Hello all.
It was great to see so many of you at the Digital Skills Summit on Monday at the Komedia, thanks for coming and for your enthusiasm and input in the workshops. If you couldn't attend here's a round up of my workshop:
"Attracting and Retaining Talent within Brighton/Sussex":
We discussed three main questions and these were some of the key points & ideas:
What roles are hard to fill and why?
- Developers (iOS, graduate, drupal and .Net) - not enough of them; not enough with the right mix of skills with initiative and pro-activity
- Marketing Executives - not enough who are committed and proactive
- Account Managers/Senior Account Managers - lack of technical skills & integrated planing & they demand high salaries
- Digital Designers - lots of print designers
- Technical Support - difficult to get someone with a good mix of tech and customer service skills
Being close to London, we are competing with London salaries, so it was suggested some costs could be calculated to show how much people would save by staying, or moving, here to work.
What else can Wired Sussex do to help fill these roles?
- Workshops about how to write a good job description & advert
- Organise more specific job role networking events, meet the HR manager speed dating
- Anonymous feedback from jobseekers about why they didn't apply on job adverts - tick box if they wish to say who they are
- Worskhops for job seekers on how to write a good applications/CVs/covering letters
- Celebrate and promote Wired Sussex member companies and the City as great places to work and live through: "Brighton Lives Digital" - social media campaign!
- using 6 second looping Vine videos made by employees within the sector
- internal competition within each member company to create fun, innovative, arty and inspirational videos
- winning categories - best "Business" video, best "Brighton" video etc
- the best videos in each category, from each member company, to be showcased at a Brighton Digital Festival event in September, perhaps an award ceremony (virtual?)
- companies could play the videos at their Open Studios as part of Brighton Digital Festival
- needs to reach outside of Sussex to attract talent here
So lots of ideas in 45 minutes! 9 brains are better than 1 it seems, thank you guys. Watch this space for developments.
We had 6 workshops and I'll give you an update next week from the other 5 facilitators.
P.S If you'd like to be part of the "Brighton Lives Digital" campaign steering group - drop me a line kelly@wiredsussex.com 01273 692888.
The Digital Skills Summit: Powered by Wired Sussex was supported by The Regional Growth Fund and Sussex Learning Network.
