The National Accounts Team facilitated a working group across our employment programmes for the purpose of creating a collaborative space to fill job vacancies for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. The first meeting took place in February 2022 and then each month with the final meeting taking place in July, just before the start of the Games.
The employment programmes contributing to the working group included JETS, Work and Health, IPES, Restart, Thrive into Work/IPS, National Careers Service, CFO3 and Find Your Future.
Everyone at the meeting was encouraged to share knowledge of employers and local stakeholders and to update on how they were planning to promote the Games and activity around recruitment. Promotional activity included workshops/presentations, job clubs and vacancy-led sessions delivered to educate participants about the opportunities available to them.
Guests were also invited to meetings by the National Accounts Team. National Accounts employer OCS Group gave a presentation on the jobs they were recruiting for. Representatives from the Department of Work and Pensions and the West Midlands Combined Authority also attended sessions to provide information on training and jobs available for the Games.
Martin Collard, National Account Manager, on the successful collaboration between the employment programmes said:
“Setting up an internal 2022 Commonwealth games employability working group meant that I could make sure information was shared in one place for all to benefit. This is the very essence of collaborative working we encourage as part of the National Accounts Team and it was obvious to me that by bringing together different employment contracts, we could deliver the very best outcomes for people in the region.”
The programmes involved agreed to a combined job target of 145. The collaborative approach resulted in the programmes reaching 94% of their target with 137 jobs filled in areas such as stewarding, cleaning, security, traffic marshalling, hospitality, retail and catering.
Well done to everyone for coming together to achieve a fantastic result!