Supporting your business to become a more attractive place for your employees and diverse young people to work in.

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An Impactful Volunteering & Diversity Initiative for Businesses

Career Accelerator works with forward thinking businesses to support 14-30 year-old young people make informed career choices and prepare for careers in professional sectors.

By working with us you will be contributing to growing the pool of eligible talent in the UK to go into top apprenticeships, universities and jobs and be leaders in the professional sectors.

Career Accelerator has over 20 partnerships with leading companies. Our partners include Virgin Media O2, Cisco, Centrica, AstraZeneca, Snap inc and Vodafone.

Learn more about how we work from our partnership with Vodafone and Just Eat Takeaway.com.

Career Accelerator partners with Vodafone

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Career Accelerator partners with Just Eat Takeaway.com

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The benefits of encouraging diversity in the workplace

Leading companies in the UK are not as diverse as the general population. Over two-thirds (69%) of European companies surveyed have indicated that they have never had such a hard time positioning themselves as attractive employers (HR News). But you only need to look at the benefits to see why there is a growing urgency amongst businesses to strive for diversity:

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Competitive Advantage

Diverse and inclusive companies enjoy a competitive advantage over their peers.

Wall Street Journal (2020)

Boosts Productivity

Diversity has been shown to correlate with better employee performance and engagement.

McKinsey (2018)

Attracts & Retains Talent

Increasing diversity allows companies to recruit from a broader talent pool, and makes them more likely to stay.

Race in the Workplace (2017)

Increases Innovation

Companies with above-average diversity produce a greater proportion of revenue from innovation.

Forbes (2020)

Important for Investors

66% of high-net-worth investors invest in companies that hire and promote employees of diverse backgrounds.

Morgan Stanley (2022)

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Forward your Diversity & Inclusion agenda and expand your talent pipeline

Partnering with Career Accelerator:

  • Enhances your reputation as an inclusive employer.
  • Positively engages employee resource groups.
  • Grants you access to a network of diverse young talent.
  • Connects you to other inclusive companies.
  • Business marketing & award opportunities.

Help your employees gain new perspectives & develop skills

Partnering with Career Accelerator provides your employees with:

  • Professional development training opportunities.
  • Meaningful volunteering opportunities.
  • Engagement opportunities for employee resource groups.
  • Investing in future diverse talent.
  • Stronger employee brand loyalty.
young male showing his mentor something on the laptop

MENTOR TRAINING FOR PARTNERS

  • We run a dynamic and informative 2 hour training session for mentors.
  • Training is provided using the OCM pedagogy.
  • Cohort model where mentors from your company learn along mentors from other companies.
  • The topics we cover during the mentor training includes:
    • Power and privilege
    • Psychological safety
    • Equality, diversity, inclusion, and belonging
    • Inclusive management and leadership
    • Working with GenZ
    • Communication skills
    • Tackling challenges and wellbeing
    • Adaptability

MENTOR TRAINING FOR PARTNERS

 

  • We run a dynamic and informative 2 hour training session for mentors.
  • Training is provided using the OCM pedagogy.
  • Cohort model where mentors from your company learn along mentors from other companies.
  • The topics we cover during the mentor training includes:
    • Power and privilege
    • Psychological safety
    • Equality, diversity, inclusion, and belonging
    • Inclusive management and leadership
    • Working with GenZ
    • Communication skills
    • Tackling challenges and wellbeing
    • Adaptability

What we can offer your business

Career Accelerator – Introduction Package

Benefits

Programme delivery:

  • Up to 10 mentoring places. Mentoring places can be allocated across our Schools programme.
  • Managing mentor recruitment.
  • Training sessions for mentors.

Impact report and marketing:

  • Personalised impact report on the difference your business has made to unrepresented, diverse young people.

