The Kickstart Scheme provides funding to employers to create jobs for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit.
Callum & Eliza were always easy to reach out to for any kind of support, I knew they were only a message away, which kept me on the right track even when working from home.
The UK Government's Kickstart Scheme launched in early 2021. At bOunceT, we were successful with recruiting 3 young adults into 3 new positions (created specifically for them!) in October 2021.
Viktor, Humza & Joseph have been working in our team for just under 6 months now - nearly the length of the scheme itself. I thought it was time to write a short reflection about their journey working with us and what it was like having them in the team!
Here's a little bit of information about the Kickstart Scheme.
Kickstart Scheme jobs are only available for Universal Credit claimants aged 16 to 24 who are referred to you by DWP.
- 100% of the National Minimum Wage (or the National Living Wage depending on the age of the participant) for 25 hours per week for a total of 6 months.
- associated employer National Insurance contributions
- minimum automatic enrolment pension contributions
The jobs created with Kickstart Scheme funding must be new jobs. They must not:
- replace existing or planned vacancies
- cause existing employees, apprentices or contractors to lose work or reduce their working hours
At bOunceT, we were lucky enough to hire 3 young adults to work with us! We had to create 3 ‘new’ positions within the organisation and explain the roles/expectations for each one.
Throughout the last 6 months I have completed online training courses that bOunceT paid for. This learning will be incredibly useful for my CV & applying for work in the future. This, alongside all the direct experience I have gained in business and marketing by working directly with Callum, has helped me build up a wealth of knowledge... in only half a year!
Joseph, our Membership assistant, was brought into the team to help us ‘touch base and communicate more often’ with the individuals and families who use our services. We wanted to make sure we were sharing as much relevant information as we could with them, when they needed it. This was to meet our overall aim of improving our customer service and quality of communications.
Well, Joseph has definitely helped us with just that! The team have reflected that we have 'never had more contact with families'. We have managed to engage our families in so much - from letting them know our new ways of working and how we can help them the best, to gathering feedback that helps us adapt and develop our services!
Viktor, our Social Media Assistant, was brought into the team to support the organisation with having more of a presence online, and to promote the new/adapted business model we introduced [as a result of the pandemic].
Its been amazing to work with such friendly and helpful people over the last six months, whenever I'm unsure of what to do or want good, honest feedback on projects - or whatever I'm working on - I can always turn to anyone in the team.
Viktor has proved throughout the last 6 months that he has been a huge asset to the team!
"This work placement has been my first exposure to many new programs and applications I've never used before (Planable, MS Teams) and its been very useful to learn these programs and be able to use them to further my work with bounceOT and in any other similar jobs in the future."
Viktor highlights what it was like to be able to work both on site, and from home when he wanted:
Having the flexibility of the hours and work days is great to maintain a good balance between work and life - being able to work from home is very useful in that it allows me to do the same work as i would do in the office but it doesn't require me to be in the office everyday.
Finally, Humza, our Marketing Assistant was brought into the team to work alongside Viktor - whilst helping pull together other ideas for marketing our products and services. Again, Humza did not disappoint as he was able to 'show' the 'outcomes' of his work very well (and publically) online!
My work placement has been incredibly insightful - over the 6 months at bOunceT I have learnt a lot about Marketing and social media... it really has felt like my 'first real job' and I had an amazing experience here!
"Callum & Eliza were always easy to reach out to for any kind of support, I knew they were only a message away, which kept me on the right track even when working from home."
I loved the flexibility between the work that I done at bOunceT - I worked on regular/weekly posts but also worked on promoting the new eLearning course. This also taught me a loads about Occupational Therapy, playing with a purpose and how useful it can be for everyone. So much so, I applied some of my own life! This made it really easy to promote the products and services as well.
Other key bits of work that Humza was in charge of was making up a lot of promotional material for events like our 5th birthday!
Humza told us how he loved the variation, and flexibility, in his work - "I was never working on the same thing for long - I loved the variation in my role!"
Hybrid working during a pandemic helped me feel comfortable at the worst of times, we talked about when was the best times for each of us to come in to the office, working from home when it wasn’t necessary to be in the office meant that I could be home to keep an eye on my unwell mum and still get work done by the end of the day.
Reflection from the bOunceT team
Overall, it has been a fantastic experience for us to have this injection of new ideas, energy, and increased capacity in the team. We have been able to learn so much from Humza, Viktor & Joseph - almost as much as they have from us!
We can not thank them enough for their time, commitment & dedication to helping bOunceT flourish.
We hope to keep in touch with all 3 of them - even when they finish - to see how they are getting on, be a reference for them, and even let them know about further work opportunities with us in the future.
Thank you & Good Luck! :)
