My name is Michelle Lesson. I’m the Managing Director for our employment division at the Growth Company. I mean today I’m just so delighted with the attendance, it’s brilliant. It’s such such a great and important event at the Growth Company we support.
Our work
We work across the North of England and we support both businesses and individuals in terms of recruitment and individuals moving into employment and developing their skills and progressing in their careers. What’s really important today is to bring together businesses to really look at how they can diversify their workforce and how they can look to tap into talented individuals who are not currently in employment. We know that the employment rates for refugees and asylum seek because is far lower than uk-born individuals
Fulfil their potential
We also know that individuals are often in roles which they are not actually fulfilling their whole potential. So today we really wanted to bring to life how much potential there is out there in the labor market for employers to tap into and how they can really grow their businesses. So at the growth company we are a social enterprise, so what we have been doing, we have been looking at how we can build projects to help to engage with residents across the Northwest and Yorkshire and Humber and working with employers to see how we can match those individuals into those roles.
Great day
It’s great to see so many people here today. I think it’s really positive that businesses in the Northwest want to get involved. They want to find out how they can recruit in more individuals from diverse communities and it’s great to hear people’s actual stories today you we’ve met some customers of one from Hong Kong, one from Ukraine who have told us their stories told us their background and their experience and skills and just really listening to their own personal experience, of how they found life in the UK and how employers can really embrace the skills they can bring.
