As an award winning recruitment agency and with a profound awareness on
diversity, SkyBlue is committed to work trials and considering employee
mentoring and supporting inclusive recruitment practices. The BAOH
campaign entails all that.
SkyBlue's Birmingham City Centre office was the first to get involved with the BAOH programme. As a result of the successful experience in Birmingham, key personnel from the SkyBlue branches in Birmingham, Warrington, Nottingham, London, Glasgow and Head Office are now trained as 'buddies' and provide people who are homeless or have been homeless with two week work placements on a regular basis.
This scheme fits in line with SkyBlue's commitment to ensuring diversity in the workplace and to wholly embrace a diverse workforce and the skills it can bring to a business.
Dave Massingham, SkyBlue Diversity and Equality Manager explains “By creating partnerships with organisations like BAOH, we keep Diversity at the forefront of our people's mind. BAOH has been supportive during the process of buddy training and likewise during the placements. The best indicator of the relationship is that the number of placements keeps on rising and recently a SkyBlue representative has been invited to join the BAOH Steering Group in Birmingham in order to input and advise on BAOH business strategy for the present year, which represents a major milestone on the partnership of both companies.
The most rewarding part of this initiative is seeing the clients obtaining full time jobs or heading up to a career through Job Coaching and/or education. This is the case of most clients going through SkyBlue and it definitely is the major achievement of the whole programme. The main challenge is to ensure that the client feels comfortable in the work environment and gains confidence in the process, as most of the people coming through BAOH have usually spent a long period of time without recent work. Thanks to the training provided by BAOH and the experience from the SkyBlue recruiters, who all hold REC accreditations, this has proved to be a successful yet challenging experience."
A post-placement report is produced at the end of every placement where client satisfaction is measured as well as the activities carried out during the placement. This serves as tool for SkyBlue to obtain invaluable feedback on how the scheme is progressing.
