IT@Spectrum

IT@Spectrum is an organisation that invests heavily in young people and as part of their continual succession planning employ over a dozen staff aged below 25, all of whom have joined by the internship, apprenticeship or graduate route.  They recognise that there is a lot of young talent out there and have got some great examples of where a young person has joined them for a week of work experience in year 10, has returned for an apprenticeship or straight from university and is now a full time member of the team with a high level of responsibility.

When asked about the Skills Pledge, Managing Director Ken Sturdy said: "When we looked at each of the six pledges, it was immediately obvious that we were already fulfilling them within our business.  

"Whilst we are providing training and employment opportunities, we are also ensuring that our staff are able to give back.  We do this in a variety of ways, such as our involvement in For Entrepreneurs Only but one of the best examples is our link with Archbishop Sentamu’s Career Academy where we are involved in the Local Advisory Board and as well as offering internship opportunities and workplace visits, some of our team also act as mentors to the students.

"In addition to this, we've recently launched the Spectrum Faculty which is an internal training programme aimed at investing in the skills of our workforce.  The programme is open to all staff who want to opt in or where a specific area of training might prove useful to them but it is primarily aimed at our staff under the age of 25.  These staff are all exceptionally skilled in their own areas but as a company we identified that we had a duty of care to help them develop the softer skills like communication or customer care."

When asked how he saw the Skills Pledge benefitting the organisation, Ken said: "We can see that particularly in the rapidly changing world of technology, young people are the future of our business.  We also know that with a continual investment in training right across our business, the benefits both to our staff as individuals and to the business as a whole will be huge."

Please tell us briefly what your company/organisation does

IT@Spectrum provide managed print solutions and using advances in technology, help clients to manage their documents and information.