Edinburgh College - Flexible Workforce Development Fund
In 2022 we benefited from a £5000 training grant through the Flexible Workforce Development Fund which we used for team training in First Aid, Food Hygiene, Health and Safety, Excel, Team Building.
We are delighted to have been awarded a further grant this year which we’ll use to upskill our team, trustees, volunteers, and Young Ambassadors.
Here’s Michelle Skotzen from Edinburgh College to tell you a little more about the grant, how it works and how we got involved..
Who are you and what is your role:
My name is Michelle Skotzen and I am a business development and innovation advisor in the commercial team at Edinburgh College
What is the fund?
If you are a Scottish based business you can access £5k for SME's or £15k for levy paying businesses. It can be used at Edinburgh College to upskill, retrain and retain your staff. Training must not be mandatory for the job and must be relevant to the job role. The application process is easy and you have a specialist business development advisor from the College to manage your training account and help with every step of your training journey.
How did you find out about It’s good 2 give – why did you make contact about the fund?
I started with Edinburgh College 2 years ago, and was tasked to find SME's that could benefit from the funding. My mind went straight to the charity sector thinking it would be great if we could support their training needs after all the hard work they do for everyone. I did a Google search for charities in Scotland and found It's good 2 give there and sent a message through their website, asking if they knew about the training fund and if there was anything I could help them with to support their teams development after the pandemic and after a lovely Teams meeting discussing training needs, together we prepared the funding application and set up the training schedule.
Has the experience of supporting us worked well?
Yes, it has worked really well. It is great to be able to support your training needs and help the staff and volunteers that work so hard for you as they develop in their roles.
Why did you ask us to be a case study?
I thought the combination of courses we had scheduled for your 2022 training was a great example of what Edinburgh College could arrange according to the business needs, there was a breadth of subjects.
