Tackling Skills Shortages workshops on the way

Warwickshire County Council's new campaign Tackling Skills Shortages will soon hold its first series of workshops.

Tackling Skills Shortages, launched last month by the council's Economy & Skills team, exists to help businesses find the skilled recruits they need to enable them to grow.

A series of three workshops, to be held at the Holiday Inn, Kenilworth at a date to be confirmed, have been built by Warwickshire County Council's business skills advisor Fay Winterburn in partnership with Angela Roberts from Kenilworth’s HR Consultancy, who also leads the Mid-Warwickshire Employment Group”

Designed to be engaging and informative with lots of tips for businesses to take away, they will consist of:

Day 1: Exploring different routes of recruitment and how to recruit. Speakers will provide information about talent pools available and how employers should present themselves to potential applicants.

Day 2: Demonstrating how growing your own talent can be of huge benefit for the business and future growth and showing how to engage with schools and colleges, with examples of how interaction with education can work for your business.

Day 3: Focusing on business support and accessing supportive funding to help meet the development needs of your business. We will share many opportunities on the day and also provide one-to-one sessions and further coaching to explore which of the supportive links are relevant to you.

Following the workshops, Fay will meet with each business to discuss their newly-identified routes of support and help make the relevant connections whilst building a documented skills support plan.

The workshops have been arranged as part of the Tackling Skills Shortages campaign which has, at its heart, a five-point plan to ensure that businesses are aware of all support available to them. The plan, which can be viewed here, reinforces the work carried out by Fay Winterburn, who was appointed designated business skills advisor last year to work full-time on this issue.

More than 250 businesses have benefited from Fay's advice in her first year and her work goes on - now supported by the new campaign. 

"Fay is doing great work and has already pointed many businesses in the right direction and enabled them to solve their skills problems, either by recruiting, taking on apprentices or upskilling their existing their workforce," said Warwickshire County Council's head of economy & skills David Ayton-Hill.

"She is now supported by the Tackling Skills Shortages campaign which will soon step up with the excellent planned workshops.

 "The whole campaign is outlined on line here, so it could not be easier for people who are very busy running their business, so feel they might not have the time to explore the matter in detail, to find out more.

"Please, have a look, see what support is there and then have a chat to Fay who can then come up with bespoke advice tailored for your business."

Fay can be contacted at faywinterburn@warwickshire.gov.uk or on 01926 412216.