Inclusion initiatives that drive skills development

How we drove inclusion while boosting the workforce’s skills

Summary

Creating opportunities for professional development

One of the biggest brands in the entertainment industry, needed to expand their technology team while simultaneously amplifying inclusion and gender diversity. Our partners at General Assembly stepped in to create a programme that let the client’s workforce explore new career paths in tech without requiring prior experience in the field. The scheme was designed to future-proof the workforce skills, boost their career development, and encourage female talent from various professions across the business to explore tech jobs.

The challenge

Realising an opportunity to upskill the existing talent

Rather than looking for talent outside the organisation, the programme focused on leveraging the existing workforce. While it required substantial reskilling effort, our customer spotted a massive opportunity to develop their people by empowering them with new skills. The client realised that investing in reskilling would see great returns in employee engagement, and enhancing their teams’ diversity would bring innovation and creativity.

How we helped

Designing a career transition programme like no other

The team at General Assembly partnered with our customer to contribute to the company’s goal of creating an optimal career transition programme.

Workers are attracted to the scheme via the client’s internal website, with information sessions held across the organisation to provide additional details and encourage applications.

Candidates qualified for the scheme participate in a boot camp organised by General Assembly. All courses are tailored entirely to the client’s tech skills priorities for a given year. When the programme started in 2016, the focus was placed on developing software engineering skills, while the latest 2022 edition was geared towards training product managers.

During the programme, participants are paired with mentors who provide guidance throughout the six weeks of boot camp and after – in the new roles. Learning from senior colleagues has been as rewarding for the participants as picking up new and exciting tech roles.

General Assembly also reassesses and tweaks skills mastery over time to ensure the newly trained experts’ skills align with evolving tech developments.

Impact

High-impact solution for boosting skills and driving inclusion

General Assembly supported our customer’s reskilling and inclusion objectives, delivering the following:

  • 89% graduate retention
  • 75% of enrolled were from racially diverse backgrounds
  • 100% of enrollees identified as female
  • 100% of graduates were placed in technical roles
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