Skills Support for the Workforce

Callum Young, Mainstay Group

Callum Young, an employee at Mainstay Group in Worcestershire, had been supporting with marketing, social media and administrative duties for over a year before enrolling onto the SSW programme to further his role within the company.

Wanting to further increase the company’s marketing reach, namely its social media presence, Callum undertook a Level 2 Award in IT User Skills with ambition to increase the company’s presence online and implement working digital strategies to achieve this.

Having previously supported the Mainstay Group during the second tranche of Skills Support for the Workforce, find out how Skills Ladder further helped the business to progress by investing in and building upon Callum’s existing skillset.

Building an online presence in Worcestershire

How funded skills training supported Callum

Mainstay are a property, asset, portfolio and maintenance management company. Trading for nearly 20 years as a privately-owned company. Upcoming changes to the leasehold environment may have an impact upon the business. With uncertainty surrounding managing leaseholds in the future, the business wanted to grow its brand online to help futureproof.

The support and training delivered was on how to grow social media presence and increase interactions on the various platforms, to perhaps begin to use social media as a lead generator. Callum commented:

“It was an enjoyable course. There was a good mix of people on the course and their ability to share what they know about IT. I learnt about how to engage with your audience and how clickbait can grow your social media channel. We learnt how to create videos and edit them.  The most challenging aspect of the course would have been understanding personas as I have little experience in this.

The course enabled me to further enhance my Social Media skills and work with individuals from an array of sectors, which has only further enhanced my Social Media skillset.”

With the help of his tutor at The Kiln, in Worcestershire, Callum overcame challenging aspects of the course and achieved a level 2 IT User Award in IT User Skills. Since completing the course Mainstay has implemented new strategies regarding their use of IT and networking. These new techniques are helping to spread their IT content to a wider audience on the internet.

Dan Heaford, from Skills Ladder, said:

“Callum really took to the course, he produced some excellent videos and was an asset to be on the course. I hope he does well in his chosen career.”