speaker: But I think the other key thing is the relationships that we've built with some of the employees
Speaker: the people on the call today in the organisations and learning about what their offers are and how we can link together.
Speaker: So that's been a, both have been a great opportunity for us.
Speaker: Great, thank you very much.
Speaker: And last but by no means least, Joy, what about you and how is CETA getting on with the programme?
Speaker: CTA are actually going on really well with the program and I would actually agree entirely with Chris at TDR that we've had a tremendous uptake on all our electrical courses, which as we know includes things like 18th edition inspection and testing.
Speaker: We're covering things like introduction to industrial electrical engineering.
Speaker: So there's a whole list of electrical courses and they're all actually going down really well.
Speaker: In addition to that, we've actually found that some of our shorter provision, which is
Speaker: around about three hours, such as things like abrasive wheels.
Speaker: They've been very popular and have been able to actually ensure that companies can actually either teach new staff and give existing staff a refresher, and that actually keeps them compliant with a whole load of different agencies.
Speaker: So we are actually looking to...
Speaker: expand the actual provision to offer a lot more than what we're already offering.
Speaker: And like some of the others, we've actually been dealing in the first instance with a lot of our apprenticeship companies who've really taken it on board, but we're engaging with a lot of people that we haven't engaged with previously as well, or people that maybe we haven't actually engaged with previously.
Speaker: in the past, but haven't for quite some time have now come back on board with us.
Speaker: So we feel it's going really well and we look forward to actually providing the service to the northeast or I should say Northumberland and Tining Way for the coming 12 to 16 months.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you very much, Joy.
Speaker: The next question I'm going to put to the consortium is a two part question.
Speaker: Which course has not been popular, but you expected it to be popular?
Speaker: And what do you think employers should be looking to train their staff in over the next 12 to 15 months?
Speaker: And I will start with Sarah from the university again.
Speaker: I would say we've got a couple of media courses that I think we thought would be more popular than what they have been.
Speaker: We've got one which is about content marketing, which is called Edit, Shoot and Share.
Speaker: And I think sometimes
Speaker: People just get a little bit worried about the use of technology, which I think is possibly what's putting people off with this particular short course.
Speaker: It is also a two-day, and I think, if nothing else, it's really to open people's eyes as to what equipment you might already have that you could utilize for content marketing, which I think is how we're trying to further promote it, to try and go a little bit more in depth about the content to make people feel a little bit more at ease with that particular course, because it is actually aimed at small businesses as well.
Speaker: It is quite surprising what you can actually use your mobile phones for, for example, and learn how to edit video content on your mobile phone.
Speaker: Most people think that's actually a really complex task, and it's not.
Speaker: And I think that's what this course really is designed to do.
Speaker: But at the moment, people are just not quite getting it.
Speaker: So we're just thinking of new ways for ourselves to market it, actually, to use perhaps some content in what we design and make and pull together to help to showcase what this actually course can do for a small business.
Speaker: So I think that one for us is we did think that would be a little bit more popular but we're not giving up on it just yet.
Speaker: What courses do you think you're going to look for to promote for next year or what do you think employers should be looking to train their staff in for the next 15 months?
Speaker: I think we've got some more leadership courses in our portfolio inbound again so we've done a couple of cohorts on our postgraduate certificate and leadership and change and there's another cohort due in for that and
Speaker: The last cohort was particularly popular on that because it obviously carries university credits.
Speaker: It's a level seven qualification.
Speaker: So if you are a strategic manager in a business, it's absolutely a brilliant course of somebody to do to really hone in on the skills of being an incredible leader.
Speaker: And again, our academic tutor who delivers that is massively inspirational.
Speaker: So I think the learner experience from the last cohort, I've had absolutely brilliant feedback on that.
Speaker: So I'm really looking forward
Speaker: to seeing again the mixture of companies going on to the last cohort of that within the portfolio because that has just gone from strength to strength.
Speaker: And the other one for me really are some short and sharp ones around marketing and emotional intelligence because again I think if you're a manager within a business, sometimes being able to develop those softer management skills, sometimes unfortunately your head is at the grind and you're just doing your job to the best of your ability
Speaker: We know what the last couple of years have been like and everybody has had to massively step up their game.
Speaker: And I think sometimes those softer skills get pushed aside.
Speaker: So I'm really looking forward to those ones coming into the portfolio and I think they'll be incredibly popular.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: What about yourself, Simon?
Speaker: So we have a wellness and mental resilience course that obviously some of the other partners are saying is going really well.
Speaker: And we thought that would be fantastic.
Speaker: It's about mental resilience and wellness in the workplace.
Speaker: talks about sleep at home and the sleep sessions, et cetera.
Speaker: Like really wonderful course with a really wonderful trainer, dead engaging.
Speaker: And I'm a bit disappointed that hasn't taken off because we've had some wonderful feedback when we've delivered it.
Speaker: We've delivered it commercially as well.
Speaker: And it's been fantastic.
Speaker: So I really hope that one picks up and I really want to push that one as well.
