Anita Brook is founder of Accounts Assist, a growing firm of Chartered Certified Accountants specialising in accountancy and taxation services for all types of small businesses, freelancers, contractors and consultants. In the second of her blogs for FMWF, Anita looks at the ways you can bypass the banks to grow your business.
According to the Government’s record on youth unemployment (October 2009), there are over 1,000,000 16 – 24 year olds currently out of work in Britain, many of them educated to degree level. Keen, enthusiastic and desperate for a job, these young people could offer the injection of youth and quick-thinking your company needs to take it to the next level.
Graduates – brains and enthusiasm on-tap
When graduates leave university, the majority are enthusiastic and ready to get stuck into the world of work. If your business needs brains and a fresh attitude, then trying out a graduate might be a good place to start.
While graduates may not have much work experience, they should bring energy to your business, be good team players and quick to learn. There are benefits to employing someone without much experience too – they can be moulded to fit your way of working.
If experience is important to you, more degree courses than ever before include a work placement, and as the majority of students have to supplement their income with a part-time job, many graduates are entering the business world with a good level of practical and commercial experience, enhancing academic knowledge.
To encourage the employment of graduates, there is funding available. In the North East, Graduates for Business (www.graduatesforbusiness.co.uk), offers £70 a week towards the salary of a graduate for the first 15 weeks of their employment. Specifically aimed at smaller businesses, qualifying SME’s must have less than 250 employees and be able to pay new graduates a minimum of £14,000 a year. For information about graduate funding in your area, visit www.businesslink.gov.uk.
If you don’t want to commit to employing a graduate full-time, but your business could benefit from some youthful intellect, then offering placements may bring mutual rewards to you and your chosen student. Rate my placement, www.ratemyplacement.co.uk, is a website for undergraduates looking for work experience and employers offering internships – like a job dating agency. Students will ‘rate your placement’ so it’s important that if you get involved, you provide good levels of training. Placements can be anything from a few months to over a year.
The Apprentice – ‘you’re hired!’
If you don’t need someone educated to degree level – particularly in more practical industries, such as construction, engineering and hairdressing – then an apprentice could be the option for you. University is not for everybody and the apprenticeship scheme provides an opportunity to start earning and learning within the confines of a real place of work. Over 130,000 companies currently offer apprentice places in the UK.
With apprenticeships available in pretty much any sector, from the arts to agriculture, the scheme provides a more profitable career path than taking the academic route. For a full list of apprenticeships, visit www.apprenticeships.org.uk/Types-of-Apprenticeships.
For employers, an apprenticeship is a commitment to offering a good level of training, sometimes to people as young as 16. But with funding available, a successful apprentice offers a high return on time invested. And as you will have been there at the start of that young person’s career path, then it is likely they will feel particularly loyal to your company – 57% of employers reported a large proportion of their apprentices go onto management positions.
www.apprenticeships.org.uk/Employers/Business-Benefits.
Depending on the level at which they train, an apprentice will be with you for up to four years, with one day a week spent at college. The mixture of on and off job learning ensures they acquire the skills that work best for your business.
In a recent survey, conducted by Populus on behalf of the Learning Skills Council (LSC) (www.lsc.gov.uk), the majority of employers said that apprenticeships helped them to improve productivity and be more competitive. They also stated that taking on apprentices is more cost effective than hiring skilled staff, leading to lower overall training and recruitment costs.
The really good news is that apart from time, if you employ an apprentice aged 16 -18, then the National Apprenticeship service will pay 100 per cent of the funding, and if they’re 19+, 50 per cent. Apprenticeships are not just open to the under 25s however, a person of any age can become an apprentice.
By employing a graduate or apprentice, you’ll be making a dent in that jobless 1,000,000, while taking advantage of some potentially un-tapped genius, which could be just the tonic to invigorate your business.
Click here for Anita Brook’s previous guest blog on bypassing the banks to grow your business.
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