#ERSAAwards22 | Sector Innovator of the Year Shortlist - ERSA

Sector Innovator of the Year – Sponsored by Genius Within CIC

Short company bio

Genius Within CIC is a social enterprise established in 2011 to help neurominorities unlock their talents, whilst acknowledging and celebrating that this diversity forms part of the rich tapestry of human experience.

We advise governments on policy and provide consultancy to businesses, driving systemic change that allows all employees to thrive. We provide in-work support in the form of coaching, training and assessments. We also support neurodiverse/neurodivergent thinkers who are not in the workplace, who might be studying, unemployed or in the criminal justice system.

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Genius Within has been a member and supporter for the work of ERSA for many years.  We are thrilled to be sponsoring the Sector Innovator of the Year Category at the 2022 ERSA awards.  Working in the relatively new field of Neuroinclusion we know the importance of innovation and supporting new work.  Congratulations and good luck to all those who have been shortlisted for this award.

Fiona Barrett – Deputy CEO.

Recognising an organisation that has pioneered innovative approaches and solutions within the employment support market

Beam
Social enterprise Beam has launched a new web application that helps disadvantaged groups find and sustain jobs. The app connects struggling job-seekers with a supportive online community who provide financial backing, mentorship and encouragement. It also matches them with live job opportunities with ethical employers. The app is already being used by hundreds of homeless people, the long-term unemployed, refugees, domestic abuse victims and prison leavers to ‘level the playing field’ when it comes to accessing job opportunities. Beam gives users smartphones to access the app, which is designed to digitise the job search for disadvantaged groups who have previously had to rely on in-person support. More than 25,000 members of the public have signed up to provide moral and financial support through the app, making it the largest online community of its kind. The app also lets users post written updates, photos and videos, as they embark on their journey into a new job. They can also interact with other job-seekers and spur each other on to reach their goals. Beam’s app also allows users to view and apply for high-quality job opportunities from Beam’s employer partners – who guarantee feedback – including Bupa, Pret and Arriva. The app is personalised to each job-seeker, showcasing jobs based on preferred career, hours and commute distance. Users also have access to targeted resources and a Beam employment coach, who provides job support directly through the app via a WhatsApp integration.
The Pathways to Diagnostics Trailblazer
The Pathways to Diagnostics Trailblazer project became the first of its kind upskilling people within 12 weeks and opening the doors to the NHS – a quick and efficient way of recruitment. We received a lot of comments saying that people had not expected to be able to work for the NHS without the University degree or that they had not known there are non-clinical roles. This new programme dealt with stereotypes and enabled people to pursue, in their views, the impossible. In addition, people said that they would have never expected that this kind of opportunity would come to Tendring as it is usually ‘left behind’. As a result, the new programme has been able to engage with local residents (Tendring), assess and support people in getting into NHS (National Career Service (NCS)), upskilling people in short matter of time (the Adult Skills Centre, previously the Learning Shops), completing rotational work placements (ESNEFT), receiving interview and application writing skills (NCS), and securing a job at NHS.
imployable App
imployable is a Royal Marine founded tech start-up, who provides end-to-end digital employment solutions, all based around the free imployable App. Our imployable App is at the heart of our business; providing individuals with the tools and knowledge to identify careers, develop themselves, and gain access to opportunities. Through our web-based support systems, we help employment-based businesses and government initiatives significantly improve their effectiveness with helping people get closer to, and into, fulfilling careers. Alongside the app, we have the web platform imployable Connect. Connect allows organisations post opportunities for free, to find future employees, students, and volunteers. With access to a range of tools to simplify the employment process. imployable also have a coaching branch called imployable Coach. Providing 1 to 1 coaching services to give job seekers tailored support and feedback to further their chances of employment. Primarily working under governmental contracts, we also work with individuals who seek us out. Lastly, we have imployable Cohort. Built with the outcome of getting large groups of people into employment, allows many employment-related organisations manage and track their cohorts job seeking activity, and provide the necessary support to help each individual.
Radical Employability Training, People and their Brilliance
We’re driven by helping people to clarify what’s important to them (their Values), what they have to offer (their Brilliance), and how they can best use their brilliance to make an extraordinary contribution (their Purpose). We call this process Radical Employability training. It’s radical because rather than coaching individuals through a series of steps with the sole aim of getting a job at the end or feeling dejected if they don’t, we believe that the best way we can support someone is by helping them build their capacity to create extraordinary value with integrity in whatever situation they find themselves in. We became a Kickstart Gateway in 2020 and developed a new employability experience for young people through the Kickstart scheme. The results were exciting: 80% of people who completed our training were successful in their very next job application. As well as recruiting young people into six-month work placements, we supported them every step of the way with training and coaching to help them to get the best from their placement. Instead of focusing on simply getting employed, we encouraged trainees to focus their energies on getting employable. We saw that by helping young people get good at doing a job, their confidence would grow, leading to them becoming an excellent candidate. We also saw our trainees becoming increasingly empowered and confident throughout the application process. We’re so excited about this radical innovation in the employability experience, we’re now working to take it forward beyond the Kickstart Scheme. Our new, Shifting the Norm project builds on our already-proven framework and we are committed to taking it forward to develop more empowered, more effective and more fulfilled young people with the capacity to do amazing work throughout their careers.
Create Your Own Future, Saffron Interactive
