LINK – The University & Education Newsletter from Keystone Employment Group

LINK – The University & Education Newsletter from Keystone Employment Group

The 24/7 Online Job Shop

More universities than ever are looking to move away from legacy ‘franchise’ approaches to student career services and yielding the benefits of moving student employability and recruitment online.

The cost savings are of course a major factor, but increasingly having student employability services confined to being ‘on campus’ and in term time is simply not delivering the results students demand.

With students engaging with most services online, it is vital that they can continue to be offered opportunities on and off campus, 24/7 x 365.

Keystone Talent Bank allows students to get immediate access to job offers, complete time-sheets and remain engaged wherever they are and on any device. For managers hiring those students, approving timesheets and managing assignments can be done faster and easier and all online.

 

Meeting the challenges of TEF

The new Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is now in place to assess the quality of teaching at universities. The TEF will have a major impact on universities and will determine the tuition fees institutions can charge.

Under the TEF, Universities will be awarded a Meets Expectations, Excellent or Outstanding rating based on a number of measures- including Employability.

In year one (2016/17) and year two (2017/18) of the TEF, universities that are rated as ‘Meeting Expectations’ will be able to raise their tuition fees in line with inflation. However, In year three (2018/19) there will be two fee levels; Universities rated as ‘Meeting Expectations’ can only raise their fees by up to 50% of the inflationary uplift, and those with a rating of ‘Excellent’ or ‘Outstanding’ can raise their fees by up to 100% of the inflationary uplift.

With Employability a key measure, universities that only ‘Meet Expectations’ could find that not being able to increase fees fully in line with inflation could have a major impact on their finances. Therefore tracking employability and having ready access to auditable data will become increasingly vital.

Here’s where Talent Bank makes a huge difference: not only does it radically improve the opportunities to offer students, graduates and alumni employment, but tracking and reporting on that activity in real time with a rich range of data on the type of work, pay rates and frequency is also far easier than ever before.

Keystone at NASES in Birmingham

Keystone Employment Group recently spoke at the NASES conference on the benefits of a Talent Bank approach.

The National Association of Student Employment Services was established in 1999 and aims to facilitate the continuing development of the employment sector, encourage interaction between practitioners; share best practice and represent its membership on a national level.

Malcolm Paice, COO of Keystone was invited to speak at the national NASES conference, held this year in Birmingham. He told the delegates about the clear benefits of a university having full ownership of its employability tools, rather than relying on external agencies. Malcolm told the delegation: “Technology now allows a university and its business partners to directly offer work opportunities to students and graduates and track every stage of the student employability journey. The students get a live, online employability profile and employers get immediate access to the talent they need.”

“Furthermore, universities can save a considerable amount of money, compared to using recruitment agencies or in-house franchises, whilst having full ownership of all the data relating to what work their students do, the rates of pay, sectors and type of work assignments. That makes reporting on their employability success simpler and lower cost.”

Malcolm pointed to examples of users of the Keystone Talent Bank solution including King’s College London, Canterbury Christ Church University, Brunel University London and London Metropolitan University, to illustrate how different universities can flex the system to meet their varying objectives and policies.

To find out more about NASES, visit www.nases.org.uk

Time to cut the cost of temporary staffing?

Over the past 18 months, Keystone has seen a dramatic uptake of its Talent Bank solution by higher education institutes who are keen to save on costly recruitment services.

Using a Talent Bank solution means your temporary staffing costs can be slashed by as much as 75%, you can dispose of temp-to-perm fees in their entirety and you can also undertake unlimited permanent recruitment at zero cost.

And, by using the portal to handle temporary recruitment directly, you only pay VAT on the small pay margin, NOT on all of the costs of the entire salary and fees.

Keystone is a provider to all major higher education purchasing frameworks.

To discover more about how Talent Bank is transforming higher education employability visit keystone-jobs.com or email info@keystone-jobs.com

Download a full copy of the LINK newsletter here: LINK-November-2016.pdf