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Employment and Training

Coronavirus (COVID-19): Guidance for Employers and Businesses

Employment and Training

This page will be regularly updated with information on the training and employment opportunities available in response to Coronavirus, including information from the South East Digital Skills Partnership on digital skills training, and guidance on apprenticeships.

Details of webinars and other online events can be found in our Events section. You can also submit your own event to be listed on our event pages.

HMRC Webinars

Online support for businesses

Government departments are hosting a series of webinars to help businesses understand the support available.

Watch recorded sessions and register for the free webinars to learn more about the support available to help you deal with the economic impacts of coronavirus.

National Careers Service

The National Careers Service provides information, advice and guidance to help you make decisions on learning, training and work.

You can use the career tools to help you with your choices on careers, training and work. Whatever your situation, there’s something to help.

Find out more

Digital Boost

Free digital advice for your organisation

Speak directly to someone who can help. Thousands of digital experts are ready to offer help from Google to BT.

If you work for a small business or a charity and are looking for help on anything digital, you can book a one-on-one call with Digital Boost.

Find out more

The Skills Toolkit

Free courses to help you learn new skills or get a new job

An online learning platform to help boost the nation’s skills while people are staying at home has been launched.

The Skills Toolkit gives people access to free, high-quality digital and numeracy courses to help build up their skills, progress in work and boost their job prospects.

Find out more

Jobcentre Plus

Help for employers

If you are recruiting or making employees redundant there is information and support available.

You can also find out about the business benefits of recruiting and retaining an inclusive and diverse workforce.


Looking for work?

jobhelp is a good place to start.

Despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak, there are still jobs out there to apply to.

Apprenticeships

Breaks in Apprenticeship service for employers

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has published a video that shows employers how to use pause & stop in the apprenticeship service to record a break in learning.

This video takes employers through the new measures relating to breaks in learning that were recently detailed in the apprenticeship programme response to COVID-19 document. The Agency also describes why they might want to pause or stop an apprentice record in the apprenticeship service, and how to do it.

It also explains the steps that training providers have to take to record apprentice “breaks in learning” through the Individualised Learner Record, or ILR.

Incentives

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has created an incentives one-pager that brings together the choices for people over 16 years of age. It describes each programme and includes:

  • Employer costs
  • Incentives
  • Training
  • Duration
  • Eligibility
  • Progression route
  • Links to additional information

The Apprenticeship Programme

This guidance provides information on:

  • applying the policy on breaks in learning;
  • delays to end-point assessment (EPA); and
  • alternative arrangements for EPA and external quality assurance.

The Redundancy Support Service for Apprentices (ReSSA)

The Redundancy Support Service for Apprentices (ReSSA), launched by the Department for Education, provides clear, accessible advice and guidance to apprentices following redundancy, while supporting their next steps. It will help redundant apprentices to identify new apprenticeship and employment opportunities, and, where they are eligible, complete their current apprenticeship.

The Department for Education are asking if you would be able to support redundant apprentices by sharing details of any apprenticeship vacancies you have. Apprentices that have been made redundant may already have the valuable skills and experience that your organisation needs. They are eager to continue their apprenticeship, put their learning into practice and can give organisations a quick return on investment.

The service will share your vacancy details with redundant apprentices through the new vacancy sharing service. Suitable candidates will receive regular emails asking them to contact you directly using the details you supply.

If you would like to recruit a redundant apprentice or offer new apprenticeship opportunities, please visit Hiring an apprentice who has been made redundant or call 0800 015 0600 to find out more. You can also watch our YouTube video for more information.

If you are aware of any apprentices who have been made redundant please encourage them to visit Facing redundancy during your apprenticeship or call 0800 015 0400 to speak to an adviser.

Further Training and Guidance

BT Skills for Tomorrow

BT Skills for Tomorrow aims to give people the skills they need to flourish in the digital world. Due to the spread of the coronavirus, having these skills is more important than ever.

Large numbers of people are self-isolating or are confined to their homes. It is vital that people with low or no digital skills can keep in touch with family and friends and access health services. The spread of the coronavirus presents significant challenges to small businesses. Families with children at home from school need to get the best out of technology to help their children to learn and play. And many people need support as they work from home for the first time.

Working in partnership with leading digital skills organisations, BT Skills for Tomorrow has free resources and information to help people with each of these challenges.

Free courses: OpenLearn from The Open University

Produced by The Open University, a world leader in open and distance learning, all OpenLearn courses are free to study. The Open University offers nearly 1000 free courses across 8 different subject areas, and are available to start right away.

Google: Free online courses

Discover a range of free learning content designed to help grow your business or jump-start your career. You can learn by selecting individual modules, or dive right in and take an entire course end-to-end.

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) COVID-19 SME Guidance

NCSC has today published guidance to support businesses moving from physical to digital delivery as part of the ongoing COVID-19 response. The guidance has been created specifically to support businesses who are relying more heavily on IT services to run their business.

The NCSC is committed to equipping all UK businesses with the best cyber security advice. The support package includes guidance on home working, video teleconferencing and spotting email scams related to Covid-19. All additional and pre-existing guidance for business can be found on the NCSC webpage.

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