Helping businesses to grow thanks to Mansfield college’s new project

The Reskill and Recover project has been designed with small and medium-sized businesses in mind, to ensure their workforce have the skills needed to access future and emerging jobs markets after the pandemic and post-Brexit.

A range of short courses could be available free to those in the D2N2 area and cover a range of different levels and subject areas. The project has been part-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and will be low cost or free to employers, subject to eligibility.

Hayley Woods, owner of Woods of West Gate salon, has recently been involved in the college’s Reskill and Recover project and studied online with her colleague Alanya Jennings.

Hayley said: “I was looking to upskill key members of the team in areas that we’d identified as priorities for our business moving forward. The fact that the programmes are CMI accredited was attractive as this gave us access to a wide bank of resources to help our studies. And of course, the programmes being free was also a deciding factor as it felt it was too good an opportunity to miss.

“I completed the Corporate Social Responsibility course and as a result it has made me realise that as an organisation we need to clearly communicate to our customers our intentions around this.

“Alanya has developed strategies to improve communications between team members and has a newfound confidence in leading team briefings. These programmes allowed us to focus on other areas of skill development rather than industry specific or technical skills and there have been real changes in business operations as a result of engaging in this learning.”

Manager of retail, adult and professional studies, Nicholas Maidment, said: “The courses are being run flexibly and can be done online and should fit in with most people’s busy schedules. We’ve tailored the programmes to support those who may feel their skills aren’t as sharp as they were and to help people to gradually increase their confidence, especially when considering studying a new skill.”

The full remit of programmes is available at www.wnc.ac.uk/reskill.