Britain Works – Microsoft Digital Skills Initiative

Did you know that 77% of jobs in the UK require some sort of IT skills? To us digital marketers, sparking up a laptop or downloading the latest version of Tweetdeck seems like second nature, but to a lot of people just sending an email must seem like a hefty mountain to climb (ask my new mother-in-law!)

This morning on BBC Breakfast our UK MD – Gordon Frazer – talked about Microsoft’s new Britain Works initiative.

A company as big as Microsoft would not be doing its duty during a recession if it just battened down the hatches and fended for itself. All the research says that skills and investment in business developed during lean times pay dividends in the end, so MS have kicked off a 5 part plan:

1.    Partnerships with NGOs – Microsoft will build on existing relationships and create new partnerships with employment focussed NGOs to support their work in getting hard-to-reach people back to work.  Support for NGOs will be in the form of cash, software and volunteering time.

2.    Apprenticeships – The Partner Apprenticeship programme will be rolled out from the pilot area in the West Midlands to a national offer. The apprentices are trained by a Microsoft IT Academy and after 7 months are working full time for the partner.

3.    Technology start-ups – Through the BizSpark programme we are supporting the creating of thousands of software development jobs in new technology startups.

4.    Training Vouchers – We will be providing 450,000  training vouchers to enable selected client groups access to IT training.

5.    Britain Works Skills Portal- www.microsoft.com/uk/britainworks  – The Britain Works website will provide people with full information on all the training and work opportunities available through the programme.

The idea is to help 500k people into work by 2012.

It’s things like this that make me proud to work for Microsoft!

4 years and counting many more………I hope!