New webinar aims to support local businesses with skills challenges

A new webinar showcases the experiences of local business owners and provides a variety of practical solutions to the current skills challenges.

The Building the Workforce of the Future webinar sets out why businesses need to think about developing a skills pipeline and shows how different small and medium-sized businesses have utilised various opportunities, such as apprenticeships, T levels, internships and working with schools.

The 18-minute webinar can be viewed here. Watch all or some of the content which includes the following topics and guest speakers:

• 00:15  The current labour market – why it is important to grow your own talent, and how we are using T Levels – Darius Matusiak, Managing Director of Partnerships, Macildowie
• 05:10  The benefits to Colab from internships and graduate schemes – Dan Lamoon, MD at Colab Creation
• 08:28 How apprenticeships and working with schools has boosted our business – Rob Day, Chairman at Blueprint Interiors
• 12:13  Company growth through apprenticeships – Richard Jinks, founder of Central Flooring Services
• 15:40  Building the workforce guide – Anna Cyhan, Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership Ltd

Watch the webinar here.

Anna Cyhan, LLEP Skills Officer said: ‘‘As the Leicester and Leicestershire area is 99.6% SME, we were keen to demonstrate how busy SMEs have tapped into skills programmes. They have shared their insights which we hope will encourage other companies to get involved.”

The film also promotes a free, easy-use resource for employers. Building the Workforce of the Future* is a 16-page guide, designed by the LLEP specifically for busy SMEs, listing a host of opportunities and schemes which are available to local employers. It sets out a series of typical skills-related challenges which hold back business growth – using case studies with real local businesses to set out practical options for overcoming blockages. View the guide: https://llep.org.uk/app/uploads/2023/03/Building-the-Workforce-FINAL-2023-SP.pdf

We’d would like to thank all the speakers Darius, Dan, Rob and Richard for their support in creating this video.

*The Building the Workforce of the Future guide was sponsored by the LLEP Business Gateway Growth Hub and created by the LLEP Skills Officer, in partnership with area education and skills providers, to help SMEs better link to local provision to build the skills that they need.