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Accessing a brighter future for your business

We’re living in a worrying time for many businesses. With us all being impacted by the pandemic, and also Brexit, there are a long list of challenges (and opportunities from these challenges) which we are facing, writes Weston College Principal Dr Paul Phillips CBE (pictured).

One major issue facing companies across industries, is skills shortages.

For many employers, they don’t know where to start when it comes to finding solutions to these issues. Is it as simple as just placing a recruitment advert out there, or is there a better, more sustainable way of recruiting and retaining talent with the skills required by business?

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) predict that it costs businesses an estimated 6 to 9 months’ salary to replace a member of staff – an added expense which really isn’t needed during a period where bills and taxes are being increased.

This isn’t sustainable way for our businesses to operate, and I have a solution which can help employers from all industries, of all sizes… partnering up with your local FE college.

At Weston College we support more than 2,000 employers each year, by working in partnership with them to gain a greater understanding on what their skills requirements are.

As you can imagine, it isn’t a one size fits all approach for these organisations, so it is an important part of our ethos to work in close partnership with employers to find the solution that best suits their needs.

As an organisation we offer bespoke training to meet the needs of employers, whether that be putting on courses for leadership, management, coding, marketing – whatever your organisation needs, we can fit around you. We also have access to over 30,000 people currently undergoing training that employers are requesting (through our new Career Excellence Hubs), meaning that you can discover talented individuals at the start of their journey into your industry.

There is also funding available to businesses through several different routes, such as apprenticeships and traineeships – which we can help you to access. Our teams can help not only match someone with your business and needs, but also to access this funding, meaning it is now easier than ever to find the rights staff, provide them with relevant training and most importantly, prepare your future workforce.

We would love to hear from you, so feel free to get in touch with my team, and let’s access your brighter future:

Email: employers@weston.ac.uk

Call: 01934 411 411

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