ROYAL HOLLOWAY LEADS THE WAY FOR FORWARD-THINKING UK UNIVERSITIES
The Good + Fair Employers Club has opened its doors to our first university member: Royal Holloway, University of London.
The move comes as the club establishes itself as the freshest and most exciting network for the UK’s best employers of young people, having announced five new employer members in quick succession (Virgin Media, Greene King, Nationwide, N Brown and NBC Universal).
While the Good + Fair Employers Club remains primarily a forum for early careers teams within big UK firms to share their challenges and solutions with one another, founder Tanya de Grunwald feels that the club’s wider mission – to make the world of work fairer and more inclusive for young people from all backgrounds – will be accomplished faster if other key stakeholders are involved, including universities.
SHARED VALUES: Tanya de Grunwald (left) and Royal Holloway’s Head of Careers Gianina Harvey-Brewin (right) developed the concept of University Membership together, to include universities in conversations about helping young people into work
As with the club’s employer members, University Members will be asked to agree to a values checklist before they can join the Good + Fair Employers Club (see below). This includes pledges on diversity and sustainability, a commitment not to advertise illegal unpaid internships to their students and graduates, and to follow the debate (and upcoming legal action) on graduate scheme exit fees. De Grunwald said:
“I am thrilled to announce Royal Holloway as our first University Member of the Good + Fair Employers Club. While our club remains primarily a forum for employers to share their challenges and solutions with one another, it’s become clear that the discussions we are hosting are too important to be kept behind closed doors. Against a backdrop of high-speed societal and technological change – now heightened by the fall-out from Covid-19 – conversation and collaboration are more important than ever before.
“At the same time, we are increasingly being approached by representatives from the UK’s buzzing community of universities, keen to understand the challenges from the employers’ perspective, and asking how they can get involved in our mission to make the world of work better, fairer and more inclusive to graduates from all backgrounds. In response to this demand, we have launched ‘University Membership’ of the Good + Fair Employers Club, for academic institutions with a keen interest in these discussions.”
A SEAT AT THE TABLE University Members will be welcome to join our bigger events, like our Spring Training Breakfast, earlier this month
The vast majority of Good + Fair Employers Club events – including our confidential Coffee Mornings and new, smaller ‘Huddle’ sessions – will remain exclusively for the club’s employer members. However, University Members will receive the reports from all these sessions, including highly valuable, up-to-date insights about what the UK’s best firms for young people are talking about, their priorities and their sense of direction from here. University Members will also be welcome to join the club’s Training Breakfasts (where external speakers join us), and any other sessions where a university perspective would enrich the discussion. Gianina Harvey-Brewin, Head of Careers at Royal Holloway, University of London, said:
“We are delighted to be joining the Good + Fair Employers Club as the first university Careers Service partner. The graduate recruitment market is going through a time of unprecedented uncertainty at the moment, but throughout these changes we hold fast to our values of fairness and equality of opportunity for all students, and are excited to work with employers who commit to the same.”
Welcome to the Club, Royal Holloway!
* WANT MORE INFO?
University Membership of the Good + Fair Employers Club isn’t right for everyone, and this will never be a mass market product! However, if you work for an enlightened institution and have a genuine wish to deepen your understanding of the conversations that the UK’s best employers of young people are having, please contact us for more information.
