Bionow has launched a new tiered support offer in partnership with the Growth Company to help more businesses access the Government’s new £2 billion Kickstart scheme. Now more than ever, young people need opportunities to help them shape their future and you could play a key part in supporting them through this scheme.  Kickstart is a Government-subsidised job placements scheme to help young people (16-24 years old) affected by the economic fallout of Covid-19 into employment. Kickstart encourages business to create six-month work placements with the Government paying 100% of the relevant National Minimum Wage for 25 hours a week, plus National Insurance and pension contributions. There’s also £1,500 per placement available for setup costs and training. 

Bionow’s Kickstart offer is specifically tailored to include opportunities for those businesses who feared they would be left behind by the scheme due to a requirement to create a minimum of 30 job placements. The Bionow Kickstart allows businesses the opportunity to apply for any number of placements and includes a tiered package of support, depending on the requirements of the individual businesses who sign up. The initiative, which is being driven by not-for-profit social enterprise the Growth Company, includes: 

 

Being a business’s Gateway organisation: The Growth Company will design roles which meet the needs of a business, produce role profiles and ensure applications meet all the necessary criteria. If a business is not able to offer the minimum requirement of 30 placements, they will partner you with other organisations in its network to collectively offer this amount.   
 

On-placement support: The Growth Company will develop a comprehensive package for Kickstarters while they are on placement, taking away a business’s need to organise or deliver this. This could include information, advice and guidance leading to structured personal development plans, help accessing training and qualifications, CV and employment advice and ongoing post-placement support for those who don’t obtain permanent work after the six-month period.   
 

Employment services: The Growth Company can provide a range of HR and ‘back office’ support to help onboard new-starters – allowing businesses to ‘host’ the placement with help on a range of matters, including payroll, drawing up contracts, producing handbooks and best-practice documents, and handling a variety of HR queries.   

 

Geoff Davison CEO of Bionow said “Bionow is delighted to work in partnership with the Growth Company and participate in this Government scheme aimed at helping young people, especially those affected by Covid-19, into employment. Young people have a wide range of relevant and current skills which can add significantly to businesses in the life sciences sector enriching their work environments and opening up new opportunities for them. Opening up the scheme to enable businesses to apply for less than the minimum 30 placements was a key objective for Bionow and we hope that employers right across the sector can now consider putting something back whilst widening the skills and experience base in their workplace”.

 

If you would like to get involved, visit https://bit.ly/3kvC6uv to find out how we can help you to get started.