Last week I spoke at the Institute of Student Employers Delivering Apprenticeships conference in London, with our partners Ofcom, telling the story of how we've helped set their apprentices up for success by taking them on a journey from grassroots to growth.
What do we mean by this? Well, in my experience working with socially diverse school leavers for over 10 years, one of the big challenges for young people coming into the world of work is having a base of knowledge that will help them to settle in and thrive in their new careers. This could mean having industry- or employer-specific understanding, but more often it's about acquiring the behaviours and skills everyone needs in the world of work, or simply recognising what a professional environment looks and feels like.
The key issue - as we discussed at the ISE conference last week - is that young people from socially diverse backgrounds often lack the experience, insight or exposure to the working world that can equip them with this knowledge to help them succeed in their first job. This, in turn, impacts their confidence, engagement and performance throughout the apprentice-hiring process - from outreach to onboarding.
So, the first question for any early careers team to ask is: How do we create a level playing field for talent coming in, regardless of background? These are the tips we shared with early careers leaders at the conference last week:
Have a clear vision, simply articulated
When you're trying to move the needle on social diversity in your early careers, clarity of vision is key. Often, the approach needed to tackle social mobility issues conflicts with business-critical early-talent resourcing objectives, because you need to invest more time, resource and energy to achieve the dual outcomes of outstanding young talent and social diversity in your intake. This can sometimes create internal tension, so make sure you have a clear vision that you can articulate simply to get buy-in from all stakeholders from day one.
Build development into your programme
If you're leaving the development of your early talent until day one of their apprenticeship, you've left it too late. You need to build development into every phrase of your early careers journey - from the very first interaction at outreach and at every touchpoint along the way.
This means being intentional in how you design your early careers programme - see it as a journey of discovery and development for your future talent, rather than simply a hiring process. You could make your outreach activity more workshop-based, with clear learning aims, so whoever takes part takes something away (even if they don't apply to your scheme!). You could rethink your assessment centres to be more experimental and developmental, building in processes to consolidate and showcase learning. You could even introduce a pipeline development phase to your journey incorporating mentoring, alongside insight and skills sessions, upskilling future talent before they're hired and preparing them to add value from day one.
Support and develop line managers and teammates
By identifying and putting in place support for those people who play a pivotal role in helping apprentices succeed, you're ensuring the foundations are in place for apprentices to thrive in their first 100 days and beyond. As a minimum, this should include training for managers that builds a coaching attitude and skillset to support apprentice growth and development; and all-important pastoral care to enable apprentices to manage everything going on in their world - especially for socially diverse talent, who may have competing pressures outside of work that could influence their performance in the role.
Building social mobility into your early careers requires a fundamentally different approach to how you engage and develop your future talent. Creating a truly developmental journey - from the very first interaction at outreach, right through to the 100th day of an apprenticeship - aligned around a vision shared by all stakeholders will ensure apprentices from all backgrounds (and social mobility candidates especially) are set up for success. And your business will be fit for the future with true diversity in your talent pipeline.
Want to move the needle on social diversity? Whether you're looking for an end-to-end early careers programme with social mobility at its heart, or help with a specific element of your apprenticeships, get in touch for a customised solution from experts with over a decade of experience.
