Accenture volunteers help local residents to improve employability skills
On Friday 4th March, Accenture Strategy and ELBA teamed up to deliver an employability skills session for local residents from the London Borough of Haringey who are looking to secure employment. ELBA are a key strategic partner who Accenture supports as part of their corporate citizenship Skills to Succeed(link is external) initiative.
Jakob Rieckh, Technology and IT Strategist from Accenture, worked closely with Joey Carey and Abdul Ali, Employment Project Managers from ELBA, to bring together a team of seven volunteers and 13 residents from Haringey. The Accenture volunteers assisted residents in sharpening their CVs and interview skills through the delivery of skills based workshops, offering one-to-one and small group support, drawing upon their experience and expertise of working in the corporate, professional sectors, to help local residents move closer to employment.
In Haringey, just over one in four (26%) of Haringey’s residents are in low-paid work. This is reflected in the fact that 28% of young people live in families receiving tax credits. Regarding education, overall, Haringey is in the bottom eight performing London boroughs when comparing the latest indicators for GCSE results. Haringey also has massive issues regarding quality of housing, homelessness and people receiving benefits. It is a borough which has a lot of need for assistance and support, particularly when helping people into sustainable, meaningful employment.
Feedback at the end of the session from volunteers and candidates alike was really positive. Jakob informed us “On behalf of the whole Accenture team I want to thank you for the professional and flawless organisation of the employability session. We all took away very inspiring new perspectives from the event – I hope the same goes for the candidates.”
Thanos Malevitis, Managing Director of Technology Strategy at Accenture, commented “Thank you for the great session last Friday. Very well organised and impressively impactful. I look forward to working together again in the future.”
The session involved a lot of preparation and organisation, and was nearly three months in the making, with planning and collaboration between Jakob and Joey beginning in December 2015. It was fantastic working with the Accenture team and we are looking forward to seeing how our local residents do in gaining employment, and working together with Accenture again!
To find out more information on ELBA services please contact joseph.carey@elba-1.org.uk and abdul.ali@elba-1.org.uk.