Never before has the employability services sector been so central to government, economic and social policy. The UK faces a truly complex combination of factors resulting in more jobs than people able to fill them; a yawning skills gap and the vulnerable in an even more perilous position. But this also represents an opportunity where, with the right support, under represented cohorts – the over 50s, those with learning, physical and neuro disabilities – now rank on a par in the competition for talent. But traditional delivery models are not able to effectively and efficiently accommodate the variability of these cohorts. Innovation is required. Create Your Own Future, from Saffron, represents such innovation. It is an online, AI-driven, employability solution putting both users – participant and adviser – at the centre of the solution. The biggest technical innovation is the AI-enabled, video-based advisor who leads the participant through an ‘employability journey’ – overcoming barriers; assessing skills; job matching and finding; CV-building, interview skills etc. As one client put it: ‘you are digitising my best advisor’ and it is this that takes the solution beyond being just a collection of tools to an entire ecosystem. But that does not eliminate the live advisor. The solution becomes an extension of their activity. It takes away a lot of their ‘legwork’ whilst providing information on an individual’s progress, giving them the time and insight to deliver high value, targeted support where needed most. Create Your Own Future is already delivering evaluated results – improved confidence, motivation and resultant outcomes – and is now being adapted to ‘mainstream’ programmes. Its flexible technical architecture enables it to grow and change over time, accumulating knowledge and experience whilst adapting with variations for specialist cohorts. It is an innovative technology that driving a step-change in employment related support services.
Torus Foundation: Hong Kong Engagement Project
Torus Foundation developed innovative methods to engage members of the Hong Kong Community in employability support. This involved creating events aimed at a specific community and promoting these through the community’s own networks, prior to signing-up people on an individual basis. Online events were used initially to raise awareness of the support, and followed by face-to-face events where people gained a deeper understanding of the projects and started to develop a rapport and trust in the people involved. A large number of individuals who attended these events signed up for employment support programmes. Evaluating the success of this approach has helped to create a new model for engaging participants, in which ‘tasters’ of the support are provided pre sign-up, for example basic CV-writing guidance sessions with information of how to enrol for further employment support from one of the ESF-funded projects led by Torus Foundation. The numbers of people that attended these events and signed up to the projects have been on a different scale to anything we have experienced before, and we are achieving outstanding results with members of the community. Our experience of working with the Hong Kong Community in Cheshire is now informing our approach to engaging with other specific national communities, and has enabled us to engage successfully with groups of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees.
Newground Together Employment Hub – nominated by G4S Employment Support Services
G4S would like to nominate Newground Together in the category of Sector Innovator of the Year. Newground Together deliver the Restart Scheme in the Blackburn area of CPA3 on behalf of G4S Employment Support Services. Newground Together is the charitable arm of Together Housing Group, who provide quality affordable and modern homes in the North of England. Blackburn is ranked as the 14th most deprived district in England and this was never more apparent than at the height of the COVID pandemic when the area was held in local lockdown longer than almost any other area of the country. Throughout the pandemic Newground Together established a system of daily lunch drop offs to the communities most vulnerable residents. They have continued to volunteer two members of staff per week to support the local food bank to help them process referrals and in doing so support residents, which includes their Restart Scheme participants, with wider issues and signposting to partner agencies for continued help and support. They have furthered their commitment in the community by launching a Hub within The Mall Shopping Centre in Blackburn making services more accessible for local Blackburn with Darwen residents. The Hub is a drop-in facility for people to visit to access employment and wider support services such as housing and skills provision. They are committed to supporting local people to become work ready and access local job opportunities. They now deliver all of their Restart Scheme services from this hub which has seen an increase in engagement of participants and provides an excellent link to businesses in the area.
Tourism and Hospitality Talent Hub, The Growth Company
As a result of Brexit, it was identified that the hospitality, leisure and tourism industry was going to face significant staffing and skills shortages across all positions and levels within the sector. The sector is one of the biggest employers across Greater Manchester – supporting over 100,000 jobs – so it was important to support employers during this time. The Talent Hub was established in 2019 to help people gain access into training and employment within the sector. Supported by Marketing Manchester and Manchester Hoteliers Association, the Hub assisted employers with the recruitment and retention of staff, whilst also offering support to people looking to utilise transferrable skills and experience to move into the industry throughout the Greater Manchester area. The first to establish a service of this kind, the Hub pulled all support mechanisms into one place as a ‘one stop shop’ for employers. Working with key stakeholders, programmes and support such as Work and Health, JETS, National Careers Service and Intensive Personalised Employment Support, it promoted the sector as an employment destination, reaching out to priority group individuals who may not have considered working within the sector before and making it more accessible. Employers from the hospitality, leisure and tourism industry supported this activity and were integral to service design, fully embracing new ways to engage with a more diverse workforce with inclusivity at the forefront. The pandemic presented a further challenge as the industry closed down due to lockdown. In response, the Talent Hub pivoted its support offer to reflect the changed and unprecedented landscape across the sector. Through the creation of a single, simple access portal for the sector to access a whole range of support programmes – from skills development to entry level support and training – the Talent Hub made it easy for employers to access support.