FD Works are the winners of the 2022 Good Youth Employment Awards for YOUTH VOICE. See their case study below for best practice.
About the Good Youth Employment Awards
Every year, youth employment experts Youth Employment UK hold the Good Youth Employment Awards at the Good Youth Employment Symposium. It’s an annual opportunity for HR leaders and decision makers to gather to achieve best practice with regards to youth attraction, engagement and retention.
This year, organisations are invited to enter for the Awards in five categories relating to the core principles of good youth employment:
YOUTH VOICE Winner 2022:
FD Works
What activities have you undertaken to improve your business practice?
At FD Works, everyone has a voice. In fact, those who would usually be considered the most junior are encouraged to have the loudest voice in the room.
We don’t work to a traditional hierarchy, instead we use a consent decision making process to involve everyone in the direction of the business, and avoid job titles by breaking down each persons responsibilities by role.
Each role (eg. recruitment, onboarding talent, onboarding clients, quality control and employee engagement) is open to volunteers who want to drive that area of the business forward with the help of an expert. This allows young people joining the business to have a say in its direction, regardless of their experience or qualifications.
Alongside the inner structure of FD Works, we partner with schools in the area to attend careers fairs and provide presentations and mentorship opportunities to those most disadvantaged in our area. Finance is inaccessible and has had gatekeepers that keep the industry old fashioned. By getting to know the young people in our area and really listening to them about their view of the finance industry and apprenticeships, we’ve been able to adjust our training and recruitment processes to accurately reflect what they want and need.
More recently, our apprentices have been a part of this full circle moment, taking on a bigger role in recruitment and our outreach work. This is why we do what we do – young people in careers they love, where they’re valued, respected and listened to, inspiring other young people to do the same!
What improvements have you seen?
Half of our workforce are currently apprentices – they are the ones that make us successful. The people you would traditionally recognise as senior management are simply here to empower and mentor them. By recruiting people based on attitude over experience, we’ve been able to grow the business quickly and sustainably and we’re not slowing down yet!
Have these activities helped provide employment and/or learning and development opportunities for young people facing barriers to employment?
Finance is not a friendly industry to anyone who is ‘othered’ by society. We want to change that. We believe that diversity of thought is the future of finance and that comes from diverse people.
In the last year we have recruited people from several protected groups, based on their attitudes rather than their experience and we have seen the value to the business already.
While our initial goal is to provide opportunities for people in a fantastic workplace, there’s no doubt that there is a ripple effect that boosts our bottom line. We’re innovation focussed, meaning we’re always looking to improve processes (both technical, client side work and internal). Bringing in new people has brought in new ways of thinking which allow us to grow the business in a much more sustainable and futureproof way.
In the last 12 months we have hired 7 young people, taking our head count from 11 to 18. They have joined 4 others on our team under the age of 25. They are all completing qualifications that will help their progression in the future, from Level 2 Bookkeeping, to Level 7 Chartered Accounting.
It’s our ambition to never lose someone because of a lack of opportunities, and so far we’ve made this a reality. We have people who have joined straight from school who are now finance business partners at the age of 25, which is just one example of the many routes they can take.
