Barclaycard offer Work Pairings programme

Barclaycard Kirkby  are offering a  Work Pairings programme which reaches out to young people that are ‘Not in Education, Employment or Training’ (NEET).  

Training Adviser Benjamin Edwards took the lead in the project in order to engage these young people and provide them with the opportunity to gain work experience at the Collection Centre.

To fit in with the already established Work Pairings programme (devised by KCC and Knowsley Connexions), he put together a 7-week programme that allowed the young people to experience various areas of the Kirkby site, as well as improving on the young people’s CV writing skills and interview techniques.

The programme began with 5 girls, some straight from school with little work experience, and some who had been unemployed for more than 12 months.  They each had a mentor from the Kirkby Training Team to have 1-2-1s with, in order to assess their progress.

The first week was an induction, with an introduction to the business, a session from Kirkby’s Health & Wellbeing Manager, and understanding what the young people wanted from the programme.  The trainees then experienced areas such as: Training, Communications Team, Inbound/Outbound telephony, and Letter Writers (to name but a few) over the following 5 weeks.

The final week consisted of a session with Human Resources around CV writing and Interview Techniques and a Mock Interview on the final day.  Two of the five completed the programme to the very end, whilst two others got external permanent jobs during the last few weeks.

In light of the fantastic work displayed by Barclaycard, the college were keen to offer ‘free’ qualifications for existing Barclaycard staff at Kirkby, as part of the ongoing apprenticeship scheme.  They currently have around 25 people enrolling for qualifications in Customer Service, Team Leadership and Management.

And the hard work doesn’t stop there.  Training Advisor Tom Dixon and LiMME coach Stephen Cast recently took part in KCC’s annual Mock Interview Day. The day gave the students of the college a chance to be formally interviewed by employers and receive both positive and constructive feedback, which would benefit them when they apply for jobs or even university places.

Barclaycard have created a great link with KCC and it is something they will continue in the future, with the next Work Pairings already planned for around May 2013.