Fair Employment Charter Youth Engagement

With fairness, inclusivity and justice at the heart of what the Liverpool City Region is about, the Metro Mayor is keen to ensure that these principles extend to the workplace. Over the last twelve months, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has engaged with people about their experiences of work and asked businesses, staff, trade unions and others what should be included in the Liverpool City Region’s first Fair Employment Charter.

However, we are keen to ensure that the voices of young people are heard as part of this consultation, particularly given that they will be the workers of the future

Background

After a successful first phase of consultation in Spring 2020, the following pillars of the Fair Employment Charter have been identified:

• Healthy
• Fair
• Inclusive
• Just

The draft charter and the principles which fall under these pillars can be found here:  https://www.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk/fec/  Here you will also find a link to a survey on the Fair Employment Charter, which we would encourage you to complete, as the content may help to inform your proposals for youth engagement.   

Objective  

To deliver engagement with young people from the ages of 15 to 25.  The engagement should explore our ambition to “build a fair future through opportunities, apprenticeships and work experience for young people”.

We envision that the nature of the engagement and feedback would be quite open-ended, as many young people won’t necessarily have longstanding workplace experience to be able to discuss all the elements of the Fair Employment Charter in depth.

Areas we would be keen to understand more about are:

Work Experience

• What does good “Work Experience” look like? What should it involve and how long should it last?
• How can we make accessing work experience easier for young people?
• What examples do you have of poor work, or work experience?  Is there anything that we should consider identifying as bad practice and look to discourage?

Applying for jobs

• For those in employment or who have completed work experience, how did you find the application process?
• What barriers did you face when looking to apply for work/work placements?
• Can you give examples of any good or bad practice regarding the recruitment of young people?

Zero Hours contracts

• What experience do you have of temporary or casual work?
• Are there any circumstances in which this has been beneficial?
• Do you have any specific examples of poor practice in this area and how it has impacted on you negatively?

Work training

• What – if any – experience do you have of in work training. What works well and what doesn’t?
• Do you have any experience of NOT receiving the basic training you need to do your job? How could we make sure that this experience is not repeated elsewhere?

Voice in the workplace

• How would young people expect their voice to be heard in an organisation (e.g. one-to-one meetings, unions, staff surveys etc)?
• What, for them, would be good or bad practice around having their voice heard?
• Do young people expect to have a voice in the workplace?

Promotion of Fair Employment Charter

When the Charter is complete, what do young people think would be the best way to advertise it or make fellow young people aware of it?

Outputs

We are keen not to be too prescriptive in detailing how you undertake the engagement outlined above.  Nevertheless, we believe a qualitative approach would be most appropriate (i.e. focus groups or interviews instead of surveys).  However, there are a number of requirements that we would expect proposals to fulfil.

• A report detailing your findings to be submitted to us no later than Monday 30^th November 2020.
• Engagement with at least 10 young people, preferably from a diverse range of backgrounds.
• Feedback which provides actionable insights from young people on each of the areas detailed above (i.e. work training, Zero Hours contracts and work experience).  By actionable insights, we mean feedback which can be incorporated into the Fair Employment Charter.  For example, feedback stating that the minimum wage should be increased would not be actionable, as it is not within the powers of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to enact this.
• Summary demographic information of the focus group participants including age, post codes, gender, ethnicity, whether participants have a disability and employment status. (See Appendix A)
• Each participant should also complete our survey question on what  makes a fair employer and these responses should be shared with us in the final report. (See Appendix B)

Budget

The maximum budget for this engagement activity is £900.  We may award this budget to either a single organisation or to more than one organisation.

Timescales

• Deadline for proposals is Monday 9^th November
• Evaluation of proposals from Tuesday 10^th to Wednesday 11^th November with successful applicant(s) informed by 4pm on Wednesday 11^th November.
• Report to be submitted to Liverpool City Region Combined Authority by Monday 30^th November 2020.

COVID-19 guidance

Proposals must demonstrate that engagement methods do not breach COVID-19 restrictions currently in force in the Liverpool City Region.  This means that we must observe social distancing, wash hands and wear a mask where appropriate.  Any engagement activity must adhere to this guidance.  Please visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus for the latest advice and updates.