Workforce Development

Workforce Development In the Voluntary & Community Sector in East London

Investing in people and the communities they serve

Workforce development is the process of making sure that you, your colleagues, your trustees and volunteers have access to all the skills and tools to help deliver the best possible services to your community. This might mean formal certified training, on-the-job training, informal training, or that you work with a mentor who will help you address specific issues within your organisation. It might also mean that you are seconded to another organisation for a short time to learn how they manage a specific aspect of delivering a community service eg fundraising, project management or staff management. Whatever the format, workforce development represents an investment of time and resources in voluntary and community sector staff, trustees and volunteers who make a difference to the communities they work in.

An organisation is only as good as its people
No matter what your organisation does or how large or small it is, the impact your organisation has on your community depends on the skills and qualities of you and the people you work with.

Some investment in your workforce is necessary just to make sure that everyone keeps up to date with new ideas and ways of working. What will set your organisation apart is thinking strategically about what skills and experience will help your organisation to move forward and deliver even better services.

East London:

Workforce Development is a challenging and exciting area. In every sector there is potential for growth ~ and the VCS is no different. The challenge is to ensure that the VCS in East London is ready to meet growth with a highly skilled workforce.

Obtaining precise information on either the number of Voluntary & Community Organisations or the number of people working within the sector is difficult. NCVO estimate that there are over 563,000 paid staff in the sector, accounting for over 2% of the workforce. Estimates for the number of volunteers ranges from 3million people to 22million. The Learning and Skills Council LE suggests that 100,000 people are working in the sector in East London while the London Employers’ Survey 2000-01 estimated this figure at around 212,000. These figures clearly include both part-time and full-time staff, and appear exaggerated. More work is needed to obtain more accurate figures.

The sector ranges from small self-help groups run entirely by volunteers, through to very large organisations. The majority of organisations [76%] employ fewer than 25 people and these account for at least 5% of all SME’s within London. Of these organisations, most usually employ between 1 and 5 members of staff – 25 would make an organisation large compared with other VCOs. No mapping has been done to ascertain the number of people working within infrastructure organisations – again, work is clearly needed to address this gap in sector intelligence.

The East London CVS Network has been working with the Workforce Development Coalition to develop a Workforce Development Strategy for the voluntary and community sector in East London.

Please click here to download a copy of the report.

If your organisation has an interest in this area of work at a strategic sub-regional level, please contact us at info@elcvsnetwork.org.uk

Why should I care about workforce development?

If you are a manager or a trustee and you want your organisation to:
have the best people to deliver the important service you provide;
have a reputation for being a good employer
have the best chances of attracting funding;
continue to meet the needs of the people you work with

Then workforce development should be a priority for you.

If you are a staff member or a volunteer and you want to:

continue to provide the best service to your community;
learn new skills that will help you do your job better;
have greater responsibility;
improve future job prospects

Then workforce development should be a priority for you.

Money and time are always hard to find and it is easy to think of reasons why workforce development may not be at the top of your agenda. But the long term cost of not training staff is much greater than the short term cost of doing so.

Research has revealed the consequences of not investing in staff:

“Staff often end up leaving anyway – then you lose your funding!”
“We only have one part time worker, it is difficult but I know she needs to have opportunities to grow or she will end up going”

As well as the opportunities if you do:

“You can use workforce development to “grow your own staff”
“A job is more attractive [to new recruits] if you can see some career progression”

How can I set up workforce development that is right for my organisation?

There is a wealth of resource about workforce development and the provision available already out there and much of it is tailored to organisations in the voluntary and community sectors. The following web-links should be a good start

The UK Workforce Hub
London Voluntary Service Council [LVSC]
VolResource
Third Sector Leadership Centre

This site offers a range of information including: resources such as articles, recommended books and journals, relevant web links, case studies, an on-line directory of leadership development providers, specific project information on action learning and assessment tools.
Working Families
Working for a Charity
Greater London Volunteering

Latest updates

Slowey named chair of Skills-Third Sector
By Mathew Little, Third Sector Online, 18 May 2009

Foyer Foundation's chief executive will take over role at skills body in July
Jane Slowey, chief executive of the Foyer Federation, has been named as chair of Skills-Third Sector, the new cross-sector skills body for voluntary organisations.

Slowey will take over from interim chair Dame Mary Marsh in July. Read On.

UK Workforce Hub's montly e-briefing

May E-Briefing
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