Apprenticeship and Employability Officer

Job overview

Are you passionate about creating opportunities, inspiring people, and helping individuals take their first steps into rewarding NHS careers?

We're looking for an enthusiastic, proactive and people-focused individual to join our Apprenticeship and Employability Team. This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in delivering apprenticeship, work experience and employability programmes that help people from all backgrounds access careers within the NHS.

You will be at the heart of our Talent for Care agenda, supporting the development of future NHS talent through apprenticeships, work experience placements, employability programmes and community engagement initiatives.

Working close with managers, schools, colleges, training providers and community partners, you will help create pathways into employment, support apprentices throughout their journey and champion opportunities that enable people to "Get In, Get On and Get Further" within the NHS.

No two days are the same. One day you could be organising a careers event for local students, the next supporting apprentices through challenges, coordinating work experience placements, delivering workshops, or helping managers identify new apprenticeship opportunities across the Trust.

Please be advised that sponsorship is not eligible for this post.

Closing Date: Please be advised that this job advert will close as soon as sufficient applications have been received. Please apply for this job as soon as you can, if interested.

Main duties of the job

Assist in delivering the Health Education England ‘Talent for Care’ strategy and supporting widening participation across the Trust, through leading the implementation of Apprenticeships, Work Experience and employability programmes.

Responsible for the coordination of own area of work i.e. work experience, apprenticeships or employability but support within other areas when needed.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Act as the first point of contact for dealing with enquiries; provide guidance with regards to Apprenticeships, work experience, employability, development opportunities and all other learning and development activities. Take action as necessary and liaise with colleagues where required. Dealing with non routine queries, problem solving and developing alternative solutions related to these topics.
• Support the Widening participation manager in establishing Traineeship Programmes to the Trust to promote the health service as a career option to young people, and providing a pipeline of apprentice recruits for employers.
• Deliver support sessions/workshops in relation to apprenticeships opportunities.
• Maintain both manual and electronic filing systems and databases, as required by the department and Trust policies, ensuring all documents are accurately and appropriately archived.
• Produce short reports and present recommendations and possible solutions
• Provide basic career advice on how to ‘get in’, and ‘get on’ and ‘get further’ into the NHS and describe the variety of career pathways to existing staff and members of the public.
• Support in maintaining partnerships with partner organisations i.e., Local School and Further Education Providers, and support creating an annual programme of opportunities to widen participation and provide a ‘taster’ for people into the NHS through employability programmes.
• Assist with developing and delivering a directory of methods for staff to improve their functional skills, including IT.
• Continuously review Standard Operating Procedures for their role and share as appropriate. Ensure the intranet is kept up to date for own area of work.
• Support the widening participation manager in recruiting Health Ambassadors to train and work in partnership to support events which inspire young people to consider employment opportunities at UHCW.
• Attend and advise at events, workshops, and training sessions as necessary to promote working in the NHS.
• Communicate and promote the Apprenticeship Strategy to UHCW staff and encourage staff to learn as they work
• To help maintain a relationship with Training providers for apprenticeship frameworks
• To be welcoming, positive and engaging; providing clear and concise advice to people who are looking into a career within the NHS
• Help to develop the expansion of apprenticeships across the Trust, raising the profile and promotion of apprenticeships.
• Assist in organising and delivering an annual programme of work experience and apprenticeship programmes.
• Assist in identifying new vacancies and persuade Trust managers to recruit an apprentice.
• Assist to make clear logical persuasive and considered arguments to a variety of audiences some of whom may be resistant to change
• Provide pastoral support to newly recruited apprentices from interview date and throughout their apprenticeships.
• Required to manage difficult conversations
• Support all apprentices to complete all statutory and mandatory Trust training including induction
• Ensure the quality of the apprenticeship provision in terms of success, retention and progression and the development and extension of apprenticeship programmes.
• Liaise and build relationships with apprenticeship providers.
• Conduct post-learning evaluation to understand successes and improvement.
• Collate information in preparation for an evaluation to be undertaken to establish the impact of the placement.
• To assist in facilitating employability programmes, including developing and delivering training.
• Assist the team to increase the number of internal employability placements as a recruitment tool for all staff vacancies.
• Evaluation of employability programmes
• Work with the widening participation manager and stakeholders to evaluate current offering and develop an offering which ensures work experience is fit for purpose
• Ensure a robust recruitment and induction process for work experience candidates
• Administer and coordinate work experience placements across the Trust, ensuring the quality of placements by conducting regular evaluation
• Coordinate and facilitate role specific taster days and taster weeks.

For further details of the role please see the attached job description.