Career Accelerator – Core Package

Benefits

Programme delivery:

  • Up to 20 mentoring places. Mentoring places can be allocated over 3 terms during the year. Mentoring places can be allocated across our Schools, LGBT+ and Neurodiversity and Disability mentoring programmes. 
  • Managing mentor and speaker recruitment.
  • Training sessions for mentors and speakers.
  • Opportunity to organise 1 school focused career workshop at your offices.

Impact report and marketing:

  • Personalised impact report on the difference your business has made to unrepresented, diverse young people. Opportunity for CA to collaborate with your marketing team at promoting the work your business has done externally.

Promoting job opportunities:

  • Opportunity to advertise your job opportunities to young people / professionals in our alumni network aged around 16-30 years old, every quarter over a year.

Professional networking and development:

  • Invitations to virtual ERG network lead roundtables every quarter with other businesses over a year. 
  • Opportunity to sponsor / host one in person business ERG roundtable.

Additional Bolt-Ons

We can also provide a customised quote based on any additional business requirements.
These can include:

  • Additional mentoring places for your business.
  • Organising work experience programmes for students to experience your company.
  • Organising whole year group career assemblies at school partners, led by your employees to do with working at your business.
  • Organising more career workshops at your business.
  • Opportunity to sponsor or host in person ERG / senior leader HR and D&I roundtables at your offices.
  • Running an internal session with your business around the impact they’ve made around outreach at the end of our programme together.
  • Making impact videos around the work your business has achieved around outreach.
  • Organising a series of early careers workshops tailored to your business for cohorts of students.

What our partners and mentors are saying

The programme allowed me to work on my mentor/ leadership skills with my mentee. I feel like during the sessions we managed to explore different paths for my mentee to take and was able to add value in the thoughts he had. I found it very useful and insightful and it was great to see some of the challenges my mentee was facing at the start of their career journey.

 

 

 

 

Bradley

at Just Eat Takeaway

I lacked career guidance/support when I was younger so I wanted to be able to give that to someone thinking about their career. My mentee was engaged and did the small take home actions between sessions. I really enjoyed the programme and would love to get involved with more initiatives like this one.

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole

at Just Eat Takeaway

It was very rewarding to see the positive impact that this had on my mentee. It was so pleasing to see that our sessions have given my mentee a more clearer view of what she wants to do in the future. It made me realize that mentoring or possibly coaching could be one of the streams to endeavor on within my career journey. This has positively impacted my mentoring skills and gave me a sense of fulfillment as this is something I’ve always wanted to participate in. It was nice to give someone the guidance I never had.

 

 

 

 

Indre

at Pearson

This has been great to not only support my own development and ethical plans, but also to fit into a wider scheme at work. I share many values with Pearson and it has been great to see them align in such a positive way.

 

 

 

Amy

at Pearson

It’s been genuinely enjoyable to get to know Louisa, and be able to provide some value from my own experiences, supporting her journey and ambitions going forward. It has definitely helped to shape how I approach some conversations with my own direct reports.

 

 

 

 

James

at VirginMedia O2

As a gay man I struggled to find business role models who could understand the nuances of my life experiences – both lived and yet to come – as I embarked on the first steps of my career. It has been a great opportunity for me to offer that guidance and show there aren’t constraints because of sexuality or background.

 

 

 

 

Phil

at VirginMedia O2

The opportunity was extremely meaningful, meeting my mentee and learning and being inspired by her was really wonderful. She is a really hard worker. It is certainly a step in the right direction and experience that I feel is needed for my own professional development.

 

 

 

 

Clara

at Wise

What our mentees are saying

See all of our video testimonials.

Video Testimonial - Parineeta

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Video Testimonial - Mohamed

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Video Testimonial - William

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Video Testimonial - Tanya

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Video Testimonial - Charlotte

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What our mentees are saying

See all of our video testimonials.

Video Testimonial - Parineeta

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Some captured moments

From our events, workshops, assemblies and mentoring sessions.

Let’s chat
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The businesses and organisations we work with