GEMS NI

Working with Employers

Over the past 7 years GEMS NI has developed a cogent strategy for working with employers and has built its credibility with employers by working in the context of presenting a strong business case for employers to both work with GEMS and to create the climate to employ long term unemployed people.

"It was a pleasure to work with you and your organisation on this project and we wish all the candidates success in their futures." — Valerie Blayney, PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP

We have an innovative approach to working with employers which is held up as a model of best practice in bringing together the supply and demand ends of the labour market.

Managing relationships with employers has been crucial to the success of GEMS employment matching service. GEMS makes a strong business case for employing long term unemployed people by understanding the competency framework and generic skills that an employer requires and then providing training and development opportunities for unemployed people to meet these requirements, and by offering support to both the client and employer. As such it works both at the supply and demand ends to get the match right. This also involves getting employers to move away from their “comfort zones” of traditional qualifications.

We encourage best practice by “educating” employers to challenge their potential to “make a difference” through exploring innovative ways in which they can support and enable unemployed people to target jobs through for example: Mentoring, Taster Sessions, Work Placements, Buddy Systems and looking beyond “paper qualifications” when recruiting. GEMS also matches employer needs by enabling local unemployed people to develop “marketable skills” and competences.

GEMS has experience of identifying mechanisms i.e. solutions which can assist employers to fill positions where there have been problems, for example through low numbers of applicants with the necessary “skills for work”.

Our track record with employers enables us to develop innovate approaches to promoting opportunities which support the learning and development needs of our clients.

We always look at where we can add value to mainstream programmes and have worked with Bridge to Employment to develop an innovative programme with HBOS to enable people participants to have a real and meaningful opportunity to access employment with the company.

GEMS NI Ltd Employer Relationship Management

We are successful because we understand the needs of those who are disadvantaged in the labour market and the needs of employers and work effectively at both the “supply and demand” ends to place a person in meaningful employment while meeting an employer’s needs to recruit a productive worker.

GEMS NI has been instrumental in encouraging a citywide approach involving labour market Intermediaries towards working with employers that has resulted in a co-ordinated approach to partnership with employers leading to employment outcomes for our target group. We have also worked closely with Department of Employment and Learning employer-facing personnel to develop opportunities for clients.

“We found working in partnership with GEMS to be excellent methods of recruitment as the number of applications received increased for previously hard to fill vacancies. Furthermore, employees targeted through this process were just as competent, if not more competent than employees from other sources and more importantly tended to stay with the company longer.” — Joy Chambers, Training & Resources Manger, Allstate Northern Ireland (previously Northbrook Technology)

GEMS NI appreciates the importance of developing and maintaining a strategic and dynamic platform with employers – international, European, national, regional, SME’s, micro-businesses and incoming businesses including FDI companies. We have developed a dynamic platform of employer engagement that has assisted us to encourage employers:

• To see the potential to recruit valuable members to their workforce from the priority target groups of unemployed people.
• To look beyond the traditional qualification “comfort zones” when recruiting for entry-level positions and promote opportunities for unemployed people to meet the generic skill requirements as opposed to formal qualifications.
• To facilitate opportunities for clients to develop appropriate work skills and improve their employability by providing a range of interventions including job tasters, learning placements and workshops.
• Provide support to our clients who enter employment assisting them to deal with “early days” in their new jobs.

“HBOS are very satisfied with the outcome, we have been able to make contact with people who we normally wouldn’t have access to, people who may attend the job centres or community groups who would normally de-select themselves from thinking of working in this type of environment.” — Alison Thornbury, Resourcing Consultant, HBOS