Essential Skills for Employment - Cumbria Careers Hub

Essential skills: those highly transferable skills which almost everyone needs to do almost any job, and which support the application of technical skills and knowledge.

Many young people who are leaving education are not career ready.  This has been exacerbated by Covid.  Employers, providers and other stakeholders (especially those engaged in Information, Advice and Guidance initiatives to support young people) report the situation as exacerbated by Covid, with young people losing/failing to gain relevant social skills and developing significant resilience and confidence issues.

To address this challenge, Cumbria Careers Hub with partners and employers agreed that a consistent approach to the delivery of employability skills that is impactful and endorsed by employers will help close the skills gap currently identified in the Cumbria Local Skills Improvement Plan.  Using a common language will support young people to understand and develop the essential skills needed for employment readiness.

Our approach is simple and can be adopted by all stakeholders in Cumbria, be that Employers, Educators or Partners working with young people.

Moving forward Cumbria will adopt the Skills Builder Universal Framework.  This is a leading tool for measuring and building essential skills. It breaks the 8 essential skills down into a sequence of steps, starting with absolute beginner through to mastery. Developed with leading businesses, academics, and educators, it consolidates the array of different frameworks into something comprehensive and practical. It is a completely open source and backed by years of research. This research tells us that those with stronger essential skills have been shown to enjoy greater life satisfaction and can earn up to 12% more than their peers. On a national level, having a more skilled workforce can also result in greater productivity, and can ultimately contribute to a stronger economy overall.

Its purpose is to create a universal language surrounding the key skills that Cumbria’s employers have said they want and need to help their businesses grow and thrive. Skills are an integral part of careers development for young people, supporting them at the beginning of their careers journey but also enabling them to maintain and progress within their chosen path. Our aim is to ensure our young people are better prepared for their best next steps.

The Skills Builder Universal Framework can be used by, and for, anyone.

It’s used by educators to build transferable skills in their students, by companies to support career progression in their staff, by Impact Organisations and Community Schemes, and by individuals to develop their skills throughout life.

 

How can Employers use the Universal Framework?

Speak the language of schools and colleges

Our approach is simply designed to share a common work ready language which can be used by employers as part of their engagement with young people to support experiences of the workplace and careers activities in schools and be embedded within their recruitment and induction processes.

85% of secondary and Further Education institutions in England have adopted the Skills Builder Framework as the language of employability.

By using this shared language, you can effectively connect with young people and ensure they relate to your organisation.

Engage the younger generation through outreach programmes that help them understand how their skills translate into your roles, organisation and culture.

1. Use the term essential skills rather than employability, core, soft key and transferable wherever possible when working with young people in school or college, university and part-time work or volunteering and provide opportunities for young people to practice their essential skills.
2. Bring essential skills to life by helping young people understand when they are practicing and achieving these skills e.g. if you offer work experience – build it into their work experience week.
3. Talk about the essential skills you will be looking for when you attend careers fairs, give careers talks, support schools with mock interviews and projects.
4. Use the Skills Builder Icons in everything that you do including adding it to your Display at Careers Fairs and presentations you deliver in schools and colleges
5. Add the skills builder icons/ language to your job profiles.
6. Ensure all your staff use the essential skills language in the business and also when they go into schools and colleges to represent your business.