A unique jobs partnership between one of Northern Ireland’s leading businesses and employment and skills specialists Ingeus has just marked a major milestone in Belfast.
Outsourced contact centre provider Firstsource, which is one of Northern Ireland’s largest private sector employers, has now recruited its 100th employee from the Department for Employment and Learning’s Steps 2 Success adult employment programme, delivered in Belfast by Ingeus.
Firstsource specialises in product solutions and managed services for major UK companies in the telecommunications, media and financial services sectors. Steps 2 Success is designed to help jobseekers build the skills and experience needed to find and keep a job. The programme addresses each participant’s specific needs and challenges whilst helping them build skills and valuable experience as they progress into work.
The 100th successful participant now employed by Firstsource is Michael Moloney, 20, from North Belfast. Michael was unemployed for almost a year, having previously been made redundant from his job in a local factory. Prior to that, he worked in a customer services role for a Belfast leisure centre and so had a taster of the skills required by Firstsource.
“I’m not a lazy person, and so being without a job was very frustrating,” he said. “I began to lose all structure to my days and was desperate to find something that would give me a reason to get out of bed each morning.”
Michael was referred to Ingeus for specialist employment support and he signed up to the Steps 2 Success programme. Straightaway, he was offered a place on Ingeus’s week-long music production course where he was encouraged to make the link between the skills required to make music and those needed to get a job, such as discipline, teamwork, time management, communications and planning.
“The course was a great experience, and it really spurred me on to get back into work,” he added. “Ingeus helped me understand how my skills and experiences were transferable into other jobs. They encouraged me to refresh my CV, learn new interview techniques and look for jobs outside of the narrow band I had limited myself to previously.”
Working for Firstsource was one of the options Michael considered, and he was interviewed for a job as a customer services advisor to help banking customers with their everyday needs. He was delighted to learn that he had been successful, and has just recently started applying the skills that he gained at Ingeus within his new role at Firstsource.
“It’s early days, but it’s really great just to have a job,” he said. “I’m learning new things every day, and enjoy working with the team here. Not only have I got some financial www.firstsource.com stability, but I’m also making new friends and enjoying a social life once again. But more than that, I can look to the future with optimism.”
Laura Hourican from Firstsource UK said, “We have been working closely with Ingeus through their Steps 2 Success programme, which aims to give opportunities to long-term unemployed people. Steps 2 Success enables us to offer jobseekers an insight into the contact centre industry and employ those who are suitable for our jobs. Thanks to Ingeus we have now recruited 100 people who have come through the programme. Ingeus understands our needs as a business and have provided suitable candidates who are now an important part of the Firstsource team.”
Stephen Hillis from Ingeus added, “Our work with Firstsource is a great example of how we can support employers in Belfast by understanding their needs. This allows us to provide good candidates who have the right abilities, experience and commitment to fill their jobs.
“As well as helping Michael, the Steps 2 Success programme is supporting a wide range of local businesses as they expand and, as a result, is providing a boost to the Northern Ireland economy.”
For further information, please contact:
Tim Crowther, Crowther Communications Ltd
tim@crowther-communications.co.uk
07710 356355
01484 684258
About Ingeus UK Limited
The Department for Employment and Learning’s employability programme, called Steps 2 Success, is delivered across the greater Belfast area by employment group Ingeus and its partners, Springvale Employment and Learning Solutions, People 1st and Armstrong NI.
Steps 2 Success supports local jobseekers in building the skills and experience needed to find and keep a job. Ingeus also works with local employers to help them find talented, motivated applicants for their vacancies.
Ingeus is committed to helping people to reach their full potential and supports people through:
(1) Employability programmes such as Steps 2 Success. Ingeus also works with local and national businesses, from small enterprises to large multinationals, to help them attract and retain staff.
(2) Skills and training, including traineeships, apprenticeships and pre-employment training, having supported over 39,000 learners to achieve qualifications.
(3) Health-related services delivered by a team of in-house health professionals.
(4) Rehabilitation services, as part of the Reducing Reoffending Partnership in a joint venture partnership with two leading charities, St Giles’s Trust and CRI, supporting ex-offenders to break the cycle of reoffending.
(5) The National Citizen Service (NCS), a transformational experience for 16 and 17 year olds allowing young people to build skills for work and life while taking on new challenges and adventures.
Ingeus’s teams are dedicated to designing the right support for each individual to help them progress into work and in life. We work alongside over 100 partner organisations from the public, private and third sectors that share our commitment to delivering excellence with integrity.
The Ingeus group of companies has operations in ten countries around the world and in 2014 became part of Arizona-based Providence Service Corporation.
For more information about Ingeus:
Visit: www.ingeus.co.uk
Email: info@ingeus.co.uk
About Firstsource
Firstsource (NSE: FSL, BSE: 532809, Reuters: FISO.BO, Bloomberg: FSOL@IN) is a leading global provider of customized business process outsourcing (BPO) services to the Healthcare, Telecom & Media, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance industries.
The company’s clients include Fortune 500, FTSE 100 and Nifty 50 companies. Firstsource has a ‘rightshore’ delivery model with operations in India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, UK and US.
A global award winning organisation, Firstsource has recently been recognised for Industry Excellence at Frost & Sullivan 2015 Asia Pacific Best Practices Awards and picked up two awards (Transformation at the Heart and Amazing Customer Experience) at the UK Customer Experience Awards 2015.
