Education, Employment and Skills
Transform lives and help communities thrive
Creating meaningful employment is one of the most significant ways that businesses can contribute to the livelihoods of individuals and communities, and for many, good work is the only sustainable route out of poverty.
Offering quality work inspiration, adopting inclusive approaches to recruitment, and breaking down barriers to entering work for people from diverse backgrounds can benefit businesses by helping them to tackle skills shortages, build new talent pipelines, boost retention rates and achieve higher productivity.
Work with BITC to provide meaningful employment
At BITC, we harness the collective power of businesses to improve social mobility by helping people overcome disadvantage and increasing their access to good, sustainable jobs.
Our work is organised around our ‘Inspire, Hire, Thrive’ employment framework which has been developed to help businesses think more strategically about their jobs and skills offer.
Inspire
Engage and motivate the future workforce through impactful education partnerships and pre-employment programmes.
– Our Time to Act report uncovers four focus areas for businesses seeking to improve outcomes in education.
– We developed our national job coaching programme which connects jobseekers with business volunteers from the UK’s leading business. So far, we have supported 1,400 job seekers, with 50% moving on to a positive employment and education outcome.
– We offer a range of programme opportunities for businesses to get involved in supporting refugees into work.
Hire
Provide pathways into work for jobseekers by opening doors to diverse talent.
– Join our Opening Doors campaign which has an ambition to make 2 million jobs more accessible to diverse talent.
– Ban the Box calls on employers to create a fair opportunity for people with convictions by removing the tick box from application forms and asking about criminal convictions later in the recruitment process if and when it becomes necessary.
– Our annual report, ‘Opening Doors, What Works’, unpacks employer actions that are making the most impact on improving social mobility through supporting young people and job seekers into good work. Read the 2024 report and toolkit.
– Get involved with our new project, working in partnership with Youth Futures Foundation, to support ethnically diverse young people into work.
Thrive
Create a culture of inclusion and learning, supporting all employees to develop the skills and support to thrive in the workplace.
– BITC’s Upskilling for All report sets out how employers can better support low skilled employees to participate in upskilling opportunities.
– BITC’s Workwell Self-Assessment tool is a measurement tool for evaluating an organisation’s wellbeing journey in building a thriving workforce.
– Find out how you can develop essential skills in your workforce by visiting the Skills Builder Partnership.
The Employment & Skills Leadership Team
We work with a network of senior business leaders who champion and provide strategic guidance to shape the areas of action for BITC’s network in improving social mobility through education and employment. Our mission is to impact 1 million lives through business action, ensuring every young person and job seeker has the skills, pathway to work and support to thrive in the workplace.
Frequently Asked Questions
Opening Doors is BITC’s flagship inclusive recruitment campaign. Open to all employers, and free to join, we have an ambition to make 2 million jobs more accessible to diverse talent by supporting employers to make changes to the way that they recruit.
Learn and share: Sign up to our opening doors campaign to join a network of employers dedicated to inclusive recruitment. We convene Opening Doors Employers quarterly to learn and share best practice on the five keys to inclusive recruitment.
Knowledge and content: We offer valuable research, factsheets, and toolkits that provide insights into effective action, supported by practical business case studies.
Employment programmes: Our programmes support individuals facing employment barriers. This can include those moving on from homelessness, disadvantaged young people, people over 50, refugees or single carers and those responsible for a family.
Place-based action: Our work in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged places creates coalitions of stakeholders working to ensure systemic change. This involves addressing multiple factors contributing to poor social mobility, creating greater opportunities, and directly supporting young people’s education and career development through business-led initiatives.
Advisory support: Our in-depth advisory and consultancy support enable businesses to address inclusion and inequality across the UK through their specific context, resulting in interventions to drive long-term, sustainable improvements in their employability outreach and inclusive recruitment practice.
The Ban the Box campaign calls on UK employers to give people with criminal records a fair chance to compete for jobs by removing the tick box from application forms and instead asking about criminal convictions later in the recruitment process, if necessary. The form below is your organisations first step to becoming a Ban the Box employer.
