6,000 reasons for all-action team to celebrate

An all-action team of 40 employment experts have celebrated finding work for 6,000 Birmingham people – and are now entering new phases of their own careers.

Pertemps Employment Alliance’s Action Team for Jobs (ATfJ) staff have spent the last five years working in deprived communities across the city helping long-term unemployed people overcome barriers preventing them finding jobs.

The Government funded initiative, run in north and south Birmingham by Pertemps Employment Alliance (PEA), smashed all targets with weeks to spare, consistently performing as one of the leading ATfJ projects in the country. ATfJ initiatives across the UK are run by different providers and are due to end by September 30th.

PEA’s team of 40 employment advisers and job search coaches have now been redeployed within the Edgbaston-based company which has offices across the city including Handsworth, Newtown, New Street, Washwood Heath, and Sparkhill.

All the project staff, past and present, have been highly praised by the company’s area operations director Nicki Lewis-Downing, who said ATfJ had been a major success in the city thanks to the experience, expertise and sheer hard work demonstrated by the staff involved.

During the lifetime of the project ATfJ, in north and south Birmingham, has helped over 6,000 local people into work including ex-offenders, homeless people and lone parents from many deprived areas of Birmingham.

PEA delivered ATfJ in the south of the city for five years and in north Birmingham for just the last 14 months after winning the additional contract. In little over a year, the north team beat all targets by finding employment for around 1,375 local people. Meanwhile, the south team consistently over-achieved their targets year in, year out, and found work for around 5,000 clients.

Support ranged from simply preparing CVs and providing training in interview techniques, to tailored programmes for retail and other sectors. More than 50 per cent of the 6,000 helped into work have remained in sustained employment.

Nicki added: “Action Teams for Jobs has been a bigger success than any of us could have imagined. We have been working with some of the more marginalised client groups in society, including ex-offenders, homeless people and lone parents.

“And yet we have succeeded where others have failed and that is a testimony to our dedicated advisers and job search coaches who have built up excellent relationships with employers, many of which have been sympathetic to barriers such as employment gaps and convictions.

“It is really sad that such a successful project has to end as the team achieved so much but we are now looking forward to the new challenges that lie ahead.”

Staff have now been redeployed on other Government-funded Welfare to Work initiatives run by PEA, including Employment Zone, Aston Pride Moving Up, New Deal Birmingham, New Deal Black Country and New Deal The Marches.

The aim of Action Teams for Jobs was to help those disadvantaged in the labour market secure and retain jobs by working with individuals to overcome the barriers they face when looking for sustainable employment. Advice and support was taken out into the community to help jobseekers in the areas where they lived. Advisers offered a real life, common sense approach to resolving unemployment issues, working closely with employers in order to find suitable opportunities for local residents and source flexible recruitment packages including help with transport costs and childcare provision.

www.pertemps.co.uk