January 23rd, 2024
London
SheSays presents The Leadership Programme with Hyper Island
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Applications for Take The Lead are now closed. But don’t miss out on joining The WEI for extra opportunities to build your potential.
The WEI is our market-first career progression app with personalised monthly reads, courses, events and coaching support. All in one place, for one small fee. Find out more at the-wei.com
SheSays has partnered with Hyper Island to offer a range of fully-funded leadership courses, leveraging the £3.3 billion unspent apprenticeship levy fund, to help your business upskill you to #TakeTheLead.
Every industry needs well-developed leaders to thrive – always has, always will. Still, the economic tension caused by high inflation and recession fears has shrunk company training budgets¹, when skills shortages are at a record high².
Between 2015 and 2019, the Learning & Development budget per employee declined by £200³, reaching an average of £1,500⁴. Experts forecast this will drop even further by 2025, reaching 15% less than it was in 2010⁵. In such scenarios, women and non-binary talent get overlooked the most – four in five women feel this way⁶.
At SheSays, we believe that training and upskilling play a huge role in reaching gender equality, including representation across senior leadership. To back this belief, SheSays are encouraging businesses to use the £3.3 billion unspent apprenticeship levy fund to invest between £4,500 and £14,500 per person in online or in-person leadership courses, so that you can #TakeTheLead.
SheSays presents The Leadership Programme in partnership with Hyper Island, to give you access to top-quality leadership training, at no cost to you or your employer, simply using your employer’s unspent apprenticeship levy funds. And unlike other training opportunities dedicated to either early-stage or executive leaders, our initiative doesn’t overlook mid-career leaders. There are three courses available via Hyper Island, tailored to support your rise to the top, no matter where you are on your journey.
To apply, complete the application form below, by International Women’s Day, 8th March 2024, midnight.
¹ People Management, 2023; ‘Half of organisations looking to cut L&D costs amid economic difficulty, survey reveals’.
² The Access Group; ‘Skills shortage in the UK: what that means for your organisation’.
³ Institute for Employment Studies, 2023; ‘Employer investment in training in England’.
⁴ Gov.uk, 2020; ‘Employer Skills Survey 2019: Training and Workforce Development’.
⁵ Bud, 2022; ‘What’s the real cost of training delivery in 2022?’.
⁶ People Management, 2022; ‘Senior women feel less supported in developing leadership skills, poll finds’.
Course options
Team Leader
Get ready to lead yourself and others
Designed for aspiring leaders, this course focuses on relationship-building, communication, project management, finance and strategy.
- For: supervisors, project managers, high-performing employees, professionals working in smaller teams, and anyone lacking formal training despite already being in a management role.
- 2 kick-off days in person, 1 in-person day per month, plus online sessions.
Coaching Professional
Master the art of unlocking potential
Created for you to expand your interpersonal leadership skills, this course focuses on motivational theories, practices and coaching models.
- For: professionals who are already in charge of other employees’ support and development and, even outside the formal leadership hierarchy, anyone ready to develop broader leadership, development and coaching knowledge.
- 3 kick-off days in person, 2 in-person days per month, plus online sessions.
Senior Leader
Be the transformational leader your business needs
Shaped for leaders who already influence their organisation’s vision and direction, this course focuses on integrated design thinking, radical perspectives and finance.
- For: current leaders who are responsible for shaping the vision and direction of their organisation and have the opportunity to impact a wide range of areas, such as operations, finance or strategy.
- 3 kick-off days in person, 2 in-person days per month, plus online sessions.
All courses include teamwork, real-life client briefs and guest speakers, as well as employer support for ongoing guidance and direction. All sessions take place during working hours so you’ll need line manager approval. To apply, you’ll have to:
- Be employed full-time (contracted PAYE) for a minimum of 30 hours a week
- Not hold a qualification in any area related to the course knowledge, skills and behaviours
- Hold a grade C/level 4 or above at GCSE in English and maths, or be willing to undertake functional skills L2 qualifications in these areas
- Not have attended the same programme before
- Be a UK resident
For Learners
What do I need to qualify?
To qualify you must:
- Be contracted (PAYE) for a minimum of 30 hours a week
- Not hold a qualification in any area related to the course knowledge, skills and behaviours
- Hold a grade C/level 4 or above at GCSE in English and maths, or be willing to undertake functional skills L2 qualifications in these areas
What are the commitments?
To join a cohort, you must be able to commit to the following:
- Attend for the whole programme duration (L3 14 months, L5 14 months, L7 24 months)
- Be committed to upskilling yourself through a programme of off-the-job training (off-the-job learning is set at a minimum of 6 hours per week and can take the form of reading, listening, watching, shadowing, embedding new skills, online/in-person training)
- Attend monthly online learning sessions
- Complete an initial questionnaire around the knowledge, skills and behaviours related to the programme, with the programme lead (1hr online)
- Complete an online course induction with your programme lead (2hrs online)
- Commit to regular tripartite reviews with your programme lead and manager (1hr every 3 months)
Testimonials
“I have a greater awareness of my own strengths and areas for improvement. Plus, I can more effectively lead others, manage projects and apply strategic thinking”
- previous cohort participant –
“I found the course a challenge but also rewarding by stretching me to think about the whole of my working life experience, beyond just the day to day delivery.”
– previous cohort participant –
“I have truly seen a tangible shift in how she operates day to day. They have become more confident, applied more structure and theory to her ways of working and helped evolve the wider team’s approach too.”
– Manager of previous cohort participant –
Got further questions?
If you’re interested but have questions, before submitting your application please contact SheSays.uk@gmail.com and a member of our team will be in touch to answer any queries you have.
For Employers
How is the programme funded?
The programme is funded using The Apprenticeship Levy, which is an amount paid by employers with an annual wage bill of £3 million or over and is used to fund apprenticeship training and assessment. The amount paid is at a rate of 0.5% of the employer’s annual pay bill and is collected monthly by HMRC. Unused levy funds expire after 24 months.
How can I access funding?
The Apprenticeship Levy funding can be accessed by both levy-paying organisations and non-levy-paying organisations (SMEs). To access funding, all organisations (levy-paying or SME) need to set up a government account known as a DAS (Digital Apprenticeship Service) account. Hyper Island can send you an invitation to set up this account (see below for more information). After registering for this account, you’ll be able to access and manage your apprentice’s funding.
Levy-paying organisations will use their levy pot to fund the training.
SMEs can do one of the following:
- Pay 5% towards the overall cost of the leadership programme directly, with the remaining 95% funded by the government
- Obtain support from Hyper Island to facilitate your learner(s) in securing a levy transfer from a larger organisation. Levy-paying organisations can transfer up to 25% of their unspent pot and this will cover 100% of the leadership programme cost.
For a full run-through of the funding process, please get in touch with apprenticeships@hyperisland.com where a member of our team will be able to offer more detailed guidance.
What do I need to know before creating my DAS account?
Hyper Island can send you an invite to create this account. To do so, we need: your organisation’s name, employer first name and last name (usually a contact from HR) and email address. Please email these details to apprenticeships@hyperisland.com and we’ll create your invite and follow up with a detailed step-by-step guide to using the DAS system.
Some things to note before starting this process are: you must have the authority to make legal agreements on your company’s behalf; you will need your Companies House Number and either your Government Gateway user ID or Account Office Ref Number.
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