The Open University (OU) is joining The 5% Club, an employer-led movement which champions investment in the next generation through workplace training.
The initiative, which boasts a huge range of industry and businesses as members, was established by Leo Quinn, Group CEO of Balfour Beatty, to create a shared prosperity across the UK by driving, ‘earn and learn’ skills training opportunities.
Diverse routes into learning
Members who join the network must aim for five per cent of their workforce to be earning and learning. The OU has eight per cent of their workforce earning and learning and signs The 5% Club Charter in a shared commitment to help the UK’s growth agenda and to play a part in addressing the UK’s acute skills mis-match.
Caragh Molloy, Group People Director at The Open University, said:
“The OU is delighted to be partnering with The 5% Club. Our social mission and purpose clearly resonate with the whole ethos of this initiative to support people into learning at any point in life regardless of background, circumstances or prior qualifications.
“The OU has so many different routes into the earn and learn market with undergraduate study, apprenticeships across different standards and levels and all of our free learning content on our OpenLearn platform.
“This partnership is a great opportunity to reinforce our commitment to provide educational opportunities for our staff and to share best practice with a new community with a shared vision and builds on other OU partnerships with employers supporting learning as a benefit.”
Leo Quinn, Founder of The 5% Club and Group Chief Executive of Balfour Beatty, said: “We’re delighted to welcome the OU to The 5% Club, which spans all sizes and sectors of UK employers. What unites us is a shared public commitment to providing ‘earn and learn’ programmes to help create a skilled UK workforce while providing everyone with stronger career paths.
“Never has this been more important than in the current economic crisis created in the wake of COVID-19, which is falling so heavily on the unskilled. It is terrific to see the OU – a byword for flexible, accessible training – providing such opportunities within its own workforce.”
