Climbing the work ladder

Paul King, Marketing Director for Pertemps People Development Group

As a leading recruitment consultancy that has supported 60,000 long-term unemployed people into work since 2000, one could say we are well qualified to explore the challenges that face individuals in advancing their careers and skills.

At Pertemps People Development Group (PPDG), we specialise in offering holistic support to disadvantaged jobseekers, working exclusively with the 'sub-section' of society referred to in the Leitch Report. For us, meeting a client who has been out of work for five years or more is an everyday occurrence - indeed, 12 per cent of the clients we support have been unemployed for more than 10 years.

Advancement centres

Every day people enter our Advancement Centres across the UK — people who have traditionally been written off, those who have failed to believe in themselves because society has put them on the dole for years.

It is easy to think that people in depressed communities have no skills. Our experience has taught us that they possess some of the very skills that employers want and need, they just don't always realise they can transfer them to the labour market and develop them. It may perhaps be surprising to those who have never worked with us, to learn that on many occasions we've chosen to develop them ourselves - as PPDG employees.

Empathise

As a company, we do not possess pre-conceived restrictions to recruitment. Ethnicity, gender, age — our HR Director was a member of PPDG's Operational Board at 26 - are irrelevant. Indeed, formal qualifications are less important than people who can empathise with the clients they support, motivating individuals to 'break the mould'. Above all, we look for good communicators, people capable of caring and challenging at the same time.

We endeavour to engage with people at a local level, an approach that has given us a dynamic workforce that both reflects and celebrates the cultural diversity of the areas in which we live and work - PPDG staff speak 20-plus languages between them, whilst over 40 per cent are from ethnic minority groups.

Transferable skills

We also passionately believe that transferable skills can flourish in our development structure - 80 per cent of our management team have progressed internally.

Take Shelley for instance, who was formerly a Management Information Co-ordinator. She now manages our Erdington Advancement Centre in Birmingham, looking after nineteen staff, a client caseload of 350 clients and makes a massive contribution to a Birmingham Employment Zone contract worth £70 million for our company.

Penny joined us as on a short-term contract as a receptionist. During the last seven years she has progressed massively with us, building a sophisticated knowledge of our operating structure and undertaking lead auditor training that has enabled her to head PPDG's Continuous Improvement Team — a fundamental component of our Quality Strategy.

Attitudes

In both cases the right attitude, work ethic, transferable skills and a desire to achieve have led to progression at pace, yet it has also been symptomatic of our culture of 'on-the-job' development - around 75 per cent of training interventions take place within the company.

How is this achieved? Formal, corporate inductions introduce new employees to the values and belief systems of the wider business, with additional job role inductions in place to best equip the new employee with the knowledge required to carry out their role.

Online review

We have developed an online Personal Development Review (PDR) system with Higher Resolutions Software Ltd, allowing employees and line managers the flexibility to carry out 'live' reviews at any time or location. The PDR informs the company's 'training needs analysis', identifying a series of courses to deliver 'top-up' skills to employees. All are advertised via a quarterly training plan published on PPDG's intranet system, allowing employees to book training interventions in conjunction with their line manager — the interaction between the two being key to individual progression.

Crucially, the PDR system identifies the clear needs and agreed objectives of a given training course, before measuring success against them. We even have fully equipped learndirect suites within our centres to underpin the knowledge gained.

The drive and focus on staff development provided by our Board has in turn allowed individuals to be committed to their own learning and development. The ability for staff to define their own training ensures well attended courses, enthusiastic participants and a culture of learning within the company. Yet we don't just empower our employees to influence their own training — we even invite them to deliver it.

Nurturing Employees

An innovative 'Trainer Idol' search throughout PPDG led to many talented employees being nurtured to deliver a range of courses from presentation skills to benefits information. We've also developed our own Health & Safety representatives, IT champions, specialist 'outreach' staff and a team of internal auditors.

How effective has our approach been in helping employees to 'climb the work ladder'?

Awards

In the past two years we have been recognised as an Investor in Excellence, received ISO:9001 accreditation, honoured with a national Payroll Giving Award and given the prestigious Customer Excellence Award at the Confederation of British Industry's (CBI) annual Growing Business Awards.

We have been awarded with the Matrix standard and ALI Grade 1 in recognition of the consistently outstanding level of advice and guidance given to our clients - with only four official client complaints out of the 500,000 who accessed our employment and training services in 2006. Perhaps most rewarding of all, 80 per cent of all those who find work through us, stay in work.

To think that 20 per cent of our workforce were formerly long-term unemployed people.