Further and higher education colleges across Northern Ireland are urging local businesses to avail of the wealth of resources currently available to them.
New approaches to accredited training and upskilling opportunities have been quickly adapted by the colleges to meet current circumstances and the online provision, mentoring and bespoke offerings will be essential to meeting the needs of the business community, learners in employment and those returning to employment in the drive to revive the economy.
The six colleges of further and higher education – South Eastern Regional College, South West College, Southern Regional College, North West Regional College, Northern Regional College and Belfast Metropolitan College – continue to offer a range of facilitated programmes designed to upskill individuals and work teams in a range of industry sectors including business, leadership and management, construction, healthcare and hospitality along with digital transformation skills – the colleges have helped many small businesses move to an online presence so they can continue their business remotely during lockdown. Colleges can also create bespoke courses to meet the needs of individual businesses and work with individuals to upskill.
Neil McCauley, turned his career experience into Professional Recognition achieving the equivalent to a vocational masters with a Level 7 City & Guilds Professional Recognition Engineering Management through support from a college of further education.
Skills Focus programmes, which are fully funded by the Department for the Economy (DfE) and usually delivered in the workplace or college facilities, have been adapted for online delivery. This means that employees who are currently working remotely can join programmes, available now, to upskill whilst they are furloughed or continue to work from home.
Applications are also open until May 29 for £5000 worth of Invest NI Innovation Vouchers which will allow businesses or potential entrepreneurs to work with a public sector knowledge provider, such as your local college, on an innovation project. Applications are particularly welcome for projects that might help alleviate issues that businesses are facing because of COVID-19.
In addition, the InnovateUs programme, which is offered across Northern Ireland through the six further and higher education colleges, is a fully funded skills development programme from DfE which provides small business with less than 50 employees with the capacity to innovate across a range of business development activities, providing up to 60 hours of fully funded mentoring in a number of key areas including engineering, product design and development and digital transformation.
Contact your local college of further and higher education for details.
Keep up to date with the latest news and views on the NI job market and more by following the nijobfinder blog.
Follow nijobfinder on Facebook and Twitter to see the latest jobs and to ensure your dream job won’t pass you by.