Future of London Leaders – Emerging Talent Placement

The Future of London Emerging Talent Programme (ETP) aims to address the lack
of ethnic diversity of professionals and managers working in London’s Built
Environment sector.

This is led by a programme manager with over 18 years of experience of managing
all aspects of award-winning early careers programmes. The first cohort started on
the programme on 31 January 2022.

The programme is targeted at those from ethnic minority backgrounds at the start
of their career (recent graduates or equivalent) who have strong interpersonal skills
and high levels of self-drive and motivation. The recruits experience a diverse set
of employment experiences that give them insight into professional career paths
and enable them to develop a solid body of demonstrating effective workplace
skills and behaviours.

The goal is that each candidate secures a permanent position in a role that fits
their preferences and abilities and is a platform into a successful career within
housing, regeneration, urban and economic development and infrastructure.

The programme looks to provide an ethnically diverse talent pool to a sector to
help it benefit from the widest talent pool in the community and support built
environment solutions being designed and delivered with better insight into the
needs of the communities they impact. FoL will support successful candidate with a
series of training and development days.

The recruitment campaign will be targeted to attract diverse talent from the OPDC
development area.

The placement with OPDC will last for nine months, and FoL will manage and coordinate
the programme and will directly employ the candidate.

We will appoint an OPDC line manager, who will be keen to develop their
experience and knowledge of managing someone at that start of their career, and
who is from an under represented group, but has good intellectual capacity and
motivation. Regular guidance and support for the line manager will be provided by
the FoL programme manager The line manager will be responsible for providing
support/guidance, developing and managing the successful candidate. The
candidate will be at the start of their career, so will need support and guidance, but
they will be selected for their capability and motivation. .

FoL will design and deliver 10 training days where the whole cohort will come
together. The focus of these sessions will be to develop transferable skills and
behaviours, build a peer network, meet with experienced professionals and then
preparing for successful job applications towards the end of the nine month period.
Training will cover areas such as effective workplace behaviours, communication
skills, and presentation skills. These sessions will not be focussed on training for a
specific role or technical skills set. This will be part of the on the job training which
OPDC will provide.

Costs

The costs of hosting a candidate are £3,200 per month for a period of nine months,
with the total cost of £28,880.

The breakdown of the costs includes:

• Recruitment and selection activity, including producing advertising collateral, and adverting costs on job boards and the costs of delivering an online selection process
• FoL Management costs
• Salary for the candidate
• Ten days learning and development events

There is a well-recognised lack of diversity in the built environment profession with
a narrow talent pool entering the sector. The ETP programme aims to address this
by focussing on developing BAME talent through a professional development
programme.

The objective of the placement will be to:

• Be part of a collaborative approach to improving the ethnic diversity of the sector’s talent pool in London.
• To support the built environment sector with attracting greater diversity into an area that does not represent the diversity profile of London.
• Provide a candidate with a nine month placement, with tangible and relevant work experience in the built environment sector.
• If the programme proves to be successful we will consider hosting another placement, subject to funding being available to support this.

This placement supports OPDC’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy, with
the ambition of increasing diversity in the built environment and encouraging
diverse talent in OPDC.

The FoL Programme Manager will be responsible for providing strong central
management and support for all aspects of the programme to both the recruits and
host organisations. This will include providing the line manager with regular
structured support.

The line manager will be required to complete performance reviews with the ETP
candidate during the placement using documents produced by FoL after 3 months
and by the end of the placement. This will also include regular meetings/call with
the FoL ETP Programme Manager every 3 months to provide feedback.

The Human Resources and Organisational Development manager will be able to
escalate any concerns or issues to the FoL Programme manager.

Risks and issues

OPDC is a small organisation and a permanent job opportunity for candidate may
be limited. HR will make every effort to seek out permanent job opportunities for
the candidate within OPDC and the GLA Group. Before the end of the placement
HR will reach out to the GLA Group to see whether there are any roles that the
candidate can apply for. OPDC HR will also support the candidate with CV writing
and interview skills to support them with securing a suitable role.

The aim is to recruit a candidate from the development area, by employing
targeted recruitment methods. However, there is a risk that this is not achieved.

Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, OPDC must
have ‘due regard’ to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and
victimisation as well as to the need to advance equality of opportunity and foster
good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who
do not.

The programme looks to provide an ethnically diverse talent pool to a sector to
help it benefit from the widest talent pool in the community and support built
environment solutions being designed and delivered with better insight into the
needs of the communities they impact. This is achieved by identifying high calibre
talent, providing them with three diverse work placements and supporting them
with a series of training and development days. FoL provide strong central
management and support to all aspects of the programme to both the recruits and
host organisations.

No-one involved in the preparation or clearance of this for, or its substantive
proposal, has any conflict of interest.

The expenditure to fund the placement will be met from the Corporate Operations
Budget.