Business - Journal

A chance to ‘earn and learn’; apprenticeships are a vital part of post-pandemic recovery and all of our public sector partners are demanding them: have a look here at how we’re helping at Match My Project

Businesses are already playing their part in creating apprenticeships. According to the latest government data, 572,210 people are currently enrolled on apprenticeships covering 170 industries.

But the challenge is considerable.

The UK economy is to contract 0.6% this year. Apprenticeships have been identified as catalysts for growth as we recover from the pandemic and enter a post-Brexit labour market.

More Social Value means more apprenticeships

Our customers in the public sector, particularly at the local level, are focused on creating apprenticeships and work placements.

These organisations, councils and housing associations – for example, are using Social Value to ask their suppliers to create new apprenticeships and work opportunities for local people.

But it’s not always easy creating these local opportunities.

The data shows that only 1.5% of the UK’s 4.4 million employers are taking on apprentices. This number needs to change if our economic prospects are to change.

Finding local people to fill your apprenticeships and work placements can be a struggle

MatchMyProject is an award-winning platform that matches suppliers and businesses with good local community projects.

The platform was recognised by the Chartered Institute for Procurement and Supply (CIPS) as this year’s Best Initiative to Deliver Social Value through Procurement (for our work with Birmingham City Council).

The platform is a source of local community organisations – plugged into local networks, across local politics, and aware of local problems. MatchMyProject gives access to these organisations to suppliers and businesses looking for opportunities to deliver Social Value in their localities.

We are now introducing features which enable you to advertise apprenticeships and work placements that can be easily matched with local people.

You will be able to upload opportunities and receive candidate referrals from local community partners and, for the first time, self-referrals from individuals.

Posting your opportunity will be a quick process, with almost exclusively multiple choice questions, which has the added benefit of making opportunities easy to filter and sort for those accessing them.

And you’ll be able to manage all of this in one place.

PRO TIP: In the coming weeks we’ll be launching these new features. If you want to see a 2 minute preview of these new features, please let us know here and we’ll send it out right away.

We haven’t ever heard a corporate buyer or contracting authority actually say this, but suppliers could be forgiven for thinking it…

It’s not always easy to find and work with a local community organisation to deliver your Social Value.

Yet, it is a fact that businesses are increasingly being asked to go the extra yard.

And we’ve known for some time that business ‘does its bit’.

Fortune Global firms spend around $20 billion a year on CSR activities (Meier and Cassar 2018), while more than 90% of the 250 largest companies in the world produce an annual CSR report (KPMG 2017).

Some businesses have community partners they have been working with for many years. And many do a lot of unseen and unrecognised work in their local communities.

Now, businesses in the UK have to think about Social Value.

Under law, you can be asked to create ‘Social Value’

When businesses tender for work with the UK Government, they can be asked to create Social Value above and beyond what is being asked for in the contract tender specification.

Importantly for businesses, Social Value is becoming a determining factor in how government contracts are awarded.

We are seeing government organisations ratcheting up the weighting in their tenders to 20%.

Bear in mind the UK government spends up to around £280 billion each year in the private sector: getting Social Value right will make a difference to your bottom line.

Government is increasingly looking at their Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations as ideal vehicles for Social Value.

This makes a lot of sense – for the community, for businesses and for government.

Think about it for a moment

Not every business understands what a local community needs. But businesses have resources and have good reasons to contribute.

On the other hand, local VCSE organisations are part of the local fabric of a community. They know where the big challenges are and how to unlock these problems in a way that no one else does. They have all the local knowledge, but lack resources.

Putting business together with local community organisations is a win-win, and government is increasingly asking for this.

Take a look at this great collaboration between community and business in Manchester.

But what we’ve discovered is that not every business can find a community project they are able to support. It might be that the range of projects don’t fit with your area of expertise. Or maybe they are too costly.

We went out and did some research. The results were pretty clear:

76% of the businesses we spoke to wanted the option to post their own resources on MatchMyProject.

It might be that you are ready for new laptops for your team, and have some pretty good second-hand ones to share?

Or someone in your company has some spare volunteering time to offer?

Or do you need to find local residents to fill your apprenticeships and work placements?

Then you should sign up to MatchMyProject.

Let MatchMyProject Help You Find And Manage Apprenticeships