Speaker: And I think we are seeing a rise in people asking about data and Power BI.
Speaker: more recently.
Speaker: So I think the teams and the cybersecurity will continue strongly.
Speaker: And I think Power BI is really getting quite specific as well.
Speaker: People are asking about data, data analytics, Power BI, et cetera.
Speaker: So I can see those two really driving forward.
Speaker: And I think across all industries and regions, we're starting to collect more data into organizations and we're collecting it and we're half analyzing it.
Speaker: But I think there's a real skill set now coming in, sort of like becoming a business analyst, taking that work, taking that data, really getting into the crux of it and then applying it to business decisions throughout the organization.
Speaker: So I think that will start to really pick up soon.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you so much, Simon.
Speaker: What about yourself, Joy?
Speaker: What's CETA?
Speaker: not been able to promote, well have promoted but it hasn't had a great pickup and what are you looking to do for next year?
Speaker: It's around some of our short course provisions so we have had a really good response to quite a number of the short course provision courses but there is one or two such as things as COSH, risk assessment, you know working at heights
Speaker: They haven't been quite as popular as some of the others.
Speaker: We will continue to promote them and we will schedule them in because we firmly believe that there are organizations out there that do require it.
Speaker: And it's sort of fairly simple for us to, if it hasn't actually...
Speaker: If it's not actually recruiting to actually perhaps as long as we've got maybe at least four weeks notice to slip something else in that perhaps is recruiting better.
Speaker: So we will continue to schedule them and hope for hope for the best.
Speaker: But if not, obviously, they will actually be rescheduled with another short course, which is more which more people are really looking for.
Speaker: So I think obviously that there's a lot of companies out there in the North East.
Speaker: Again, it's just really getting the message out there that there are some courses that perhaps you're actually paying for now that we could actually be providing for you fully funded through the North East Skills Workforce Programme.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thanks, Joy.
Speaker: What about yourself, Kerry?
Speaker: From Access Training's point of view, we are well known within the region for being an accounts and finance training provider.
Speaker: So we started offering some short courses in this area, thinking that the uptake would be absolutely fantastic, and it hasn't been.
Speaker: We aimed it really at...
Speaker: I would say probably people who have worked within a role for a long time and then moved into a managerial role and had to have obviously awareness of budgets and that wouldn't have actually done that within their normal day to day job.
Speaker: And so we sort of tailored the training around introduction, understanding finance and budgets.
Speaker: And unfortunately, it hasn't been as successful as what we all thought it was going to be.
Speaker: But I think as Sarah has said, we haven't put it to bed completely.
Speaker: We are going to try again probably in another couple of months time.
Speaker: Certainly at the moment, the interest we're getting from all of our other courses is keeping us really busy as a training provider.
Speaker: But I think because we do account so well in finance, it is something that we would like to obviously offer as part of the North East Worst Force Skills Programme as well.
Speaker: And I think for going forward for next year, because we've been involved with a lot of employers in helping them with really their internal decisions on programmes and looking at making things a little bit more bespoke for organisations.
Speaker: We're going to be doing Equality and Diversity, which we have started, and it's going really, really well for Access.
Speaker: And also Mental Health First Aid, we've been offering that for a couple of months now, and the uptake on that has been absolutely brilliant.
Speaker: So much so, we're actually now offering as a Level 3 qualification because of the uptake that we've had and the demand that we are getting from employers for these two courses.
Speaker: So it's been really good.
Speaker: Great, thank you very much.
Speaker: And Jo, how is it working for you?
Speaker: Hi, yes.
Speaker: So at Newcastle, we were really surprised with the hair and beauty offer.
Speaker: So this was short industrial-related qualifications, CPD opportunities for salons.
Speaker: And we were really surprised that the take-up's been so low, given that this is the technology and the way that salons are moving.
Speaker: So we were quite surprised.
Speaker: And as a result, we've changed how we're promoting those courses.
Speaker: Maybe the salons aren't hearing the right message.
Speaker: And I think particularly, I think salons aren't really believing that the course is actually free because...
Speaker: How often is something free and then suddenly you discover that there's a hidden cost.
Speaker: So, you know, really, it's about getting that message out to those salons that this offer is genuinely free and can really help to support that business.
Speaker: I think moving forward, some of the other areas that we would like to see a bit more of is the green topics.
Speaker: There's some great short courses around becoming carbon neutral and about green energies.
Speaker: And I think given everything that we're seeing splashed over the media around energy prices and such like,
Speaker: I'm quite surprised that businesses aren't a bit more interested in what they can be doing and some of the quicker fixes.
Speaker: So that's something that I would like to see the businesses take up on over the next 12 months.
Speaker: I wonder if we speak this time next year, whether that actually has happened and people have got a bit more savvy around the energy crisis and actually what they need to do to make their business energy efficient, because it's not sustainable, is it?
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: And even I think our business.
Speaker: So after looking at these programmes and we've really reflected ourselves as to just how much paper we print and, you know, what what savings we can make there.
