Employer Standards: Shaping your future workforce
The Employer Standards will help you think about and plan up-front what you want to achieve from working with schools, special schools and colleges, review the quality of your outreach and how it aligns with your business objectives.
It will also help you confidentially assess your performance against your peers, nationally, sectorally, regionally and locally. As well as your results, you will receive an evidence pack underpinning each Standard to support your business case, inspirational case studies from other businesses and curated resources to improve the quality of your careers education outreach.
Employer Standards for Careers Education
Our new framework and tool will help businesses understand what good looks like in careers education, help them inspire young people and prepare them for the world of work. Learn more about the framework below, or to access the self-assessment tool, visit our portal.
Learn moreUpcoming Employer Standards event
Interested in finding out more about the Standards? Join us on Tuesday 9th January from 12- 12:30pm to learn more about the new framework and self-assessment tool.
Register for webinarDiscover what effective careers engagement with the education sector looks like:
- Inspire young people about your sector, business and the world of work.
- Develop their skills and help set them up for success.
- Collaborate with others to build sustained relationships.
- Give young people a taste and feel of the working world.
- Make experiences of work meaningful - ensuring young people meet a range of people, interact and receive feedback on a piece of work.
- Be clear and transparent - setting clear aims and learning outcomes.
- Prepare in advance - tailoring experiences to individual needs.
- Involve a wide range of young people.
- Identify young people that need the most support.
- Break down barriers - by engaging under-represented groups.
- Be relatable to build trust: involving employees who young people can easily identify with.
- Actively challenge stereotypes and preconceptions.
- Be adaptive and accommodating - shape your approach so all feel welcome and involved.
- Measure impact and adapt - to ensure your activities are having the intended impact and adapt where needed.
- Ensure person-centred evaluation - ensure the feedback and perspectives of young people, teachers and schools are part of your evaluation.
- Listen to others - welcome and action feedback from your employees involved in the programmes.
- Improve the skills of young people - Supporting them to develop essential skills.
- Embed essential skills in your career outreach - showing they're how they’re applied in every day working life.
- Explain the relevance and importance of essential skills - Support young people, teachers and Careers Leaders in understanding why essential skills are invaluable in the workplace.
- Improve understanding & provide practice opportunities - so young people are more confident in application and selection processes like assessment centres, psychometric testing, online interviews, in person interviews.
- Support with written communications - so they become better at describing their skills and experience in CVs, application forms, LinkedIn and cover letters.
- Explain how social media presence could impact applications.
- Showcase existing opportunities - with information about opportunities in your organisation or sector and links to the local labour market.
- Share knowledge of pathways - highlighting the subject and skills requirements to enter your organisation and sector.
- Shape opportunities – share what you know about pathways and key transition points for young people to your sector.
- Extend your engagement - work with the same school for more than one year to strengthen partnerships and promote continuous learning.
- Repeat exposure - have multiple engagements with the same individuals and groups of young people over the course of their time in education.
- Commit long-term - invest time with the same school over the long-term.
- Identify areas of priority - learn what a school needs most in terms of careers education support.
- Share your knowledge of job opportunities, local labour market, pathways and the future of work with teachers, Careers Leaders, parents, carers, Careers Hubs and activity providers.
- Relate classroom learning to the world of work - linking careers to the curriculum, developing teachers’ workplace knowledge, co-designing lesson content and supporting student projects.
- Collaborate and share best practice - Connect and cooperate with other employers.
- Embed careers education within your business planning.
- Recognise and relay the impact on young people - becoming a community ambassador for the value of education outreach.
- Track the impact of your careers education support for young people against your business objectives.
"By going into schools, you can help shape your future workforce, so why wouldn't you do it?"Rita Patel-Miller, Mace Group
Find out how Employer Standards can benefit your business
Employer Standards is our new FREE framework and tool that sets out what best practice is in terms of employer outreach in careers education.
