Maire Hunt, National Network Director Software Skillnet, says:
“Women ReBOOT provides a bridge back, connecting highly qualified women with leading tech employers. Our programme takes a three-pronged approach which we call: Confident, Current & Connected.”
Confident:When it comes to confidence, theWomen ReBOOT focus is on the individual and their professional readiness. Essential to this is an understand that participants drive their own career development.
Hunt explains: “We find that very experienced and qualified womenmay have lost some of their professional confidence while on a career break. Therefore, enabling participants to realise the value of both their career and life experience, is the foundation for other aspects of the programme.”
Current: The programme also enables women to also update their important technology skills. As the technology sector moves at breakneck speed, ReBOOT seminars provide holistic views of the tech sector, its practices and its opportunities.
“We explore key roles in the sector, to help participants to understand the skills, competencies and career paths for these roles, and often to debunk themyth,” according to Hunt.
Through the ReBOOT Pluralsight online learning platform, participants can customise their personal learning paths and learn at times of the day that best suit each individual.
Connected: A critical last step is creating a connection between our participants and the leading tech companies who are eager tomeet them. This step is what often women find the hardest to do without support, according to Hunt.
In ReBOOT seminars, companies talk about the techmarket- place, their organisations, the roles, and how experienced women contribute in unique and valuable way.
Denise Ni Cheallaigh,Women ReBOOT Programme Manager, highlights the way that ReBOOT supports intensive CV preparation and practice interviews, to help the women prepare and position themselves in a positive way.
“It’s an important stage and it helps ease their nerves when the real interviews come around. They then are called for interviews with ourmember companies, and complete an eight-week work placement,” she says.
‘Connected’ also focuses on building new peer networks, re- energising past professional networks, and actively participating in activities which expand their networks.
Group support is a key success factor of ReBOOT and Ni Cheallaigh points out the importance of this: “Our participants very actively support, encourage and connect with one another, sharing information knowledge and insights. The ReBOOT
alumni has now reached 100 women employed in over 45 tech companies.”
ReBOOT currently have over 40 partner companies. Their aimis to average aminimumof 90%of programme participants being hired on a long-termbasis. According to Hunt, ReBOOT are seeking determined and hard-working women.
“Froman employers’ point of view, it’s a no brainer, says Hunt. “Tech companies have access to an untapped group of talented engaged women. We work with employers to help them support individuals’ ‘re-entry’ into the work place.We advise member companies and give company executives and champions, the insights, coaching feedback and information they need to apply best practice in facilitating women returning to work.” Tomaintain a steady influx of recruits, ReBOOT are heavily reliant on word-of-mouth and advertise on socialmedia and radio. Ni Cheallaigh says: "Past pupils are terrific advocates. Their stories are tremendously impactful, and it’s inspiring for women to hear fromthose who have walked this path, conquered their demons and to quote one Alumni have ‘found themselves again’.”
How Learning & Development can support this shift David Collings says: “Many freelancers are highly skilled and operate in thesemarkets by choice in search ofmore autonomy and work-life balance and the opportunity to work on projects which they feelmore passionate about. Advances in technology make this a very viable talent option inmany instances. These workers offer the opportunity to access expert skills with some research indicating that freelances are investingmore in their development thanmany organisations are investing in development,meaning the capabilities are often first class and cutting edge.”
In recent studies, Towards Maturity, the expert learning analyst organisation, say that L&D are “Playing Catch-up asWorkers Adopt NewWays ofWorking and Learning.”Workers are going part-time, usingmobilemore, working flexibly fromhome – but company L&D departments are not able to keep up with the knowledge demands and trainingmodality needs of emerging remote workforces. In Ireland, those who identify as working fromhome has doubled over the last six years. To support the catch up our industry requires, Towards Maturity produced In Focus: Learning and Performance on the Move. The report explores supportingmobile learning and performance on themove and provides practical tips and data “to support L&D teams that are looking to reinvent learning and performance support formobile ways of working.”
The competing demands of organisational agility, remote and mobile working, and engagement in the workforce of the differently abled, the older or those after a career break present a challenge to some traditionalmodels andmodalities and L&D needs to keep pace.
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