Six months ago we set out on a mission to empower women from all walks of life to return to the workforce re-energised. Why? There are 550,000 professional women in the UK on extended career breaks for caring reasons. That’s why we partnered with Google to create our pilot REIGNITE programme, not only to arm women with workplace-ready digital skills, but to also give them confidence to stride back into work and thrive.
Last month marked our inaugural REIGNITE Graduation Ceremony, where we celebrated the efforts of our 50 learners who completed Google’s Digital Marketing & E-commerce Career Certificate in under six months, averaging 44 learning hours each. With exceptional panels, inspiring stories and real opportunities to meet new mentors and recruiters, it was an impactful evening where our mission, for women to have unlimited possibilities, became a reality.
The driving force behind our mission to support returners
There are a number of challenges facing women returning to work, all varied and nuanced. From practical reasons, such as juggling childcare, with 98% of mums wanting to go back to work after they have children but only 13% thinking it’s viable on a full-time basis, or other caring responsibilities, to overcoming more psychological hurdles, such as a lack of confidence returning to a changed workplace. They all play their part in making this transition feel daunting. All of this, paired with the fact that technology is consistently evolving at a lightning fast pace, means that women often do not feel optimistic about returning to the workforce.
Yet, here at AllBright we know that women returning to work plays an important role in closing the gender pay gap. Many women on career breaks will return to work at a more junior level, to seek out more flexibility, and it has been reported that women returners earn around a third less than male counterparts. Google is also passionately committed to creating a tech sector that is representative of the workforce today, building a sense of belonging for women and people from diverse backgrounds, age groups, experience and more. In order to achieve these goals, there needs to be more proactivity around the level of support offered to these women, and that’s exactly why our partnership was the perfect fit and our REIGNITE programme comes into play.
Supporting women with this transition
We identified that a combination of more technical skills alongside support through coaching and community was the key to driving success and that’s what our REIGNITE programme embodied. Our learners undertook the Google certificate course covering foundations through to practical analysis and strategy tools essential for digital marketing in today’s modern world and growing technological sector. To support the learners through their certificate course, the REIGNITE programme provided regular group coaching from hand-selected AllBright coaches, as well as interactive workbooks, mentoring, Google workshops and support from fellow learners part of the AllBright REIGNITE community group.
Every step of the way, the AllBright and Google teams were there to support each and every learner through the nearly six month programme. At the mid-way point, together we hosted an inspirational and motivational roundtable event featuring words of wisdom from Google’s former Head of Brand & Reputation Marketing, Nishma Robb, AllBright’s Head of Learning, Ella Vize, and a Google certificate alumni, Alex Noel, who each shared their personal, varied and far from traditional career journeys and experience returning to the workforce. Coming away from the session the key was for the learners, women, and everyone to take control of their own narrative as they step back into work, no matter the reason or length of pause. One learner eloquently said, "Today's Re-ignite call was stupendous, heart warming, real, inspiring, I could go on. Incredibly sensitive yet strong approach to turning our experiences into our story.”
It’s fair to say that the proof was in the pudding! 36% of the cohort finished the programme early, becoming our first ever REIGNITE trailblazers, which is a true feat considering that the industry standard for free, self-paced online courses sits at 3-6%.
The blueprint for future progress
Our recent deep dive into ambition highlighted that women approach their careers with the same level of ambition as men, sometimes higher, and we want this to continue even if women need to take a career pause. Our REIGNITE learners prove that it can be done. Nazish Minhas, one of our learners, said that “[the programme has] been amazing and wonderful in a number of ways, not least proving to myself that I can learn something new, I am capable, I can focus and be very single-minded to achieve something, and everything I have done to date has powerfully set me up for this next stage of my career and life.” Another learner expressed that “the programme overall has definitely had a lasting impact. It’s given me the push I needed to chase one of my real dreams.”
Through this programme, we have proved that a combination of upskilling and support to help overcome any psychological barriers can be the recipe to help get more women back to work in a way that works for them. One of our trailblazers, Henrietta, shared that “a real bonus of the course was that, alongside Google’s Career Certificate, AllBright provided regular coaching (via zoom) which helped with resilience and building back confidence. The team were really supportive and responsive and even helped tailor some of the coaching to make it as accessible as possible.”
There are a multitude of reasons why someone may want or need to take a career break, but we believe that taking one doesn’t have to seal your fate. Just as our REIGNITE learners have proved, sometimes all it takes is rediscovering self-belief in your abilities, adding new skills to an already solid foundation and knowing that you aren’t alone. “The sheer act of signing up to something, learning something and actually completing something is worth recommendation alone”, said learner Leena McCall.
Our programme is just one of the ways to help women re-enter the workforce and it doesn’t stop there. Like Henrietta said, “This wasn’t just an online course, it was about becoming part of the AllBright community and upskilling in a way that felt fully supported.”
See what Google Certificate course could be right for you and find out more about AllBright’s Academy Courses.