Accelerated Reskilling. Tackling the employment impact of COVID-19

As well as being the most serious health crisis in a century, COVID-19 is quickly becoming the biggest job destroyer in history. For many people unemployment signals a loss of dignity, purpose and hope as well as a loss of work. To address this issue, Opportunities Workshop is pioneering Accelerated Reskilling to reconnect people with work – at speed.

Emerging trends suggest those most impacted by COVID-19 and with least resilience to the shock of unemployment are low skilled, low paid and other marginal workers. These workers will need to acquire a raft of new skills to secure available jobs through the second half of 2020 and beyond.

Accelerated Reskilling from Opportunities Workshop is designed to address sudden shifts in skills demand in the economy by quickly equipping displaced workers with skills that are in-demand in their locality plus the digital and future skills that will support their longer-term employability.

To maximise student wellbeing, programme intensity is set at the same-level as participants previous working lives to maintain momentum and routines. Daily activities and weekly learning objectives help maintain focus and build confidence by providing participants with visible achievement.

Accelerated Reskilling delivers micro-credentials that validate new skills on a weekly basis to enable participants to quickly regenerate their CV while they work towards qualifying in their chosen field.

Participants well-being is supported by mindset coaching from qualified NLP practitioners and by Learning Coaches qualified as Mental Health First Aiders. This addresses anxieties about changing career, engaging in retraining and approaching potential employer.

This approach shortens the time taken to retrain for in-demand careers. Programmes such as Pitman Training’s 500-hour Advanced Software and Wed Developer diploma can be completed in as little as three months by students maintaining a 40-hour working week.

Progression into new jobs is achieved through intensive career coaching starting from participants first week on programme with a focus on developing networks, identifying hidden market job opportunities and demonstrating employability.

For participants safety and convenience all learning and coaching activities are delivered online.  This also benefits accessibility and economy for students.

For more information about joining our Accelerated Reskilling programmes, please get in touch.