Speaker: So it's not necessarily just about that energy, but it's about that whole wraparound.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: COVID, I think we realised that printing, it wasn't necessary to print every document to take to every meeting.
Speaker: So, yeah, hopefully we will be seeing, having some different conversations in 12 months time.
Speaker: Well, I look forward to it.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: And Chris, last but definitely not least.
Speaker: Yep, so going out to do training needs analysis within businesses to find out what actual training they're interested in.
Speaker: We get a lot of interest from the managers and production managers within the business improvement techniques, of course, which involves principles of Kaizen, right first time, five S's and all that good stuff.
Speaker: The hard thing is to then get the workforce released to come in and do the three days course.
Speaker: So what we've tried to do is we've tried to sort of, if they get released for an additional course, we'll try and implement it.
Speaker: some of those principles within other courses so people still get a taster for it and so they can then go back and sort of push the need and the visibility that they've had on the business improvement techniques because it is an important course.
Speaker: But yeah, we thought that was going to be really, really popular hot topic because it drives a lot of the apprenticeship provision as well and a lot of employers want that built into the apprenticeship provision.
Speaker: Fab, great.
Speaker: And have you seen a pickup on your apprenticeship provision following the short courses or has that not happened yet?
Speaker: Yeah, so what we've done is if we've had inquiries about apprenticeships, we've pushed the North East Workforce Skills Programme and vice versa.
Speaker: So we've tried to work them against each other and towards each other as well and integrate them together.
Speaker: So, yeah, I would say there has been some sort of integration and crossover between the two.
Speaker: Fab, thank you very much.
Speaker: And what would you say has been the great success stories so far?
Speaker: Has anybody got any examples of what's worked particularly well, what businesses have really liked and what's actually massively changed the workforce through the training?
Speaker: Would anybody just like to jump in?
Speaker: Yes, Sarah?
Speaker: We had a great experience actually on the first cohort of leadership and change.
Speaker: So we had to
Speaker: Ladies who joined that particular course were from very different backgrounds, but were from two industries that were massively hit by the pandemic.
Speaker: So one was in hospitality and one was in charity.
Speaker: And actually, the pair of them had very different levels of qualifications that they'd obviously gained throughout their careers.
Speaker: They had quite a lot of operational experience between them both, but not necessarily some of the more hard and fast qualifications around leadership.
Speaker: And really what they have subsequently seen is obviously since joining the course that that course, I think, had about 14 on it.
Speaker: Again, with a very varied background of businesses.
Speaker: So from a learner experience, they've found out quite a lot about how other businesses work leadership training and CBD into their frameworks.
Speaker: But one of the big things that's come out of it for one of the ladies especially is she's actually going to be moving on to a different job.
Speaker: She's actually gone.
Speaker: It's pushed her confidence to the point where she's actually applied for another job.
Speaker: She's got a promotion and actually the company is thankfully still based here in the Northeast and they've signed up to the Northeast Workforce Skills Programme so she can actually carry on and fulfil the end of her actual course that she's doing.
Speaker: So I think that's absolutely brilliant because her as an individual especially had over 10 years experience of managing teams and actually been in quite high powered leadership roles, but she didn't have a hard and fast leadership qualification.
Speaker: So I think she has been an absolute, um,
Speaker: poster girl for us with regards to the fact that she has really taken the course on board and has actually done something with it to actually further her career and to go on to progress it even more.
Speaker: So I think it's a brilliant opportunity for people to access.
Speaker: Well, that's great.
Speaker: And it's also one of the statistics through the course, let's go back to data, where we're very interested to know about women that have been promoted in workforce or have gained greater skills.
Speaker: So that would be a great case study as well, Sarla.
Speaker: Simon, did you put your hand up as well?
Speaker: Yeah, I did.
Speaker: We had an employee who had a cyber threat.
Speaker: So they came to us and asked us to upskill their team.
Speaker: So we upskilled their team in cyber so they could recognize threats, et cetera, and try and deal with them better.
Speaker: But then also after that initial training, they had some higher level people who worked with our tutors.
Speaker: We created a more advanced course for them.
Speaker: And then they're creating experts within their organization now.
Speaker: So I think that was really endearing to see that firstly, they thought a lot of the original course.
Speaker: And then secondly, they've really made a difference in the organization and upskilled a couple of members of staff to a much greater level.
Speaker: So then they can keep that training going within the organization after having that initial burst from us.
Speaker: So I think that was really positive and a great case study.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: Any more positive stories, Kerry?
Speaker: Yeah, we've certainly got a one.
Speaker: One of the large companies that we're working with put 20 of their staff through the leading teams and managing performance.
Speaker: We're so impressed by the training and what the team leader's feedback was on the training that they actually signed up 10 team leaders with access training on the leadership management level three.
Speaker: team leader supervisor qualification which was absolutely brilliant for us and we're in discussions with them at the moment for to put some bespoke ASF training in place and then to also sign up operational managers at level five on the apprenticeship and this is a brand new organization that we've just started working with since then the Northeast workforce skills program that's excellent
