A guide for employers

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A guide for employers

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Inside Front Cover

Practical learning that’s relevant

to your organisation

At The Open University (OU) we’re not just academic experts, we understand the practicalities

of what employers are really looking for. We deliver quality, flexible qualifications, modules

and professional skills development designed in conjunction with sector experts – which can be

customised to meet your organisation’s objectives.

Maximising performance,

minimising disruption

Above all, we’re about delivering practical solutions that minimise staff disruption. Maybe that’s why so many organisations choose to work with us, ranging from

professional bodies and public sector organisations to SMEs and large multinationals, including 75 per cent of FTSE Top 100 businesses, and over 50,000 businesses worldwide.

Our professional skills qualifications and modules address sector specific roles (e.g. nurses, social workers, teachers and engineers) as well as functional roles (e.g. IT and business managers) from entry level and junior staff to senior managers.

We have over 25 years’ experience working with employers to meet a variety of organisational requirements and challenges, including:

• increasing efficiency and productivity

• meeting and exceeding organisation targets

• up-skilling staff to improve performance

• improving staff loyalty and retention

• identifying and developing talented employees (talent management)

• addressing skills shortages

• supporting strategic objectives through investment in skills

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Grow your own: nurturing and developing

home-grown talent

Key to our offering is the ‘Grow your own’ philosophy which supports the concept of identifying and nurturing potential from within your organisation, to develop your next generation of home-grown talent. This approach brings a host of

benefits including:

• capitalising on existing organisational knowledge,

eliminating induction/acclimatisation periods and retaining the cultural fit

• targeting learning and development; by being involved in the development of your staff you have the ability to shape the skills acquired to fit your organisation and sector challenges

• avoiding the hefty costs associated with recruitment, particularly for high calibre employees

• effective succession planning

• shaping the future of your organisation through the widening and deepening of the organisational talent pool.

Plus, as well as seeing benefits immediately, your business will also be investing in the skills it needs to prepare for the future.

www.open.ac.uk/employers

Call +44 (0)845 366 6053

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Outstanding value for money

Our qualifications, modules and professional skills development draw on genuine business practice and are results-driven so that new skills and knowledge can be immediately applied, ensuring a good return on investment.

Sector knowledge and

market understanding

Many of our modules are designed in conjunction with leading public and private sector industry experts, sector skills councils, professional bodies and employers. They draw on genuine workplace practices and real-world sector insight to ensure each one delivers on your organisation’s critical objectives.

Pioneering learning method

Blending high quality materials, personal tuition and flexible learning, we embed development directly into workplace practice and ensure our modules cross geographical and cultural boundaries, delivering consistently on a local, national and international scale.

Flexibility

The breadth of what we offer means there is a range of entry points from introductory qualifications and professional skills development to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees depending on your educational background and experience, and your employer’s requirements.

Did you know?

• Since its opening in 1969 the OU has taught over 2 million students.

• Open University graduates are among the most employable in the UK.

• The OU teaches a third of all part-time undergraduate students in the UK.

• Over 70 per cent of OU students are working full or part time during their studies.

• 75 per cent of FTSE 100 companies have sponsored staff to study with the OU.

Why choose the OU as your

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Payment and funding options

Employers can support their staff in a variety of ways. A number of possible scenarios are shown below:

• Organisation A sponsors its employee for the entire cost of study and pays upfront.

• Organisation B reimburses its employee for some or all of the cost of study, sometimes upon successful completion.

• Organisation C shares the cost of study with its employee.

• Organisation D contributes to its employee’s government loan1_{repayments, potentially for as long}

as the employee is employed with the organisation.

1 _{Only applicable to students resident in England, subject to}

eligibility criteria.

From 1st September 2012, the way higher education in England is funded is changing. From this date, subject to qualification criteria, employees in England may be entitled to a government loan to cover the cost of their tuition.

To read more about the eligibility of your staff for the new government loan for students resident in England, and the options and benefits this new scheme brings to employers, visit our website at www.openuniversity.co.uk/sponsor. If your staff are based in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or outside the UK, please visit our website www.openuniversity.co.uk/sponsorfees for the most up-to-date information on fees and funding.

Staff who may be covering some or all of the cost of their study also have the option of the Open University Student Budget Account (OUSBA) which allows them to spread the cost of study across monthly instalments. Visit www.open.ac.uk/ousba or call +44 (0)8457 697937.

www.open.ac.uk/employers

Call +44 (0)845 366 6053

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Government

We have a close working relationship with several government departments including UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and are more than familiar with working within the Professional Skills for Government framework. We are the only Higher Education Institution that supplies solutions under the Social Awareness, Vocational Training, Bespoke learning and Generic eLearning categories.

