Cornerstone Employer Meeting

Summary:

We currently have the following employers supporting the Solent Careers Hubs as a result of their current education outreach/CSR/early careers objectives;

• Airbus
• BAE
• MGPS Commercial
• Paultons Park
• Portsmouth City Council
• Solent NHS Trust
• University of Portsmouth

Roy Haworth an existing Enterprise Adviser, explains why Airbus are now a Cornerstone Employer;

"We have a growing demographic issue and a belief that the people coming to us through the education system are not as prepared as they could be for the world of work.  There is a big gap between what schools aim to achieve with their students and what we as business require from early careers employee’s. To close that gap we need to build a bridge so that we can both see the perspective of the other side.  The EAN for me delivers a lot of the structure of that bridge and gives us the opportunity to get face to face with teachers and staff who manage the way schools deliver careers content in school.  Added to this is the pressure coming from DfE through the 2017 Careers Strategy and the inclusion of the Gatsby benchmarks in the way schools are assessed by OFSTED and we have some pull factors that schools now want to better engage with industry.  Whilst attending school events and doing the more usual Outreach activities definitely helps inspire children of all ages the EAN is more focused on turning that inspiration into some deeper engagement to help children find the right path for themselves through the incredibly diverse FE/HE routes that now present themselves.  It also gives business the opportunity to express our needs in terms of soft skills and the additional things we look for, as well as the exam results, in the people we wish to employ.  It is also a great way of increasing your local profile, engaging more senior staff into these roles where they can use their knowledge and experience to really help individual schools in the local area so that we can properly explain that there are many ways to enter the business world and it is not just graduates that we are seeking".

To find out more about the work of Cornerstone Employers in the Solent email EnterpriseAdviser@solentlep.org.uk.

For more information on Cornerstone Employers nationally, please click here.