Kickstart – solving skills shortages in the housing sector
Finding experienced personnel can be, at best, a challenge – and at worst, an expensive and time-consuming ordeal. With the high cost of advertising and the shortage of appropriately skilled staff, the process of trying to find the right people in the right location with the right skills at the right time can exhaust a company’s recruitment budget without delivering the results.
The Kickstart programme is an innovative solution to your staffing needs. Kickstart offers all of the advantages of large-volume, targeted recruitment and training activities within a cost effective solution that not only benefits your organisation but also provides regeneration for the local community.
To date, through 114 Kickstarts, 1600 individuals have been successfully trained and placed in employment with our clients throughout the United Kingdom.
Who is it for?
Kickstart will benefit any organisation faced with a high-volume staffing requirement. Using its unique approach to recruitment and training, Synergy will support your organisations requirement to increase its pool of committed and dedicated specialist staff. The Kickstart programme allows access to locally sourced, specifically selected, suitably trained and skilled candidates, on a temporary or permanent basis.
How does it work?
Scoping of requirement
We work closely with you to understand the reasons for the recruitment drive and the expected business benefits; understanding your organisation, your strategies and goals is critical to the overall success of the programme.
Through effective research and analysis of your specific staffing needs, we scope a bespoke recruitment and training solution focused on your organisations business culture and objectives, employment profile, the role profiles of your vacancies and the core skills and competencies required of potential candidates.
Advertising and marketing campaign
Our marketing team will run an effective marketing campaign using your company branding. We use local press advertising and on-line advertising using Synergy’s own website along with major national vacancy websites. Vacancies are also registered with the local job centre and we scrutinise our existing database of registered candidates, utilising e-mail and our SMS (text) messaging service to alert potentially suitable individuals.
Telephone pre-screening
We conduct initial pre-screening and qualification of all applicants via telephone. Based on evaluation criteria agreed with you, our resource consultants will assess candidates on their key experiences and attributes, developing a short list of candidates who meet the core requirements.
Assessment day
All successfully pre-screened candidates are invited to an assessment day. The assessement day is a highly interactive event, giving you the opportunity to assess the screened candidates through a series of tests, group discussions, informal and formal interviews, in an organised and controlled manner, and giving the attendees a forum to prove themselves as potential candidates for your Kickstart programme.
Synergy will work with you to develop the content for the day, and we will implement a series of proven evaluation and profiling methods and models to assess the candidates’ suitability.
Synergy will organise and facilitate the event and collate and submit the post event assessment and profiling data to you. We will support and assist you in your candidate selection process, with a view to creating a list of candidates for your Kickstart programme.
Induction day
Designed in partnership with your organisation, this day is intended to give candidates an honest and accurate understanding of the role they are taking on. The day focuses on what the candidate can expect on a day-to-day basis – and the career opportunities that will be available to them. We also make candidates aware of what will be required of them and the commitment that they must make to the organisation. Finally, we introduce the training programme ¬– and provide information on how to both make the most of it and gain success from it.
Kickstart training
We will design your Kickstart training programme with your business goals in mind. The intensive training programme will be developed around the core skills and competencies you require. Our focused learning solution will build awareness, knowledge and understanding of your organisation and its ethos, values and practices.
The training, incorporating continuous assessment techniques, will be innovative and flexible, encouraging attendees to develop and enhance their skills and commitment, whilst learning how to apply their knowledge to the context of your business processes.
Assessment and interview
Course completion offers the candidates the opportunity to prove their knowledge and understanding of the content during a concluding formal assessment session. Synergy will evaluate the candidate’s skill, competency and proficiency against a benchmark of performance indicators.
Together with their evaluation reports, the successful candidates are available to attend a final selection interview with you. This process will allow you to consider the progress and potential of each individual, and to assess their suitability as a new recruit in your organisation.
Temporary or permanent contracts?
The choice is yours. We will help advise on which is more?appropriate for your organisation’s needs and on the costs involved.
Mentoring and support
Synergy can offer a programme of mentoring and support following successful recruitment. This can include the provision of on-site consulting support, mentoring your new recruits, undertaking on-going reviews and appraisals, or supporting your HR department in conducting full Training Needs Analysis of your new recruits.
A typical Kickstart campaign
