You may have seen that the government launched a ‘Kickstart scheme‘ last year, designed to incentivise businesses to offer jobs or placements to 16 to 24-year-olds. Many businesses ruled this out because there was a minimum number of 30 placements that an organisation had to offer.
However, some firms, such as DiVA Apprenticeships, can act as ‘gateway’ organisations and effectively aggregate the number of placements. This means that even if you just have one placement or role to fill, you can still take advantage of the scheme and claim the associated grants. You can find out more here.
There are opportunities worth considering:
- Are there roles you were looking to fill anyway that you can use the Kickstart scheme for?
- Do you think you might like to revisit hiring post-2020 in a low-risk way?
- Are there roles that may not have existed for your business previously, but you think will do in future?
Nonetheless, worth exploring and potentially a way to kickstart your plans for 2021. (Excuse the pun!) The lovely team at DiVA are on hand to take you through the process if you’re interested.
