Chamber toolkit addresses region’s recruitment and retention challenges
Date published:
The Chamber has today (20 February) released a toolkit to help the region’s businesses attract and keep talent.
The Recruitment and Retention Toolkit includes proactive steps to enhance recruitment and retention strategies, and build a more resilient, inclusive workforce.
The toolkit, which features contributions from the region’s leading businesses, also explores options available to support more people into work through initiatives such as Access to Work.
John McCabe, Chamber chief executive, said: “A strong, dependable workforce is the cornerstone of any successful business. We’ve heard from our members time and time again that attracting and keeping talent is crucial to business growth.
“We are excited to provide this toolkit in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions, local stakeholders, and, of course, our members, who have provided helpful accounts of how to develop talent pipelines and tap into the North East’s future workforce.”
The toolkit includes strategies that many businesses in our region are capitalising on through thought leadership. It provides insights into: overcoming recruitment barriers; the importance of apprenticeships; graduate opportunities; wellbeing, workplace culture and lifelong learning.
John added: “Whether it’s tapping into the graduate market that our five world-class universities provide us with, championing apprenticeships, or simply making changes to your hiring practice, we hope that this toolkit helps you to take your first steps towards building a more resilient, inclusive workforce.”
As a Chamber, we will continue to be proactive in ensuring organisations have the tools they need to attract and keep talent, including through our Local Skills Improvement Plans – which are helping to shape the local skills system.
Our new policy plan, Stronger, Fairer North East: A Strategy for Change, presents key calls for action across five important pillars of the region’s economy, including people and work, and education and participation.
The strategy emphasises that good quality, sustainable work is essential to the region’s future prosperity, as well as high quality, accessible education and training. It also highlights that partnerships and fair, flexible funding are key to addressing the region’s skills needs.
The Recruitment and Retention Toolkit echoes the British Chambers of Commerce’s People and Work report which outlines a 10-point plan to boost workforce skills, by supporting people at every stage of their journey through education and employment. The report was published by the BCC’s Business Council as part of the ‘Future of Economy’ project.