Summary report due in June 2008. Reserve your copy

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• Customer satisfaction
• Environmental performance
• Retailers
• Recruitment
• Training
• Transport

Retailers at many of our shopping parks and centres struggle to recruit appropriately skilled members of staff, particularly at peak periods such as Christmas. Our management teams therefore organise recruitment events in partnership with local authorities and employment and training agencies such as the Learning and Skills Council, local colleges and JobCentre Plus.

Retailers at Fort Kinnaird Shopping Park had been experiencing difficulty in attracting and recruiting suitable candidates to fill their vacancies because of the Park’s location and because it was seen as on the periphery of the community rather than part of it. In 2007 the Park management team worked with JobCentre Plus, WorkTrack and the local community to turn this perception around, hosting a recruitment event on-site which attracted over 800 people on job seekers allowance for 500 jobs. The event improved relationships with the local community, helped retailers to recruit at a busy time and generated positive media coverage.

There is no doubt about the value of the Fort Kinnaird recruitment event annually to the employers, to the job seekers and to the local community with all of the value add provided. More and more people from the local communities now work on site and recognise the Centre as a valuable asset in their community not only, of course, as a place of work but also a place to shop and be entertained.

Sandi McGeoch, Business Link - WorkTrack

Eastgate Shopping Centre created Shop for a Job in 2005 as a joint initiative with the local JobCentre Plus. Each year they provide mall space and an empty unit to help Centre retailers and town centre businesses to find suitable employees, and local people to find retail employment. In 2007 there were over 800 applicants, a 42% increase on 2006. Over the past two years Debenhams has filled all of its 80 vacancies in a single day. Eastgate is also working to raise the profile of retail as a career, creating and sponsoring the Countrywide Business Awards for Retail in 2007, as well as the Basildon Business Awards for Retail, which they have sponsored since 2000.

In April 2008 St Stephen’s Shopping Centre in Kingston-upon-Hull will be hosting an Opportunities Fair for the city in partnership with Yorkshire Forward. As well as displaying job opportunities the Opportunities Fair will feature stands on the Get into Retail job scheme the Centre runs with The Prince’s Trust, and retail training opportunities at Hull College.

 

 

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