Developing young workforce strategy - impact on employer engagement: evaluation

Appendix 3: Core topic guide for employers

Employer topic guide: core questions

• Why do employers engage with schools and young people, and what helps and hinders them in doing this?
• For how long has your organisation engaged with schools and young people to help them understand and explore the world of work – and does this pre-date the Developing the Young Workforce Strategy (2014-present)?
• Please describe the keyways in which you've contributed to and/or been supported by your DYW Regional Group [prompt: in what ways has your DYW Regional Group interactions helped your:
  • Student engagement: work placements, work inspiration activity, career advice etc.
  • Tacking inequality (e.g. affected knowledge and motivation to tackle inequalities by Gender (e.g. STEM), Special Educational Needs and Disability, care experience, ethnicity etc).
  • Partnerships with schools / colleges (including, curriculum design, lesson support, skills planning and alignment).

Employer Partnerships:

• Please describe the ways in which your DYW Regional Group involvement has evolved over time.
• What has been your motivation for supporting young people's education and employment? Has this changed over time?
• Do you have a particular focus of the kind of young people are you looking to support? If so, what are your reasons for this? [Prompt – in local area, those who most need help, challenging gender stereotypes etc].
• To what extent have you found it straightforward to support young people? What has helped you to do this?
• What kind of support or information have you found particularly helpful in taking forward your work on engagement?
• Has anything got in the way of you supporting young people? What could be done to tackle these issues?
• What will influence your ability and willingness to support young people in the future?
• What has been the impact on COVID-19 on your ability to engage with schools and young people and on how you engage? To what extent do you think there will be any lasting impact on the way you engage?
• Are there forms of support that employers find easier to organise and provide?
• What kind of support do you prefer/feel able to offer young people? What lies behind these preferences?
• Does the kind of support you feel able to offer vary over time or in terms of your own circumstances?

The difference that engagement has made:

• To what extent do you feel the Developing the Young Workforce Strategy has made a difference to you – for example in terms of ease of recruitment, school / college engagement, quality of match, retention etc?

Employer awareness, and capacity to support young people:

• To what extent do you find it easy to understand the range of qualifications on offer?
• What is the value that you place on qualifications when recruiting young people, and in subsequent progression at work?
• What do you see as the status or value of work based qualifications? (prompt: versus qualifications attained through academic pathways).
• To what extent has the importance that you place on qualifications changed over time?
• To what extent do you and your staff feel confident in supporting young people - and particularly those who are facing the greatest barriers to employment?
• What support would help you provide support to young people facing the greatest barriers to employment? [Focus on the propensity / ability of employers to help young people with mental and physical disabilities, poor mental health, and/or care experienced into work placements, vocational qualifications and employment].
• How can employer engagement in this agenda be further expanded?
• What could be done to encourage more employers to engage with schools and young people?
• What do you think might lie behind a lack of engagement by some employers with schools and young people?

Final comments:

• Do you have any final reflections or observations about employer engagement in young people's education and employment?

Variations for specific groups:

Employers signed up to the Young People's Guarantee/5 Asks:

• Why do employers engage with YPG, and what helps and hinders them in doing this?
• What was your motivation in joining the YPG?
• Was your joining the YPG part of a longer standing commitment to helping young people thrive in the world of work? If so, what kinds of activities have you been involved in in the past?
• Do you have a particular focus in terms of the 5 Asks? If so, what is the reason for this?

Employers using ERI

• To what extent is your use of ERI part of a wider approach to engagement and recruitment? [eg working with DYW to engage with schools and young people, seeking to recruit local people where possible etc]
• Have you found it easy to recruit using the ERI? Has the right kind of support been available for you?
• What do you think would encourage employers to engage more with disadvantaged groups in this way?
• Has your experience of recruiting through ERI encouraged you to do more in terms of engaging and recruiting from these groups?
• What do you think would encourage other employers to make use of support such as ERI?

Employers using Marketplace

• Why do employers use Marketplace, and what helps and hinders them in doing this?
• How extensive has been your use of Marketplace to support young people?
• Is your use of Marketplace part of wider commitment to helping young people thrive in the world of work? If so, what other kinds of activities have you been involved in?
• What has been your motivation for your use of Marketplace [and wider activities if relevant]?

Additional questions on virtual engagement:

• For how long has your organisation engaged with schools and young people to help them understand and explore the world of work – and does this pre-date the DYW Strategy (2014-present)?
• What kind of virtual/digital engagement have you been involved with over the last 2 years to support young people
• What was your experience of this, in terms of how practical this was for you to organise and deliver?
• What is your sense of the benefits and disadvantages of digital engagement?
• Do you feel that there are particular types of digital engagement that seem to be particularly effective and may be at least as valuable as face-to-face engagements?
• Do you plan to continue to offer opportunities for digital engagement with young people? If so, what particular forms of support will this involve?
• More generally, are there any particular advantages of digital delivery that you would keen to see retained?
• What has been your motivation to engage with young people in this way (i.e. digitally/virtually)?
• More generally, what has been your motivation for supporting young people's education and employment? Has this changed over time?

Employer topic guide: non-engaged organisations

• To what extent have you engaged with young people around their education or training, now or in the recent past?

If some engagement:

• What has your engagement involved? [eg Offering Work Experience, providing insights into your organisation or sector, hosting pupil visits, contributing to curriculum content, hiring an apprentice]
• [IF RELEVANT] How have you engaged with schools/education
• What do you think have been the benefits from your engagement?
• To what extent has the scale and nature of your engagement changed over time?
• Do you plan to change the scale and nature of your engagement in the future?
• What has determined the scale and nature of your involvement? What has encouraged you to get involved? What has made engagement unappealing or difficult?
• What could be done to help you further increase your level of engagement?

If little or no engagement:

• What are the reasons for your current level of engagement?
• Do you have any plans to increase your level of engagement? [If so, reasons for this]
• Do you feel there are particular things that are getting in the way of you from engaging more?
• What would encourage you to engage more?
• More generally, how do you think can employer engagement in young people's education and employment be further expanded?
• What could be done to encourage more employers to engage with schools and young people?
• What do you think might lie behind the unwillingness or inability of other employers to engage with schools and young people?
• To what extent do you think it is clear to employers about what to do and who to contact if they want to engage with young people, schools and colleges? [e.g. do you think it is clear to employers who they should approach if they wanted to offer Work Experience, hire an apprentice, contribute to shaping the curriculum etc.
• To what extent do you find it easy to understand the range of qualifications on offer?
  • What is the value that you place on qualifications when recruiting young people, and in subsequent progression at work?
  • What do you see as the status or value of work based qualifications?
  • To what extent has the importance that you place on qualifications changed over time?
• To what extent do you and your staff feel confident in supporting young people – and particularly those who are facing the greatest barriers to employment?
• What support would help you provide support to young people facing the greatest barriers to employment? [Focus on the propensity / ability of employers to help young people with mental and physical disabilities, poor mental health, and/or care experienced into work placements, vocational qualifications and employment].