Wednesday November 16, 2011

Dear Carolyn

Extending working lives

As the UK working population ages, employers need to retain this older talent to ensure against a haemorrhage of skills, knowledge and expertise.

The further education and skills sector has a particular interest in this as 35% of their staff are over 50, compared to a national average of 24%. Learning and best practice from this sector can help others to manage and support older people in the workforce.
Find out more and read 8 tips for best practice...

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Men's support groups

There is no universal definition of ‘men’s support groups’  - nevertheless they represent a significant amount of local and national activity, often allied to specific themes. The first ever Policy framework document produced by the Coalition on Men and Boys (www.comab.org.uk) focussed on 5 primary territories – work; fatherhood; health; violence; education; and a number of past and current Navigator trainers set up the light touch Menswork Development (www.mensworkdevelopment.org)  with up to 35 ‘strands’ of menswork identified!
Read full article...

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Building self-efficacy

Evidence, both empirical and anecdotal, shows that a high level of self-efficacy is a clear predictor of success in many areas of life. Read the full article...

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Focus on Springboard in Belgium

Marie-Martine Carlier participated in a Springboard licensing course in December 2009. We caught up with her recently to see how she was getting on.
Read about Marie-Martine's experience...

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Great Expectations

The Council for Industry and Higher Education is a strategic leadership network of blue-chip companies working with vice chancellors and universities to develop the UK’s knowledge-based economy. The UK will not be able to compete in global markets without getting more women and other hard to reach groups into the manufacturing and engineering workforce. The CIHE report Great Expectations focuses on developing the pipeline for top engineering talent in 2030.

The student intake of 2030 are being born in 2011 and 2012. CIHE has clear recommendations for schools and the higher education sector to develop the top end talent that will lead highly-successful, richly-innovative, globally-competitive businesses in the middle of this century. The Talent 2010 Campaign makes recommendations such as:

• Schools to set targets for girls achieving high grades in A level Physics taught using problem centred curricula
• Provide career guidance to girls from age 11 about the benefits of a careers in manufacturing and engineering
• Universities to develop interpersonal and communication expertise during their undergraduate programmes
• Businesses, schools and universities to work together to provide high quality internships, work placements and work experience places starting as young as 11, particularly for girls

Read the full CIHE report here

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Strengthening women’s voices in government

The government held a consultation between March-June on how it engages with and listens to women. Individual and organisational responses were invited and there were 19 consultative events. The response was published on 4 November 2011.

The priority areas and most important challenges for women, identified by the consultation are:

• Tackling work-life balance issues including access to high quality affordable childcare
• Access to leadership positions in both business and politics
• Tackling the gender pay gap
• Getting more women to set up in business
• Making higher paid jobs more accessible to all women
• Greater equality for women

Read the Home Office report here

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