Bristol's £500m retail and leisure development opened in September revitalising the city centre with top name stores, a 13 screen Cinema De Lux and numerous restaurants.
West at Work formed a successful partnership with the scheme's developer, Bristol Alliance, to offer a full package of support aimed at ensuring that the 4,000 jobs that were created were filled by appropriately skilled local people.
Services included:
- Promotion of vacancies through job centres, jobs fairs, job matching (to existing candidate databases) and advertising. Additional support with job scoping, sifting and interviews.
- A Cabot Circus Jobs Bus that toured Bristol five days a week. Staffed by experienced public sector career and training advisers visiting local communities with advice on all the support, training and jobs available.
- Innovative, free, training courses developed with input from employers aimed at giving jobseekers the skills to get jobs. Training included general job search/interview skills and confidence building as well as specific retail, catering and security courses.
- Extensive community work and contact with local neighbourhoods, voluntary organisations and support groups. Offering advice for disadvantaged groups and specific neighbourhoods.
Results
- More than 90% of Cabot Circus employers took advantage of the services offered through West at Work - making recruitment and training of local people easier and more cost effective for businesses.
- West at Work partners engaged with around 14,500 people from disadvantaged areas or backgrounds through community activities and support channels across the city.
- By the end of 2008 around 1,000 people will have taken part in bespoke training aimed at equipping them for work at Cabot Circus.
- Estimates show that around 40% of jobs at Cabot Circus have been filled by local people from specific disadvantaged groups or target areas.
- West at Work has established a successful recruitment model through its Cabot Circus activities and this will be replicated in the future at other sites benefiting businesses and local people across the whole region.
Cabot Circus Centre Director, Richard Belt, said: "Cabot Circus created over 4,000 jobs so the need to source and skill high numbers of staff was vital. A streamlined provision of free services delivering practical and efficient solutions for individual businesses helped our new retailers and restaurants to open fully recruited with well trained staff. The partnership has created real results with a positive impact on our business and the local community."
For more information visit www.cabotcircus.com