Blog

Working together to enable better lives

24 Jan 2025

Julie Graham, CEO of Ingeus’ Employment Services, talks about the importance of sharing best practice and taking a joined-up approach to employment support.

Time never stands still in the employment support sector; we are continuously developing. Yet while the programmes we deliver for our participants, and the methods we employ to deliver them, may evolve and change, our ethos remains constant: We want to enable better lives.

The Government’s new ‘Get Britain Working’ white paper outlines the need for a joined-up approach to health, skills and employment provision. This will involve government, local authorities, the NHS, employment providers and employers working together to provide better integration of health and all-round employability support.

I am proud to say that at Ingeus we already take a holistic approach to our participants’ needs, and this has long been our strategy. Helping people into work is not a box-ticking exercise. It’s about building trust, listening to people, providing meaningful, tailored support, and ensuring our participants find the job that’s right for them. Along the way, we help them to overcome any barriers, improve their health and wellbeing, and gain access to training and upskilling opportunities.

Partnership working is in our DNA – we can achieve so much more in collaboration with others than we can on our own. We work with government, supply chain partners, employers, training providers, the wider health sector, and local community organisations to provide joined-up support for our participants.

Meanwhile, networking with other employability businesses and sharing best practice creates a ripple effect far beyond the realms of Ingeus. It’s a chance for frontline practitioners – the lifeblood of employment support – to share valuable insight gleaned from their experience on the ground. Through this approach, we can reach more people than ever before and help to change their lives for the better.

For the past two years, Ingeus has been the headline sponsor of The Institute of Employment Professionals (IEP) Basecamp, which recently won Best New Event in the UK Association Success Awards.

IEP is the professional development arm of the employment support sector, giving accredited qualifications to employability professionals. Basecamp, held in Birmingham, offers a valuable opportunity for frontline practitioners to meet, network and discuss new working practices, technologies and problem-solving skills.

Collaborating with our peers is also important to ensure the effectiveness of our programmes. The Restart Scheme is one of the programmes we deliver to help people get back to work. The ReAct partnership, co-funded by the programme’s prime providers, including Ingeus, enables us to share insights on how to improve the Restart Scheme. It helps us to identify what works best to engage employers and increase the likelihood of success for participants.

As the employability sector is always evolving, it is vital to keep up to speed on new developments. I am a board member of ERSA, the Employment Related Services Association, which enables everyone from senior management teams to frontline workers to understand policy changes and potential impacts on the sector. Ingeus staff members regularly speak at ERSA events and webinars, sharing best practice with other employment support professionals and discussing how to navigate policy changes.

As well as collaborating with industry peers, we forge lasting alliances with employers to learn their specific requirements and any skills shortages they might be facing. Working together, we can line up suitable candidates for job vacancies – and that’s a win-win situation all round.

We are proactive in forming these relationships and it is something we do across our delivery areas. In Lancashire, for example, we have recently joined the Blackpool Business Leaders Group, which enables us to network with employers and understand local recruitment needs.

Our networking activities also include reaching out to training and skills providers to help improve support for our participants. In London, we are involved in the No Wrong Door Programme, which brings together employment and skills providers, funding bodies, and other public services in London. This resident-first initiative aims to make it easier for Londoners to access high-quality support for their employment and skills needs. It focuses on those disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, including disabled Londoners, women and refugees.

Across the country, we are involved in countless participant-focused taskforces, hubs and initiatives. In Preston, we are part of an employment taskforce, made up of local councils, housing associations, training and education providers, charities and employability professionals. The taskforce comes together once a quarter to discuss priorities for local people.

We also collaborate with healthcare providers, such as NHS Greater Manchester, which is the Integrated Care Board for Greater Manchester, responsible for making decisions about local health services. The board works closely with all partners and communities who can contribute to improving health and tackling inequalities, helping residents to live well.

No man is an island, wrote the poet John Donne, and the same sentiment applies to employment support and other people-focused services. We are all interconnected, we need each other, and by working together, we can achieve great things.