And thanks to our distance learning approach and

understanding of cultural diversity, OU government learning and development suits a sector in which a quarter of employees have recognised relevant professional qualifications, one fifth work part-time, and a significant percentage come from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Thurrock Council has supported employees to train

as social workers using the OU’s distance learning

route over a number of years. We have found it a highly

successful method of ‘growing our own’ social workers.

The calibre of training and materials is excellent and our

seconded staff complete their studies having been well

trained to provide a high level service for the Thurrock

community. We retain 90 per cent of social workers

trained in this way and many have gone on

to progress within the organisation.

Wendy Allen, Senior training officer,

Thurrock Council

We have a range of qualifications and modules for:

Social workers, Childminders, Nursery nurses, Home carers, Care assistants, Residential carers, Youth workers, Community workers, IT managers, Business managers, Environmentalists, Engineers, Waste disposal specialists, Finance managers, Team leaders, HR managers, Training and development managers and more.

Children’s services

• Our curriculum will help your staff understand the changing nature of family life and the development of children’s services.

• Our children’s agenda modules tie in with our education curriculum to provide complete learning coverage for those working with children.

Youth justice

• Our youth justice programme is sponsored by the Youth Justice Board of England and Wales (YJB) as part of its Youth Justice National Qualifications Framework (NQF). Social care / Social work

• We’re the UK’s largest provider of part-time social work training, working closely with hundreds of employers who support students financially.

Sector spotlights

We work with employers from a range of sectors to meet a variety of organisational needs.

This guide provides you with spotlights on just some of the sectors our qualifications, modules

and professional skills development address. For more information on the subject areas and

qualifications available, please see the enclosed brochure.

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Health

We can help you transform your healthcare workforce by boosting the knowledge, skills and confidence of your staff, so they can play their part in raising standards across the board. The OU makes professional development affordable and accessible to more staff, and also reduces the time they spend training out of the workplace.

Our qualifications are up-to-date and relevant, underpinned by leading edge research and have been developed in collaboration with practising experts across the UK. Plus many are mapped against the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework.

We chose The Open University to provide our

training. It was the organisation that showed the

most imagination in what it could provide – and in terms

of how our staff could develop.

Joanne Chapman-Andrew, Head of public health

development programme, NHS South Central

Healthcare assistants, Healthcare scientists, Support workers, Nurses, Advanced practitioners, Nurse managers, Paramedics, Operating department practitioners, Managers, Leaders, Consultants, Doctors, IT managers, Business managers, Finance managers, Team leaders, HR managers, Training and development managers and more.

Did you know?

• The Open University is the UK’s largest provider of health and social care education.

• Our pre-registration nursing programme is the only flexible learning qualification approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

• The recently launched Healthcare Assistant (HCA) learning and development framework has been specifically designed to enable HCAs to access flexible learning to support their changing roles.

www.open.ac.uk/employers

Call +44 (0)845 366 6053

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Education

The Open University has long standing links with the education sector, starting back in the early 1970s. Over the years our offering has evolved to meet the changing needs of the sector and provide those working in the field with the necessary skills to excel.

From teacher training to qualifications and modules in a range of subject areas, the OU offers a breadth and depth of modules to address a variety of needs.

Last year alone, 1500 nurseries, early years care providers, schools, colleges, education trusts, nurseries and universities across the UK chose The Open University to train or up-skill their staff.

The module content was fantastic – the materials

were so relevant to what I was doing at work – I was

able to apply everything I’d learned instantly.

Ruth Sextone, Education student

Teachers, Teaching assistants, Teaching support staff, Special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs), Learning support assistants, Heads of department, Lecturers, Nursery staff and more.

Did you know?

• We offer the UK’s widest range of subjects, academic levels and qualifications for the education profession.

• We are recognised by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) as a high quality provider of continuing professional development for teachers.

• Our foundation degree is endorsed by the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) and can count towards Early Years Professional Status (EYPS).

• The OU’s PGCE programme is making a major contribution to addressing teacher shortages in key areas such as science.

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IT and Telecoms

From basic industry knowledge for your entry level IT staff to highly relevant, accredited qualifications, we offer a range of certificates, diplomas, degrees and vocational studies in software development, solutions development, digital technologies and networking.

Whether your business needs anything from vendor

certification and Java skills to database design and information security, our modules can develop your staff within current roles or towards future responsibilities.

Each of our specialist programmes is developed in association with professional bodies, sector skills councils, IT vendors and IT and Telecoms employers. By mapping modules to industry-developed frameworks, we can be sure IT professionals have the skills to succeed.

Mapping OU degrees to BCS accreditations and the

Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA)

that underpin IT staff recruitment and development in the

UK, gives employers like IBM the confidence that sending

staff on these degrees will deliver discernible and

immediate returns on their investment.

