A Visit To Restart

This month we took it upon ourselves to visit the Restart Teams office in Manchester so that we could get a better understanding of the team and what a day in the life is like for them. We also used this as an opportunity to get more information on their most recent achievement.

When you first arrive at the Restart office you find an open planned, warm and welcoming environment, the way the office is designed is to be as far away as possible to a generic recruitment agency or job centre this is done intentionally as they want each persons experience to be as personal and comfortable as possible. “The Hilton Hotel is nice but when you wake up in one you won’t know whether you’re in Liverpool or Latvia.” – Rachel Willoughby.

We had the chance to sit down and speak with multiple staff members who were more than happy to share their experiences working at Restart and the impact of their job roles which shows that they care about each person who comes into the Restart building and wants to know more about them. We had a chat with Chris & Geraldine whilst we were there and had a conversation about what Geraldine does and her impact, and got some details and examples of what the business does, Chris told us a short story about one learners when we were asking about the different levels of people they get reaching out to them.

Chris let us know about someone who had just got out of university and was struggling to find work here is what he said –

“There was a biomedical student fresh out of uni who was struggling to find any work in biomedical science. She visited the job centre but was automatically referred to generic work – Warehouse, Customer Service, Contact Centre roles. This was demoralising but eventually, she was referred to Restart. Some time was spent figuring out the best place for this learner and a BDM got in contact with recruitment agencies specific to Biomedicine. Though agencies can be seen as a last resort, in these specific circumstances they paid off as the student was successful and she now works as a lab assistant.”

This just goes to show that they have a huge range of help available for all walks of life, making sure everyone gets equal support and help.

When speaking with Geraldine she went over her job role a bit more in depth and told us about the nickname that her colleagues have given her which is “The Preventer” this is because she ensures that the business is meeting DWP standards and practices, also making sure that everything is logged correctly and above board.

The main purpose of this visit was to get more of an insight into Restart and to have a catch up about their most recent and biggest achievement which was having the most job starts in July 2022 throughout the Greater Manchester area, they did this by hitting 125% on their targets. The reason Restart can hit these target because the team is made up genuine hard workers who are committed and passionate about the service they’re delivering. This protects forward momentum and encourages everyone to improve on anything and everything.

The Restart team are passionate about what they do and making sure that they are getting people into work.

“Coming to work and meeting different people from different walks of life with diverse backgrounds. We get to see where they are and work with them to get them back into employment. We see their progression and what support they need to help them on their journey into employment.”

– Patsy Wade | Restart Advisor

“Meeting and supporting young people and seeing them through from signing up to Future you to the end. I get to see them become a completely different person while we break down any barriers to their success. They come out of the process more confident and ready to succeed.”

– Aline Sylvestre | Future You Mentor

Restart aims to get each learner into a job that caters to the needs and career goals of that person, ensuring that they are happy. There is a screening process to determine which job roles could be more suitable for a learner but ultimately, they only ever suggest. The learner has the last say on what they want to do. When a learner is in employment Restart will continue to support that person to make sure that they are getting on well within their new role this is because Restart will always ensure employment providers or agencies are ethical and have the learners’ needs at heart.

Speaking with Rachel she made it clear that they aren’t planning to slow down anytime soon on making sure that they go above and beyond for their learners and aiming to keep going above their targets in getting people into work. Rachel hasd this to say in her latest LinkedIn post celebrating July’s achievement “So whilst we will strive to be top of the performance tree every month, the wider impact of the hard work done every day is much, much greater. Bring on August!”

To learn more about how our Restart programme is supporting local communities, visit https://b2wgroup.com/restart-scheme/ or email [email protected] to get involved.

The B2W Group has a fresh approach to transforming businesses by up-skilling their current staff or bringing an apprentice into the business to add a dynamic and dedicated individual to the team. All of our courses are available through various streams of government funding so are a cost-effective way to provide high-quality training within the workplace.

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