Hastings Direct, one of the UK’s largest personal insurance providers, is working with Leicester College and JobCentrePlus to create job opportunities through its Sector Based Work Academy.

The Sector Based Work Academy is designed to help meet employers immediate and future recruitment needs, as well as to recruit a workforce with the right skills to sustain and grow their businesses. It guarantees potential employees with job interviews at the end of the process as well as work experience and pre-employment training.

The Academy has already led to Hastings Direct successfully recruiting six previously unemployed adults, who completed the three week pre-employment training programme.

Andrea Gray, Operations Director for Hastings Direct said: “Being involved and adding value to our local communities is extremely important to us and working with Leicester College and the Job Centre Plus on this project has allowed us to do exactly that – with a great end result. We were delighted to welcome our first six colleagues who came to us through this process recently, and look forward to welcoming many more successful candidates from the Academy in future months.”

Project Manager for Leicester College, Ian Lewis added: “The programme has resulted in a strong partnership between Hastings Direct, Job Centre Plus and Leicester College. We are working collectively to support unemployed adults from Leicester back to work locally.  Hastings Direct helped us to design the programme, which was has ensured it met the needs of their business.”

Partnership Manager for JobcentrePlus, Tim George said: “The sector based work academy model is really supporting local residents in to employment whilst meeting the needs of local Employers. It’s great to see the results for our customers and we will be planning more to do more similar models with Employers and the College in the future.”