Paul Jagger, Business area manager for learning

development, IBM

We have a range of qualifications and modules for: IT managers, IT directors, Business analysts, Project

managers, Network engineers, Software engineers, Software programmers, IT operations, Technicians, IT user support, Database administrators, Telecoms engineers, Business managers, Finance managers, Team leaders, HR managers, Training and development managers and more.

Did you know?

• Many of our qualifications and modules are accredited by leading professional bodies, including BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, IET and APM, meaning your staff have a faster route to CEng or CITP status than ever before.

• We’re the largest and fastest growing Cisco academy in the UK.

• The OU is an accredited Microsoft IT Academy.

• We are the only learning provider that maps our computing and IT modules to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), making it easier for you to find qualifications relevant for specific job roles.

www.open.ac.uk/employers

Call +44 (0)845 366 6053

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Manufacturing and Engineering

Last year more than 800 organisations from a diverse cross-section of the manufacturing and engineering industries sponsored staff studying with the OU. These ranged from specific qualifications and modules in disciplines such as engineering, maths, computing and technology to business-focussed subjects.

We have a range of qualifications and modules for: Engineers, Industrial designers, Product designers, Logistics and distribution managers, Product and process development scientists, IT managers, Business managers, Finance managers, Team leaders, HR managers, Training and development managers and more.

For effective workforce development SEMTAs

engineering employers require good quality cost

effective learning, delivered flexibly, part time and

offering progression routes to higher levels.

John Harris, Sector Skills Council for Science,

Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies (SEMTA)

Did you know?

• The OU is a business partner of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET).

• We offer qualifications which provide clear pathways to Incorporated Engineer status and Chartered Engineer status.

• Our BEng and MEng are accredited by IMechE, IED and CIBSE.

• Only 1% of all business schools are triple accredited and we are the most popular in this exclusive group.

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Charity and Voluntary

The OU works with a wide range of organisations within the charity and third sector, from voluntary and community organisations to social enterprises and firms. Our qualifications and modules extend across a variety of subject areas,

addressing the needs of diverse roles within the sector.

Institute of

Fundraising

I would recommend The Open University to other

possible clients as being very reputable, very

professional in their work, reliable and approachable.

Rory Cobb, Principal officer: inclusive education, RNIB

We have a range of qualifications and modules for: Healthcare assistants, Social workers, Carers, Fundraisers, Development managers, Development officers, Relations managers, Events coordinators, Membership managers, Volunteer managers, Donor managers, IT managers, Business managers, Finance managers, Team leaders, HR managers, Training and development managers and more.

Did you know?

• Some of the UK’s leading charities such as Addaction, Voluntary Service Overseas and the British Red Cross support staff and volunteers on our modules.

• Modules are developed alongside specialist academics who are recognised internationally as leading the field in teaching and research within the third sector.

• Our module Winning resources and support is a route to achieving the Certificate in Fundraising Management – and is certified by the Institute of Fundraising.

www.open.ac.uk/employers

Call +44 (0)845 366 6053

Your next step

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Back cover

Corporate enquiries

Student Registration & Enquiry Service The Open University

PO Box 197 Milton Keynes MK7 6BJ United Kingdom

Contact points for advice and registration

The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England and Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

While we have done everything possible to make sure the information in this publication is accurate, it may change due to regulations or policy, or because of financial or other reasons.

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In England, Scotland, Wales, the

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Norway and Switzerland

For further information or to register: Click

www.open.ac.uk/employers

or

Call our Corporate Enquiries Team on

+44 (0)845 366 6053

Lines are open (UK time):

Monday to Friday 08:00 to 20:00 Saturday 09:00 to 17:00

Calls are charged at the UK local rate when calling from a UK landline.

Email [email protected]

In other EU countries, Iceland, Norway

and Switzerland

www.openuniversity.co.uk/europe

or

Call The Open University in Europe on

+44 191 477 6100

In Northern Ireland and the

Republic of Ireland

www.open.ac.uk/employers

or

In Northern Ireland Call our Belfast office on

028 9032 3722

In the Republic of Ireland

Call our Enquiry and Advice Centre in Dublin on

(01)6785399

or our Belfast office on

+44 28 9032 3722

For Welsh speakers

If you would prefer to discuss your study needs in Welsh, please contact:

The Open University in Wales,

18 Custom House Street, Cardiff, CF10 1AP Call

029 2047 1170

I siaradwyr Cymraeg

Os ydych yn siarad Cymraeg a byddai’n well gennych drafod eich anghenion astudio drwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg, cysylltwch â:

Y Brifysgol Agored yng Nghymru, 18 Heol y Tollty, Caerdydd, CF10 1AP Ffôniwch

029 2047 1170

Ebost [email protected]