The Careers and Enterprise Company Launch New Employer Standards Framework

Employers are central to improving careers provision in schools and colleges. When young people meet with multiple employers in multiple ways, they gain skills, networks and social capital. They are better able to understand the new and changing routes into to work and research demonstrates that disadvantaged young people stand to benefit most from this work.

The Employer Standards is a new framework and tool developed by The Careers & Enterprise Company to help raise the quality of business outreach with education at scale. Designed to improve the engagement between young people and employers, employers can now self-assess against 9 national benchmarks, compare their results on a sectoral, regional, and scalable basis.

As well as receiving these results, employers will receive an evidence pack underpinning each Standard to support their business case, inspirational case studies from other businesses and curated resources to improve the quality of their careers education outreach. The Careers and Enterprise Company have conducted some preliminary analysis based on the initial 350 employers to have completed the assessment during the pilot stages, with insights compiled into an insight briefing released to coincide with the launch.

Insight 1: High quality employer outreach works. It boosts recruitment and improves outcomes for young people. Employers who use outreach to promote pathways to work are receiving more applications from young people. Those doing the most targeted and intensive work are four time more likely to report an increase in the number of young people applying for apprenticeships.

Insight 2: Some employers and industries are benefitting more. Ongoing and connected programmes are increasing student interest in sectors with shortages. Construction and health & social work are among the sectors with sophisticated outreach programmes that include long[1]term engagement and effective targeting. On average, employers in these sectors are achieving or exceeding 7.1 and 6.5 Standards respectively, versus 5.7 for all employers.

Insight 3: The Standards are highlighting common challenges around supporting the interview and application process and the engagement of parents/carers. Preparing young people for application processes (Standard 5) is proving the most challenging for employers to meet (average score of 41%). This finding is matched by FSQ data (58% of Year 11 students report they do not feel confident talking about their skills in an interview, contrasting with more positive responses on other career readiness questions).

You can find out more about the employer standards, ask questions and discover more about the benefits of the framework by attending one of our information webinars: CL Careers Hub - Employer Standards Launch

To register for employer standards and complete a self assessment, visit the CEC website here: Home - CEC Employer Portal (careersandenterprise.co.uk)